Yesterday, I lamented the fact that Hellraiser 7 was being made. That this series of films wasn't put out of its misery after its 2nd installment - Hellbound - is travesty enough. But now its gone way, way too far.

Not only is Hellraiser 7 in production, but there are plans for Hellraiser 8 - Hellworld. But it gets worse. The IMDB plot summary for 'Hellworld': Pinhead returns to terrorize computer hackers that have opened a virtual Lament Configuration on the website Hellworld.com.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. Pinhead was the epitome of evil back in the first movie, now he's like a rogue SYSOP going after some script kiddies.

United Nations - the international body its easy to hate. Cuba elected to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. And if thats not enough, there's alway this: Members also used a procedural move to block discussion of alleged human rights violations in Zimbabwe. Yep, we should definately run our decisions by the UN first just to make sure we have the proper moral authority accorded by such an esteemed organization.

Somebody hasn't watched enough Joe Dirt to know how to handle this situation: An Abilene man found himself in the spotlight for heroism one minute and in handcuffs for probation violation the next after he was identified on television for saving children from an apartment fire Sunday.Clem would have known how to handle this.

NF made 'website of the day' over at RightWingNews.com (Thaks!). Sure, its no Bloggie Award. But I've got my sights set lower more realistically than that. And the ego likes the boost. Anyhow, any and all positive comments directed towards this site are printed off on high gloss photo paper and hung up in my garage.

Okay, so maybe that isn't exactly true ... I use paper from the office.

This could get interesting. An Egyptian man died on a boat from Brazil headed to Canada from organ failure caused by anthrax exposure. The anthrax was in a suitcase that the Egyptian was supposed to deliver to someone in Canada. Luckily, he died, and the suitcase never made it. What made me raise my eyebrows was this statement, from an Inspector with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police:

"There is absolutely no criminal or terrorist threat to Canada," Royal Canadian Mounted Police (search) Inspector Dan Tanner said from Halifax, Nova Scotia.

I hope this guy is just speaking in a very specific manner and he's only referring to this particular criminal/terrorist threat. Because the thought that the RCMP doesn't take seriously the threat posed by terrorists trying to use their ports to transfer biological weapons to within striking distance of the USA isn't too comforting.

UPDATE: DenBeste talks about this case, and hi-lites the exact same RCMP statement that concerned me. Winds of Change has a bit more information, and here's the LGF thread on the news.

UPDATE #2: Everybody is backing away from the anthrax claims tonight - though they don't have an alternate explanation for why this guy died of massive organ failure and made the medical workers who moved his body so ill they had to be hospitalized. Something stinks about this story.

Noam Chomsky & Howard Zinn reviews Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers to hilarious effect:

Chomsky: We should examine carefully what's being established here in the prologue. For one, the point is clearly made that the "master ring," the so-called "one ring to rule them all," is actually a rather elaborate justification for preemptive war on Mordor.

Zinn: I think that's correct. Tolkien makes no attempt to hide the fact that rings are wielded by every other ethnic enclave in Middle Earth. The Dwarves have seven rings, the Elves have three. The race of Man has nine rings, for God's sake. There are at least 19 rings floating around out there in Middle Earth, and yet Sauron's ring is supposedly so terrible that no one can be allowed to wield it. Why?

UPDATE: Part 2 of the review has now been posted.

Wasn't it only a few months ago that Drudge was telling us that Hillary Clinton's book didn't have a title, or a cover, or even a draft? He must not have dug too deep because the book is being released on June 9th. [link via Political Wire]

Here's one argument for why the UN shouldn't be responsible for rebuilding Iraq:The United Nations and international allies promised to rebuild democracy in Bosnia. Seven years later, they have departed -- only to hand over responsibility for the semi-state to the European Union. They failed again in Kosovo, where they are preventing a civil war but have brought little movement toward self-government in their four-year reign. In Afghanistan, international aid is coming too little and too late to support the fragile government.

The logic behind not letting the UN get their hands on Iraq really boils down to something like "shared responsibility means nobody's responsible".

The failure of these efforts to build autonomous, sovereign democracies lies in the very structure of international coalitions. Coalitions diffuse responsibility. When Bosnia failed to arrest war criminals, each coalition member could blame its compatriots. No one felt responsible for ensuring the legitimacy of the coalition -- or the success of the country. [link via IP]

Some more details are coming out about the PA kid who shot his principal and then himself last week. Sadly, its a familiar story: No one took 14-year-old James Robert Sheets seriously when he raised the idea of bringing guns to school or talked about his dislike for his junior high school principal.

Another false-positive test for chemical weapons in Iraq. We've had quite a few of these, and this is the first time I've seen an explanation of why we keep hearing about positive initial tests, then nothing once we bring in the big machines.

By design, initial test procedures favor positive readings, erring on the side of caution to protect soldiers.

