I'm back, and so is the database. Seems among other problems, my host decided to upgrade the version of the Berkley database that my installation of Movable Type relies on while I was gone. The good news is that once I got that figured out, it took me about 10 minutes to get myself back up and running. The bad news is that I spent about 6 hours tonight looking for other solutions before realizing what likely happened.

Just a helpful hint - if your Movable Type installation suddenly quits working - and you can't even login, you've likely got the same issue as I had. The easy answer to the problem is right there in the MT Help file.

I'm going to be heading to New Orleans until late on Thursday, so site updates will slow down and will happen later in the evenings than usual

Whether its just a random bad round, or the law of averages catching up with her, Annika is having a tough time today. She ended yesterday in a tie for 73rd place, and was actually up to 63rd place early in today's action, but she's made a group of bogies and is currently only ahead of 16 golfers. She's 3 shots off of the cut line with only 8 holes to play.

UPDATE: I got home from work in time to see Annika finish up her final two holes, and she's finished with a 2nd round 74. She ends up missing the cut by 4 shots and only beat 11 of her competitors.

However, I do think that her performance has enhanced the reputation of the LPGA Tour. Prior to this week, I had believed that this would be a negative for the LPGA if she didn't make the cut. However, even though she won't be playing the weekend, she scored well enough scores to win me over.

Annika is tearing it up - 1 under par thru 12 holes. She's not making me look like a very good predictor right now.

UPDATE: Well, she's done. A bogey on the last hole dropped her to 1-over for the round. Her score was much better than I expected, but her overall position is just about right. Of the players who teed off in the morning with her and have finished their round - she's beaten only 11 of them - and is in a tie for 67th place (that'll only get worse as the day's play wraps up). From the blow-by-blow recap of her round, she actually hit the ball very well. She only missed one fairway, and only a couple of greens. But her putting was horrible.

Given what I saw today, if she putts well tomorrow, she has a chance to shoot a couple under par and survive the cut. But, if her ball-striking isn't as crisp tomorrow, she could put up a high number.

Oh, and some wonderful irony - she beat Fulton Allem by 4 shots. I mentioned Fulton's negative comments towards Annika a few days ago if you need a recap.

An Australian and a German caught 'French kissing' have been given six-month jail terms suspended for three years under condition they do not reoffend. Actually, that didn't happen in NYC, it happened in Dubai. But, given Bloomberg's propensity to enforce and create so-called 'quality of life laws' such as smoking bans and ticketing people for sitting on milk crates, its really only a matter of time.

UNRELATED: Thanks to the reader(s) who ordered American Psycho Reader's Guide and Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Other Plays from Amazon yesterday.

Amazon is now selling official version of the Iraqi Most Wanted Playing Cards.

One of the worst ideas I've seen recently: Financially rewarding and punishing jury members depending on whether they 'get it right' or not. More on this later...

Tank may be a terrorist, but Larry Wachowski is a sexual freak - allegedly. Apparently Larry is a cross-dresser who is dating a woman who is still married to a transexual man. Jake Miller (the transexual), 40, who says he is still legally married to Karin Winslow (Larry's new girlfriend), 36, also charged his wife with being a dominatrix and that he had personally observed Wachowski and Winslow engaging in kinky sex acts.

UPDATE: It gets worse. Today, the courts have frozen Larry Wachowski's assets because of the divorce proceedings that he is going thru - his wife thinks he's hiding money.

Marcus Chong, the guy who played 'Tank' in The Matrix, is now suing the Wachowski Brothers over not being included in Reloaded & Revolutions. He claims he had an oral and written contract yada yada yada. This is the interesting part: charges the filmmakers defamed him by "intentionally publishing numerous false statements . . . that he was a terrorist."

Anybody ever see those rumors anywhere? I read a good deal of movie sites and don't remember seeing it mentioned previously.

Back in mid-2001, I mentioned an article about a kid in New Jersey that was suspended for 3 days for wearing a 'You Might Be A Redneck If...' t-shirt. The kid subsequently sued the school district (and won), and the appeal by the district to the Supreme Court was just turned down for consideration on Monday. That lets stand the Appeals Court ruling:

An appeals court held that the word "redneck" was not used to intimidate and harass other students, and that the school in New Jersey overstepped its bounds in punishing Thomas Sypniewski Jr. (search) The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned whether schools would next try to stop the use of other words like hillbilly.

Maybe getting slapped around in the courts is just what school administrators need to jolt them out of their idiocy.

Something is very odd about this whole Steven Hatfill/anthrax mess. It appears that the Feds are convinced that he was responsible for the anthrax via mail attacks last year (or was it late 2001?), but can't prove it.