I don't even know how to properly characterize this story: The back-up quarterback at the University of Miami - Derrick Crudup Jr (who is black) is claiming racism is keeping him from being the starter. His evidence? That he's heard the quarterback coach say things like "redneck" and "cracker" during film meetings. Got that? "Redneck" and "cracker" are now racially insensitive - to black people.

The proof of the Saddam - Bin Laden connection is starting to be revealed.

This connection has been widely dismissed among those on the left that like to ridicule anything and everything that the Bush administration claims.

If and when the connection is solidified by documents discovered in Iraq, it'll be a whole heap of fun to watch the left explain the evidence away - there's no chance in hell that they'll ever admit that Bush was right and they were wrong. Nah, instead we'll hear charges of planted evidence, or that the connection wasn't 'strong' enough to justify what we did.

If you can't tell from the tone of this post, I'm a bit burned out on politics at the moment. Too many people that used to be reasonable advocates of positions on both the right and the left have become so disgustingly harsh in their tone that their sites have become unreadable.

"Stop touching that, you'll go blind". We've all heard some variation of that little phrase during our lifetimes. But the "that" never referred to a dog before: People can become infected with a worm that causes blindness simply by stroking the coats of dogs that carry the parasite.

It gets worse because of the manner in which it can cause blindness: In infected people the worms can grow in the back of the eye, causing lesions which can interfere with vision or be mistaken for tumours.

Whats the point of building an online game that can handle 1 million simultaneous users when the biggest online game ever - Everquest - only gets about half that support at is max. In contrast, Rekonstruction will aim to provide up to a million users with a single unique world. To try to overcome the problem of creating the vast amount of unique content needed, automated programs will be employed to generate the virtual world with a minimum of intervention from human programmers. I suppose this is the 'if you build it, they will come' mentality.

A past president meddling directly in current foreign affairs. This could get interesting:

Tony Blair took repeated secret advice from the former American president Bill Clinton on how to unlock the diplomatic impasse between Europe and the US in the build-up to the war on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.

If true, this doesn't say much for the soundness of Clinton's advice considering the outcome.

The 2 Matrix sequels are going to be released on IMAX. The Matrix Reloaded: The IMAX Experience, as it has been deemed, will hit giant screens "shortly after" the film's standard 35mm release on May 15th. The Matrix Revoltions: The IMAX Experience will debut in theaters on November 5th, the same day it opens nationwide in traditional format. I'm drooling.

Another school shooting this morning. At a Junior High in Red Lion, PA, a student shot the principal and then killed himself. This is the same school district where a former teacher attacked a kindergarten class with a machete in 2001, injuring 13 people, including 11 kindergarteners.

Only 1 in 9 school board members think violence in schools is a 'major' concern.

UPDATE: A first-hand account from an 8th grader in the cafeteria at the time of the schooting: "It was a gun. It looked like a pistol from where I was standing and it was very loud. It was a very loud pistol. I saw him fire and then I ran out and I heard a second shot and then after that I was too far away to hear it again," Becker said. "There was a lot of screaming, and a lot of people yelling and a lot of people saying to run, and you looked for the exit that was closest to you, and you were going full speed and everyone was just flooding out the exits."

UPDATE #2: The principal, Eugene Segro (51) has now died. The shooter's name was James Sheets and he reportedly carried multiple guns - though they have not yet been identified.

UPDATE #3: Reuters says there were both handguns, and says he had at least two guns. I also hadn't thought of this previously, but this shooting comes just 4 days after the anniversary of Columbine.

UPDATE #4: Yahoo! has a picture of the shooter.

If nothing else Carl Lewis has balls. He's now not denying that he took banned performance enhancing drugs during his track career; and is instead justifying it because everybody else did it. Carl Lewis yesterday shrugged off the controversy surrounding the US Olympic Committee's decision to excuse his 1988 positive drug tests by saying the decision was "standard procedure at the time". "There were hundreds of people getting off," Lewis said. "Everyone was treated the same."

Do you hear that kids? Mr. Role Model Carl says that cheating is OK so long as everybody does it. And its apparently OK to get all self-righteous and lie about the cheating when asked by the media.

When will the NY Times wake up and realize that its reputation is being eroded by some of the columnists they continue to employ? Their economic columnist, Paul Krugman is either terrible with math (undoubtedly a sin in economic circles) or a willful liar. Take your pick:

Krugman: . . . let's pretend that the Bush administration really thinks that its $726 billion tax-cut plan will create 1.4 million jobs. At what price would those jobs be created? . . . The average American worker earns only about $40,000 per year; why does the administration, even on its own estimates, need to offer $500,000 in tax cuts for each job created?

The truth: Because $40,000 in earnings for the average worker is a one-year figure, and the tax-cost per job of $500,000 ($726 billion in tax cuts divided by 1.4 million new jobs) is a ten-year figure, you have to divide $500,000 by ten to make the figures comparable. So a $40,000 job is created with only $50,000 in tax cuts, not $500,000. Krugman is off by a factor of 10. It gets worse.

It certainly does get worse. Krugman ends up being off by a factor of 29. Not bad for a politician - but scandalous for an Ivy League economics professor.

There's something not quite right about the sight of a 60-something woman smoking in the parking lot wearing sandals, panty hose, and a toe ring.

I managed to finish reading Irvine Welsh's 'Porno' (sequel to Trainspotting) last week and have been trying to figure out what kind of review to write about it ever since. Its one of the rare books where the style of writing gets in the way of the storytelling, making it frustrating yet a good read.

A couple of the stylistic problems I had with the book:
(1) Its written in dialect. Here's an example: The thing is, man, if ah cope well oan ma ain, then she'll say, 'eh's awright', n leave ays. That one sentence is bad enough - you can't actually read it, you've got to freaking decode it first, then go back and read it. Now take that frustration, and spread it over 400+ pages.
(2) My second complaint is that the dialect isn't consistent. Each chapter in the book is told from a different character's (about five I think) perspective. Yet each character has their own unique brand of dialect meaning that you've got to have a different freaking rosetta stone for each character.

The story itself is fine - the gang from Trainspotting, mostly Simon & Renton, get back together to make a porn film. There are some very funny spots in the book - the most memorable involved a ruptured penis on the set of the porn movie - but its not sustained funny.

Overall, I'd give it a 6. The story itself gets about a 7, but the style drags it down. I should note that anything 5 or lower signifies that I'd never read anything by that author again - and this is mighty close to that mark.

Continuing the discussion about the Franco-Russian proposal to not lift UN sanctions on Iraq unless the USA/Britian turns over control of rebuilding Iraq to the UN, William Safire has an Op-Ed in today's New York Times that further explains the motivations of France and Russia.

Answer: the Chirac-Putin bedfellowship wants to maintain control of the U.N.'s oil-for-food program, under which Iraq was permitted to sell oil and ostensibly use the proceeds to buy food and medicine for its people.

What really interests me is Colin Powell's plan for dealing with this Franco-Russian 'blockade': Colin Powell apparently believes that Chirac's new fondness for sanctions could tie up Iraqi oil production with litigation for years. His advice to President Bush is to pay the ransom but nibble away at the sanctions with limited resolutions. That is a horrible idea, and I can't see Bush letting Powell talk him into more concessions to the UN considering how poorly the last round turned out only a few short weeks ago.

Safire has it right though: I think we should confront the extortion scheme head on and let Chirac use his veto to isolate France further. Call their bluff. France & Russia are playing a game which they cannot win.

UPDATE: France has come around and is now open to at least suspending sanctions against Iraq to allow rebuilding to begin.

What a bad week for Carl Lewis. Last week, I noted over in the 'Without Comment' section that news of a positive drug test and subsequent cover-up in 1988 had just been made public. Then today comes the news that he's been arrested for DUI just outside Los Angeles.

This is quite an admission from a group of intellectuals (emphasis mine):

So Sander L. Gilman, a professor of liberal arts and sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, replied instead. "I would make the argument that most criticism - and I would include Noam Chomsky in this - is a poison pill," he said. "I think one must be careful in assuming that intellectuals have some kind of insight. In fact, if the track record of intellectuals is any indication, not only have intellectuals been wrong almost all of the time, but they have been wrong in corrosive and destructive ways."

It never ceases to amaze me how low political organizations will sink - though NOW nearly amazed me by opposing charging Scott Peterson w/ double murder. Their issue is that since the 'double' in this case included an unborn fetus, the murder of that ... thing ... shouldn't count as a murder. Afterall, how then would they continue to justify their organizations role in destroying millions of unborn fetuses.

As much as I disagree w/ abortion, NOW could easily justify both the right of a woman to choose an abortion and the charging of Scott Peterson w/ double homicide. Abortion laws are written and have been intrepreted to protect a woman's right to choose abortion. The father of the child has zero say in whether a woman is allowed an abortion or not.

Given that, how exactly do they think that the actions of a man, and the subsequent punishment chosen for a man, can affect what is exclusively a woman's right? The short answer is that it can't, and won't. But because there is always the sliver of a chance that one could affect the other, NOW would rather see Peterson go unpunished for the death of his unborn child than to threaten the issue they use to raise funds with.

NOW is supposed to be about furthering the cause of women. How exactly does it further the cause of women to establish a precedent whereby an estranged boyfriend can kick a woman in the stomach, kill her unborn child, and only be punished for battery? How exactly does it further the cause of women to shield from punishment a man that slips a pregnant woman a drug that will kill her unborn child, but not harm her.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg points out that this story referrs only to a local New Jersey chapter of NOW and not the national headquarters. He then semi-gloats that Patricia Ireland is on Fox right now agreeing that this is a double-homicide. Good for her, but one has to wonder whether the local chapter just acting on its own or whether it was used by HQ to 'test the waters' on a controversial opinion.

Scott Peterson's prison bitch name is Butt Whore. We can only hope.

While there continues to be violent crime in our schools nearly every day, the school administrators are doing a bang-up job of handling the 'toy gun' problem. Two middle school students have been suspended for having toy guns on the bus.