This weekend, a story gets released that a friend of Hatfill's talked to the Feds about his comments, and his information led the Feds right to some new evidence at the bottom of a swamp.

Then today, the FBI agent who is apparently shadowing Hatfill everywhere - hit Hatfill with his car (Hatfill was walking). Adding insult to injury (literally), Hatfill was then issued a $5 ticket for "walking to create hazard".

There is a new Guns N Roses 'cover band' that is really GnR w/o Axl Rose. Called Reloaded, the band is made up of Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum. The lead singer role is being filled by Scott Weiland. Or at least that was the plan until got arrested for drug possession - again.

I got a kick out of this one - the Deck of Weasels: depicting the 54 worst leaders and celebrities who opposed America and were key members of "The United Nations of Weasels." They could have done a better job finding idiotic quotes to put on the cards, but some of them are good: George Clooney, Jacques Chirac and Harry Belafonte.

Also, Amazon is now selling th official deck of Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards.

From an interview with Janeane Garofalo in Progressive Magazine: There's been such an assault on democracy here, and the mainstream media is complicit in it. We are living in neo-McCarthy, post-democratic times. Democracy is being criminalized. Democracy is being ignored. There ar plenty of people who think Janeane is wrong on lots of issues (me included), but nothing makes people otherwise inclined to agree with you ignore you faster than over-stating your case. Once this quote gets circulated, she'll be the darling of the IndyMedia crowd - and nobody else.

The sick mindset of MediaWhoresOnline - sinking to the level of their enemies: Still, it is by no means an easy call to make to say that liberals should not participate in spreading even unproven allegations against those who are known to have spread unproven allegations. And the result of that kind of mentality is what leads to stories like this

Just the news that nobody wanted to hear: we may very well have 2 Supreme Court positions to fill within 6 months. As ugly as politics has become over the past decade +, trying to get a Supreme thru the approval process will be absolutely impossible. There will be Borking, there will be filibusters, there may be massive challenges to the existing Senate rules - and then it'll get really nasty.

Jesse Jackson says that the quick withdrawal of the Marines from Iraq was ... wait for it ... racist. See, the Marines have a higher percentage of white members than does the military as a whole, so pulling them out leaves a disproportionate number of minorities behind. In harms way. While the white kids go home.

Jeez, he is such a tool.

Even more on the Annika Sorenstam issue:

Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel thinks her playing is a horrible idea - for women's sports. And he manages to get Martha Burk on his side.

The NY Times interviews David Feherty, and he comes out as a strong supporter of Annika: "The bottom line of ladies and gentlemen has been lost with this militant man versus woman thing. I never would have sided with Vijay. This is all about an athlete trying to find out how good she can be. If Tiger needed another place for a challenge, he would try it." He then goes on to point out how she basically has no chance of really 'competing' in this tournament because of her physical disadvantage.

I chuckled yestday when she was called Mannika on the Jim Rome radio show.

Michael Moore told Bob Costas that the US govt knows exactly where Osama Bin Laden is, but we won't persue him Because he's funded by their (Bush) friends in Saudi Arabia! He's back living with his sponsors, his benefactors. Do you think that Osama bin Laden planned 9-11 from a cave in Afghanistan? I can't get a cell signal from here to Queens, alright, I mean, come on. Let's get real about this. The guy has been on dialysis for two years. He's got failing kidneys. He wasn't in a cave in Afghanistan playing-” “I think the United States, I think our government knows where he is and I don't think we're going to be capturing him or killing him any time soon.”

I give Moore another decade at the most before his reputation implodes to the point that the only people taking him seriously are the IndyMedia crowd.

...the world to Ming. OK, that was lame. Sorry.

Its good to see that Yao Ming is has figured out capitalism. Seems he isn't too please that his face is on Coke cans in China now that he's signed a mega-bucks deal with Pepsi. If he continues on his current learning curve, he'll defect and become a US citizen within 3 years.

I wonder how much of his endorsement earnings the Chinese government takes? I had heard that they were taking 40% of his salary, but never saw a # on endorsements.

I'm heading out this afternoon for a 2:30 screening of Matrix Reloaded. I'll probably write a review up tonight.

UPDATE: It definately doesn't suck. I've seen review after review on Dark Horizons and AICN that had me very skeptical about this film, but for the most part - the complainers got it wrong. Reloaded isn't the best movie ever, and its not as innovative as The Matrix was - but holding it up to that standard and then trashing it when it doesn't match up (which is what I think has happened) is just silly.