Why would kids take toy guns to school? School officials say the toy guns were taken to school as part of a literature project on "Treasure Island." I'll guess that their teacher told them to bring something to class 'related to the story'.

I figured the UN would have learned a lesson with its failures leading up to the war in Iraq, but it appears to have only made them more determined to get their way - regardless of the ramifications. The latest Franco-Russian proposal: let the Iraqi people continue to suffer under sanctions aimed at Saddam Hussein until the US & Britian turn over significant control of the rebuilding process to the UN.

Lets review - the UN wasn't sufficiently worried about the security threat Iraq posed to its neighbors and others around the world to do anything significant about it. Now that the security threat is largely passed, the UN isn't sufficiently worried about the humanitarian issues existing in Iraq to make the simple gesture of removing sanctions without first holding out their hand and asking - but what will you do for us?.

In late March, I lamented the UN's track record on security issues, but said that they had potential as a humanitarian organization. That potential is being rapidly squandered. They should be ashamed of themselves.

While school administrators continue to fret more about institutional funding than student safety, 7-year old girls are getting raped in the bathrooms of their school - by a 9-year-old. The 9-year-old boy who was arrested on charges of raping a 7-year-old girl in the bathroom at Roxbury Elementary School has been removed from the school, officials said yesterday.

Only 1 in 9 school administrators think "you should have this memorized by now"

The Washington Post has an article talking about how 42% of Americans still don't use the internet. I'm actually suprised its that high of a number. I would have guessed 30% or so. A couple of paragraphs near the bottom of the article were interesting though:

"There will always be a certain portion of the population that doesn't see any need or any urgency to adopt new technologies -- or see any benefit of what those new technologies bring," said Daniel E. Hess, vice president of ComScore Networks Inc., a Reston-based research firm.

I don't see the internet as a 'technology'. Its an information source - just like newspapers, radio and television. The internet is actually the uber information source because its big enough to encompass all three other major information sources inside it. Perhaps if the internet were presented in that manner, fewer people would be threatened by its 'difficulty'; though I doubt we can ever have an impact on Unabomber-manifesto-loving idiots like these:

Another group views their nonuse as a source of pride and "are delighted to reject such a popular technology," the report said.

Hootie, what happened to the media consultant that you hired to help you deal with Martha Burk's protest? Don't tell me that you dismissed him after the Masters thinking his services were no longer needed. It appears thats exactly what happened, because how else do you explain this: Hootie Johnson tells Atlanta Journal-Constitution "there will never will be a female member" six months after the Masters, a year, 10 years, or ever."

I know this is what he's been thinking all along, but damn, there's no reason to go saying it outloud - to a reporter. This issue was almost dead. Martha's protest drew 40 people (including 10 speakers) and all anybody is talking about is how much of a bust it was.

Hootie! You just re-introduced the issue. You were in the clear. No big time media was going to put Martha back on TV to spout off against your constitutionally protected right when she could only muster 40 supporters. But now that you've stuck your soft-spikes back in your pie hole, you can be damn sure that they'll have her back on TV - to ask her to respond to your statement.

He deserves whatever he gets this time.

Oh, how far we've come. Marc sent me a note about this Court TV story from 1999 where a 6th grader was arrested and jailed for stomping in water puddles. Deputy Tim Langer hauled Kyle Fredrikson off to jail Monday and charged the boy with disruption of an educational institution, a misdemeanor, for the incident.

Hopefully, school administrators have been criticized enough for the past few years to have learned not to repeat mistakes this glaring.

Is it just me or is Tim Robbins channelling the Iraqi Information Minister's style of speech recently.

Robbins wrote a letter to Hall president Dale Petroskey last week, saying he belonged "with the cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame" after Petroskey cancelled a scheduled Cooperstown salute to his baseball movie "Bull Durham." and In the press club address Tuesday, Robbins said called "sadistic creep who writes -- or, rather, scratches his column with his fingernails in dirt."

Some more info about the school shooting this week in New Orleans. The day after the shooting, only about 50 of the 1,100 students showed up for classes. Also, the kid who got killed had a loaded .45 in his pocket at the time. The police also have managed to blame the victim: "Basically, this is a person who may have brought this on himself, being as he was armed with a .45 pistol in his right pocket," Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said. "When Mr. Jonathan Williams brought that firearm to that school, he opened it up to the type of violence we saw."

Some anti-war protesters apparently decided to not pay their Federal income taxes as a means of protest. Thats all well and good - the IRS will be in their pockets, extracting that money by any means necessary in no time at all. What gets me about this though, is that at least some, and probably many, don't even know how to properly withold tax payments. Check this out:

"It's a hard decision. I'm an upstanding citizen. I follow the rules," said Tom Makarewicz, 42. He and his wife, Suzanne, filled out a federal tax form with the correct amount owed, but sent the government a letter saying they couldn't, in good conscience, turn over $300 of it because they believed it would support the military.