The worst offender I've seen being Harry Knowles - he just slaughters Reloaded, with comparisons to Last Action Hero and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Reloaded is a very good movie. The worst thing I can say about it is that its not as good as the first film, but excepting that, there aren't many other movies even remotely this entertaining.

The proof that this movie is better than given credit for - it has the albinos outraged. Yep, should have seen this one coming. If the Muslims are going to get pissed over Stryker wearing a ring that nobody but a Muslim (and probably not a high percentage of them either) would recognize, why shouldn't the National Organisation for Albinism and Hypopigmentation get all red-assed because some of the villians - The Twins - look like albinos. Clearly, by making the albinos villians instead of heroes, this movie is anti-albino.

The Dissident Frogman is one of the nicest weblog designs I've seen in a long while.

12 year old girl suspended for twelve days after turning in a small pocketknife she found in an outside pocket of her backpack. She claims the knife was not hers. After finding the knife, her friends told her to throw it away so she wouldn't get in trouble. But she was worried that somebody else may then find the knife, so she turned it in.

She was initially suspended for the remainder of the school year, but it was later reduced to 'time served' after it was discovered that she violated a non-existant policy: The Guidelines for Selected Offenses, which is in the student handbook that Akins and Sarah signed this year, includes an outline of discipline for offenses, but no requirements of reporting a weapon on campus.

Lovely. After days and days of left-leaning and outright liberal pundits and blogs telling us that race was irrelevant in the Jayson Blair fiasco at the New York Times, Howell Raines comes out and pisses in their punch. "Our paper has a commitment to diversity and by all accounts he appeared to be a promising young minority reporter," Mr. Raines said. "I believe in aggressively providing hiring and career opportunities for minorities." "Does that mean I personally favored Jayson?" he added, a moment later. "Not consciously. But you have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama, with those convictions, gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team. When I look into my heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes."

The ACLU continues its decline into irrelevancy. Some background: There's a 22 year old mentally disabled woman in Florida who was raped and is now pregnant. Because of her disability, this woman is unable to speak, unable to help police find her attacker, and unable to consent to a DNA test to try and determine the paternity of the baby.

Jeb Bush, has ordered the appointment of a 'guardian' for the as yet unborn baby. The ACLU is outraged. Here's what the Executive Director of the ACLU in Florida had to say:

"He (Bush) ought to be ashamed of himself," said Howard Simon, executive director of ACLU of Florida. "That he would personally step in and take responsibility to coerce a developmentally disabled rape victim to carry a pregnancy to term."

So what would the ACLU have done in this situation? If the woman is so disabled that she cannot even consent to a simple DNA test, how is it that she can consent to an abortion? Is the ACLU's position that forced abortions of the mentally disabled are OK?

Yikes. If you thought Vijay Singh's comments about Annika were harsh, this'll drive you nuts:

Fulton Allem says: "You can't mix oil and water; it's as simple as that," Allem said. "I'm 100 percent behind Vijay because men can't play on the women's tour, so why should women be allowed to play on our tour?"

Thats not a popular opinion, but so far he hasn't made an ass of himself.

"Obviously, there are people that want her to play, and there are people that don't want her to play. I'm one of those people that don't want her to play. She's a woman. I'm a man. She should do what women do. I'll do what men do."

Uh oh. Somebody is going to be apologizing for that tomorrow. "You're a man. What would you think if somebody said, 'We're going to give your spot to a woman?' " Allem said. "I'm taking nothing away from her. She's a great women's player, blah, blah, blah. But I don't walk around being nine months pregnant."

Fulton is a sometimes commentator on The Golf Channel. I've got a feeling I won't be seeing him around there anytime soon.

Wow, I just downloaded the newest version of Opera, and it really does not like the way I lay out web pages. The only sections of this site that look properly are the Ty Tryon and Snoop Dogg pages. Everything else, including this main page (which worked perfectly in v6 of Opera) have at least something minor wrong with them. Not that any of this matters, considering how few people actually use Opera.

The 1st episode of the Charlie's Angels cartoon - Animated Angels is up. These cartoons are supposed to be prequels to the new Angels movie, Full Throttle.

The re-design of the $20 bill - now with color has been revealed. The most significant new feature in the currency redesign will be the introduction of new subtle background colors to the predominantly green and off-white bills. While the use of colors is not a security feature, it will help consumers quickly identify the various denominations. The presentation of some buildings and portraits will also be changed. For the $20 bill, the new design includes a faint blue eagle in the background and a metallic green eagle and shield to the right of the portrait of Andrew Jackson on the front of the note.

The official photos of the new money are over here. They even have an interactive Flash movie to show off the new 'features. We should start seeing this stuff sometime in the Fall.