I'd wager some a large amount that the $300 that Tom & Suzanne are throwing a fit over isn't their whole tax bill - its the amount they owe because they didn't have enough withheld from their checks during 2002.

So here they are thinking they are being morally correct by not helping to pay for the war, when the large chunk of their Federal tax bill was withheld from their check every month - to help pay for the war. If you are going to protest the war by not paying taxes, it'd probably be a good idea to at least have an understanding of how much tax your paying and how and when its being taken from you.

Something funky is going on between the Chicago White Sox and the Kansas City Royals. Last time the Royals were in Chicago, a father-son tandem came out of the stands and beat up the Royals 1st base coach, Tom Gamboa. Tonight, after 3 fans had already ran onto the field and been intercepted by security, a 4th man came onto the field and tacked the 1st base umpire before receiving a beating of his own by some of the players on the field.

What would happen if the Iraqi Information Minister was a play-by-play announcer for NY Yankees:

We have the infidels just where we want them! Manager Joe Torre has cleverly led the scarlet-hosed stooges into a noose from which there is no escape! The Red Sox child general manager Epstein has dispatched his players on a suicide mission! We shall humble this New England gang of villains and leave their bones to dry in the desert sun as a warning to our enemies! Praise Steinbrenner!

In addition to Martha Burk's humiliation at only having 40 supporters show up for her Masters protest (10 of whom were speakers), she now has to deal with knowing that America so ignored her quest that this was the 3rd most-watched Masters tournament ever. Heck, she's even being semi-heckled for providing all us women-hating golfers the gift of an advertising free telecast.

Damn. 1st, we Jayhawks lose the national championship, and now we lose our coach as Roy Williams leaves for North Carolina. The list of replacements is:
Bill Self, Illinois
Tom Crean, Marquette
Mike Brey, Notre Dame
Mark Few, Gonzaga
Mark Turgeon, Wichita State

I've seen Turgeon up close here in Wichita, and don't want him anywhere near the KU program right now. Crean and Brey don't do anything for me at all.

That leaves Mark Few and Bill Self. Self appears to be the front-runner right now, but I think I'd rather have Mark Few.

One kid is dead, and 3 others are wounded after a school shooting in New Orleans at John McDonogh High School. This article says it was motivated by retaliation. 4 suspects are in custody. Ninth-grader Garick Jacob, 14, said he was in the gym when it happened. "Somebody pulled out a gun," he said. "They started shooting and I started running." He said he did not see the shooting but it sounded like about 30 shots, adding, "I was really scared."

There was also an accidental shooting at a school in Shreveport today: ... while one student was showing it to another, hitting the second boy in the stomach, police and school officials said. The student who brought the gun ran away; police were looking for him.

Only 1 in 9 school board members think violence in schools is a 'major' concern.

UPDATE: Here's a photo of the school.
UPDATE #2: The weapon was an AK-47 and a handgun.

Clearly, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon don't understand the US Constitution. "I was dismayed that the Baseball Hall of Fame decided to use this event to make a political statement," Robbins, 44, said in a statement in which was supported by his pal and "Bull Durham" co-star Kevin Costner. "It is using what power it has to infringe upon my rights of free speech with the hope to intimidate millions of others who disagree with our president," Robbins said in a stinging riposte.

This isn't terribly suprising considering that earlier this year on the Donahue show (now cancelled), Sarandon said she was 'afraid of being deported' (I'm paraphrasing from memory) because of her anti-war views. Anybody know who the last American citizen to be deported was?

Benedict Rogers The anti-war movement has been proved wrong - but it lost my respect before the fall of Baghdad. In my more diplomatic moments, I say that although I disagree with them, I respect those who opposed the war in Iraq. But if I am really truthful, I would say that I don't even do that. I respect their right to express an opinion, and I understand the emotions that lead one to oppose war, but in all honesty the anti-war lobby had little real credibility.

And I enjoyed his encounter with some anti-war demonstraters. The demonstrators started singing, to the tune of "Yellow Submarine", the words "we all live in a terrorist regime". That may be silly, but at least its funny. Usually its the counter-demonstraters that have the funniest signs: At a "No Blood For Oil" protest outside ChevronTexaco headquarters in San Francisco, this sign was spotted- "Protesters, How Did You Get Here?"

Rogers also has some ideas for reforming the United Nations.

Good to see that whole school violence thing hasn't gotten out of control:

Four boys, ages 12-14 are arrested after raping a 12 year old girl in between classes at a Florida middle school.

300 students 'riot' with pipes and baseball bats [link via Daryl] at Alain Leroy Locke High School in South Los Angeles during lunch period. Only 6 students were arrested.

Only 1 in 9 school board members think violence in schools is a 'major' concern.

What the hell is going on in New York City. The City Council (over the mayor's veto) has now made use of a cell phone criminal during 'public performances Public performances include: "any indoor theater, library, museum, gallery, motion picture theater, concert hall or building in which theatrical, musical, dance, motion picture, lecture or other similar performances are exhibited." The new law carries a $50 fine.

UPDATE: Nate posted a link to this WAV file (239kb) from Escape from LA. Its quite appropriate.

We still watch David Letterman because of moments like this: Top Ten Things Iraq's Information Minister Has To Say About The War:
10. "We're pulling down the statues of Saddam to have them cleaned"
9. "Don't believe that stuff you see on CNN...or NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox or MSNBC"
8. "If you ask me who the winner is, it depends on what your definition of 'is' is"
7. "Iraqi television is off the air because we didn't want you to have to sit through 'Becker'"
6. "Do you know of any job openings for a lying weasel?"
5. "Wolf Blitzer and I are engaged"
4. "Iraqis are in the streets celebrating Cher's 40 fabulous years in show business"
3. "Incoming!"
2. "Saddam's not dead -- he's just out with a case of the shingles"
1. "War? What war?"

Worst description of a movie ... ever. Swordfish: The 2001 movie aspires to be The Matrix as imagined by Quentin Tarantino, and darn if it doesn't almost succeed. Taken from the Baltimore Sun

Interesting reaction from Oliver Willis about CNN. For months now, Oliver has been railing against Fox News - even comparing them to Al-Jazeera - because of their 'pro Bush Administration slant on the news. I don't exactly agree with it, but thats not the point. Now that CNN has admitted to coloring their news by not reporting horrible crimes by Saddam Hussein; Oliver's reaction is to write 2 sentences, lamenting 'corporate news'. Hmm.

There is some discussion over at Bettnet about the NY Times Op-Ed from Eason Jordan (Chief News Executive at CNN) about horrible news about Saddam that the network decided not to air. Things like CNN cameramen getting tortured; like Saddam's son telling Eason that he was going to kill his 2 brothers-in-law along with the leader of Jordan (he actually did kill the 2 brothers-in-law).

The defense of CNN seems to be that disclosing some of the particulars mentioned in the Op-Ed piece would have meant certain death for the individuals who were privy to some of the conversations when the deeds were revealed. That threat was undoubtedly very real to all those involved, and I think CNN did the correct and moral thing by not airing these particular items.

However, and it is a big however; it is entirely inexcusable that CNN continued to broadcast news from and about Iraq as if they did not have intimate knowledge of what was occurring within the country. Its one thing to simply withold information to save some lives - its quite another to pretend as if the damning info doesn't exist. By not changing their news perspective to reflect events to which they were privy, though unable to pass along, they perpertrated an editorial fraud on all their viewers - for years on end.

More about this from Tech Central Station and The New Republic [they actually uncovered this story last year - CNN denied everything at that time] and Glenn Reynolds

Unbelievable. Here's what Scott Ritter had to say about his knowledge of the Iraqi 'Children's Prisons' in September of 2002:

Question: You've spoke about having seen the children's prisons in Iraq. Can you describe what you saw there?
Answer: The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children — toddlers up to pre-adolescents — whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.

Emphasis mine. [via The Corner]

What the hell is going on in Mexico? Legislators have sent a letter to President Fox urging him to abstain from an upcoming U.N. Human Right's Commission vote on Cuba. Why you ask?

"It worries us that the human rights commission passes over important issues and instead, thanks to pre-established interests, promotes repeated attacks on a country that has demonstrated its willingness to comply with United Nations resolutions," said the letter, singed by the house leaders of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the Democratic Revolution Party, the Green Party and the Workers' Party.

Makes perfect sense. There's no reason at all to censure Cuba - us wacky Americans are just biased against them.

This week, Cuba sentenced 75 political dissidents to prison terms ranging from six to 28 years in trials that never last more than a day. The crackdown on opposition leaders has been condemned by governments and human rights groups around the world.

It'd be nice if Russia, Germany and France would join the rest of us in the real world. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday there were no prospects for a military solution to the crisis in Iraq and called for the issue to be solved within the United Nations.

Apparently, they don't have CNN. While we're nowhere near 'done' in Iraq, the problem of Saddam has largely already been fixed - militarily - and we are working on securing the country and its weapons - militarily.

Its only a small sampling, but some of the reactions from non-Iraqi Arabs to the US victory in Iraq is just amazing:

"We discovered that all what the (Iraqi) information minister was saying was all lies," said Ali Hassan, a government employee in Cairo, Egypt. "Now no one believes Al-Jazeera anymore."

"I don't like the idea of having the Americans here, but we asked for it," he said. "Why don't we see the Americans going to Finland, for example? They come here because our area is filled with dictatorships like Saddam's."

Then, there is some crap like this:

Mohammed al-Shahhal, a 49-year-old teacher in Tripoli, Lebanon, said the scenes reminded him of the collapse of the Soviet Union. "Those who applauded the collapse of Lenin's statue for some Pepsi and hamburgers felt the hunger later on and regretted what they did," al-Shahhal said.

The 1st round of the Masters was postponed till Friday because of bad weather. I won't be posting anything till late this evening because I'm heading up to McPherson Kansas this afternoon to watch my brother Nick play in a golf tournament.

UPDATE: Nick shot 76 and finished in 8th place. Well done.

Beyond Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon, which is apparently semi-autobiographical, Chuck Palahniuk's next novel is slated to be called Diary. I mention it today because I just noticed that Random House has put up the cover art for the book. 'Diary' is slated to be released in August of this year; 'Fugitives & Refugees release date is July 8th, 2003.

Fat and happy? Not hardly. Obesity makes children so unhealthy and miserable that their quality of life is slightly worse than children having chemotherapy to treat cancer, a new study suggests.

You are probably going to (or already have) see this everywhere over the next week, but its worth repeating here.

A captured Iraqi colonel being held in one of the hangars (Baghdad Airport) listened in astonishment as his information minister praised Republican Guard soldiers for recapturing the airport.

He looked at his captors and, as he realised that what he had heard was palpably untrue, his eye filled with tears. Turning to a translator, he asked: "How long have they been lying like this?"

I will say that this 'conversation' is such a perfect setup that it may indeed turn out to be false - though we'll probably never know.

Admit it, I'm not the only one who's fired up over the idea of Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) remaking King Kong. Jackson will go back to the source and base his story on the original 1933 RKO film starring Fay Wray, directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, written by Cooper and Edgar Wallace and featuring the ground-breaking stop-motion special effects of Willis O'Brien. Work is slated to begin after the release of the final LOTR film this December, with a projected release date of Christmas 2005.

Martha Burk and the ACLU lost their lawsuit against the City of Augusta, Georgia. They were complaining that the protest laws there were unconstitutional, and that the Sheriff's decision to not allow protesters right at the gates of Augusta National was 'stifling free speech'. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Dudley H. Bowen Jr. called the area outside Augusta National Golf Club "profoundly congested" during Masters Week and wrote that the introduction of protesters to the area presents "a realistic, plausible, even probable potential for some accidental injury."

No doubt Burk and the ACLU will now go 'judge-shopping' for someone more sympathetic.

Damn free throws.

Suprise, suprise. Medium range missles loaded with Mustard Gas found in Iraq. Also, Mustard Gas and Cyanide have been found in the Euphrates - and the 101st was exposed to Sarin. So now that our troops have been exposed to chemical weapons, how long till those promised French medical teams start showing up? I'll start holding my breath now...

UPDATE: The part about our troops being exposed to Sarin was apparently a false alarm, the French can relax.

Its nice to see that the anti-war discource in France is so thoughtful. Oh wait.The French government was forced to appeal for calm after protesters, some of them carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein, burned the Israeli flag and turned on Jewish students, attacking one of them with an iron bar, during a series of antiwar rallies.

Anyone else see a recurring theme there? Or perhaps its not just 'there' that this goes on.

Whats also interesting is the French government's reaction to all of this. They formed a task force, and publicly called for 'calm', but then there's this: ...Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin sought to rein in public sentiment, saying that people should "not choose the wrong enemy."

Thats not reigning in public sentiment - its redirecting it. If the Jews are the 'wrong enemy', who then might Raffarin think is the 'correct enemy'?

Well, the Jayhawks made Marquette look like the mid-major that they are - up by over 40 points at one time in the 2nd half. Thats the kind of game that can kill a smaller program on the upswing. Kids that were maybe on the fence between going to Marquette and getting alot of playing time, or going to a big-time school and waiting a year or two before being a starter aren't going to be too fired up to go to a program that looked absolutely horrible on Saturday.

As for the final against Syracuse - I'm feeling pretty good about it. It'll either be a close game, or a Jayhawk blowout. I don't see any chance for Syracuse to run with Kansas. If they get some fast breaks early, look-out, because it could get nearly as ugly as it was with Marquette. I think the game stays close if KU gets into early foul trouble - particularly Graves, Hinrich and Collison. Guarding Carmello Anthony will be tough also, Langford is too small at 6'4", Graves is too slow at 6'9" and 275 pounds; that leaves Collison (who's not used to guarding perimiter players) or playing a zone (not a strong point for the Hawks).

I've been in San Angelo, Texas for the past couple of days (I'm back now). It was my first time there, and I was shocked at how small their airport was - only 2 gates. Gate 1 was for incoming flights; and gate 2 was for outgoing flights.

I was also suprised to see that after searching a guy's bag and finding a box cutter in it, they still let him get on the plane. Reverse racial profiling? Maybe - he was a white guy wearing a blue 'Microsoft Business Solutions' polo shirt.

One other item of interest. As we were getting on the plane leaving Wichita, there was a young Army guy sitting in the 1st row of the plane - nearly everybody took the time to shake his hand as they got onto the plane. Its nice to see that kind of respect to our armed forces.

Ever since I played Silent Hill 2, I've been a fan of horror/adventure games. So, when I saw that there was a new title released by Capcom called, Clock Tower 3, I got excited (especially since I'm also a Resident Evil fan). Unlike the Silent Hill and Resident Evil series, Clock Tower 3 doesn't let you shoot, stab, slash, maim, or kill anything until you come to the "bosses" and even then I found defeating them almost redundant. The rest of the game, your character, a 14 year old girl, attempts to elude ghosts by hiding or running very fast around them - if you mange to touch one, she panics (which causes her to eventually freeze in place, get killed, and forces you to call her a stupid girl).

Overall, the story line is entertaining and keeps you playing to find out how it will end. However, the puzzles in the game are too easy which makes the game play go extremely fast (I rented it and finished it well beofe it had to be returned). If I had to rate this game, I'd give it a 7 out of 10 stars - at least if you don't decide to buy it, go out and rent it.

Speaking of Silent Hill, if you're fan of the series, be sure to check out the SH3 trailer over at IGN. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they put the music in this trailer (personally, I don't think it works), but the graphics look great.

He's got a point. Iraqi Foreign Minister complains the UN has done nothing to stop the US/Coalition war in Iraq. I'd never thought of it quite this way, but the UN is currently treating the US/Coalition just like they treated Iraq for years. The UN makes its position known, the UN position is ignored, the UN does nothing to enforce its position.

ESPN has a big article basically about how cool a place the University of Kansas is and its connections to basketball. (Stacy and I are Class of '94)

John Kerry - moving left and digging his presidential grave.

''What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States,'' Kerry said in a speech at the Peterborough Town Library.

Statements like that may make the anti-war wacko's cheer, but its going to turn off the moderate anti-war crowd. Years ago, candidates could say shit like this during the primaries - knowing all would be forgotten by the time they get to the real race. But with the continued rise of the internet as a news source, wack-job statements drawing any sort of parallels between Bush & Saddam or the Bush admin & the Taliban will never be forgotten.

It would also do Kerry well to run against President George Bush, and not Governor George Bush: ''But it will take a new president who is prepared to lead, and who has, frankly, a little more experience than visiting the sum total of two countries'' before taking office.

At this point, exactly whats the relevance of Bush's foreign policy experience prior to being President. That was a relevant issue for Al Gore to attack, but its ridiculous to bring it up now.

The UN is finally going to start talking about the North Korea problem next week. I'll be watching this one closely to see how the first difficult situation to arise since the Iraq debacle.

Is everybody sure its not still April Fools Day? Because the Village Voice actually makes sense to me today. The United Nations? In 1994, Kofi Annan, then head of the UN's peacekeeping operations, blocked any use of UN troops in Rwanda even though he was told by his representative there that the genocide could be stopped before it started.

Bill Clinton refused to act as well, instructing the State Department not to use the word genocide because then the United States would be expected to do something. And President Clinton instructed Madeleine Albright, then our representative to the UN, to block any possible attempts to intervene despite Kofi Annan. Some 800,000 lives could have been saved.

The United Nations? Where Libya, Syria, and Sudan are on the Human Rights Commission? The UN is crucial for feeding people and trying to deal with such plagues as AIDS; but if you had been in a Hussein torture chamber, would you, even in a state of delirium, hope for rescue from the UN Security Council?

That last sentence is exactly the conclusion I've come to about the UN Security Council. I said this just a few days ago: As a humanitarian organization, the UN has potential; but as a security agency, its track record is horrible.

Another wonderful sign of 'dissent' from our friends the French - a monument in France to the British soldiers who died there during WWI was defaced: The words "Rosbifs [British] go home! Saddam Hussein will win and spill your blood" were painted in French over the base of the cemetery's main monument - an obelisk topped by a cross. On one side was a swastika and the words "death to the Yankees". Also daubed were the words "dig up your garbage, it is fouling our soil," and "Bush, Blair to the TPI (International Court of Justice)".

They wrote that in a military cemetery. Disgusting. This comes only about a week after a memorial to those killed on 9/11 was defaced in France, and 2 jews were stabbed during an anti-war rally - also in France. [via IP]

The idiocy of some people never ceases to amaze me. Today, its the German President, Johannes Rau. Rau said that instead of focusing on a religious approach to the conflict, Bush should have supported the worldly mission of the U.N. weapons inspectors and their search for weapons of mass destruction. " Did I miss something here? Since when did this become a religious war?

But even if we take Rau at his word, and agree with him that a religious approach to this conflict is a bad idea, then what are we to make of this statement: He added that Pope John Paul II actually had the right religious approach to the conflict with Iraq. Hey Johannes, make up your mind. Either a religious approach is a bad idea or its a good idea. Seems he is more upset with Bush's particular brand of religious approach rather than a religious approach in general.

But it gets worse: "I don't believe that a people receives a message from God to free another people," Rau said. Umm. Moses ... Jews ... Egypt. Has this guy even read the Bible?

The German president, whose position usually puts him above the daily skirmishing among Germany's political parties, said the Bible did not call on anyone to conduct crusades. So now its a crusade, eh? Sure, whatever. Its a good think this guy is 'above the daily skirmishing' because he's nearly incoherant.