This is a continuation of the conversation started back here. Riddle me this: X-Men 2 is supposedly anti-Islam because William Stryker (the bad guy) is shown wearing an Islamic ring. If thats the case, then was the original X-Men movie anti-Semitic since the bad guy (Magneto) was a Jew? I didn't think so.

In fact, there are 3 religious characters so far in the 2 X-Men movies:
Nightcrawler (Catholic) - Attacks the President
Magneto (Jewish) - Wants to kill all humans
Stryker (Islamic) - Wants to kill all mutants.

Somehow, that doesn't seem so anti-Islamic. In fact, Magneto and Nightcrawler's religion was made very clear in he movies - yet you really needed to know what you were looking for to see Stryker's religious affiliation. If its anti-anything, the X-Men movies are anti-religion in general - not specifically aimed at Islam.

Some may claim that in the case of Nightcrawler, his religion is is an integral part of his character, thus its mention is acceptable. And I'd agree. But then, using that logic, how do we find the inclusion of Magneto's religion acceptable? Its not part of his motivation - he is, after all, going to kill all the Jews along with all the other humans. His religion is just another factoid about his character. It doesn't reveal anything about him, and it doesn't enhance his character. Its just ... there. Like Stryker's ring.

The date for Annika Sorenstam to tee it up w/ the men at the Colonial in Texas is drawing closer, and as such, the rhetoric is heating up. Today, Vijay Singh cuts loose:

"What is she going to prove by playing? It's ridiculous," said Singh, a two-time major champion who is No. 7 in the World Ranking. "She's the best woman golfer in the world, and I want to emphasize 'woman.' We have our tour for men, and they have their tour. She's taking a spot from someone in the field."

He wasn't done: "I hope she misses the cut. Why? Because she doesn't belong out here. If I'm drawn with her, which I won't be, I won't play."

Mostly, the players will just keep their mouths shut about her appearance on the tour; but undoubtedly a few more will speak out.

UPDATE: Vijay apologized to Annika today, and generally claimed to have been quoted out of context. Doubtful. More likely is that he decided the political heat he was beginning to take wasn't worth the effort.

Nothing ruins an otherwise nice little holiday more than trying to politicize it: Forgive my cynicism about Mother's Day. After all, what kind of ungrateful mother wouldn't want to be honored with pesticide-laced flowers, chocolate that depends on children in slavery for its production and cards that deplete our forests and litter Mother Earth? Truly, it is the ultimate insult to honor life-giving with such toxic offerings. From there, it generally devolves into an 'America is the root of the world's evils' rant.

Its amazing just how bad some marriages get: A woman was arrested for dousing herself with perfume, spraying the house with bug killer and disinfectant, and burning scented candles in an attempt to seriously injure her chemically sensitive husband, prosecutors said. The woman's lawyer, not suprisingly, calls the man a 'faker'.

Went to the Riverfest parade last night, we'll be spending more time there today so activity here at the site will be very light until evening. We took a whole slew of pictures last night, so I'll have to get some of them uploaded later. But for now, you stuck with a picture of the Cat in the Hat on a Segway.

This was the 1st time I'd seen a Segway up close, and now I want one. This guy was very good at it and was going so fast he was doing laps around the rest of the float he was associated with.

It won't ship until August 26th, but you can pre-order Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers DVD today from Amazon. Or from DVD Empire if you prefer.

Some of the special content is:
*Theatrical trailer(s), TV spot(s)
*Documentary "On the Set: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" (Starz/Encore special)
*Documentary "Return to Middle-earth" (WB special)
*Eight featurettes originally created for lordoftherings.net: "Forces of Darkness," "Sounds of Middle-earth," "Edoras & Rohan Culture," "Creatures," "Gandalf the White," "Arms & Armor," "Helm's Deep," and "Gollum: Andy Serkis, Bay Raitt"
* Exclusive 10-minute behind-the-scenes preview of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
* Preview of video game, "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
* An inside look at the Special Extended DVD Edition of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"

Does anybody have confirmation that this is actually true? X-Men 2 movie is 'anti-Islamic'. I'm a bit sceptical at taking this story at its face value, but here's the info: MUSLIM groups are demanding an apology from "X2" director Bryan Singer over what they perceive as "anti-Islamic propaganda" in the blockbuster flick. "Within the first five minutes of 'X2,' an evil villain, 'Colonel William Stryker,' is in the White House signing a document. "As he signs, he is shown wearing a ring featuring the Arabic symbol for 'Allah.'

UPDATE: Here is slightly more information about their complaint. Also, this is the same group - Project Islamic HOPE that has this to say about why Michael Jackson gets bad press:

The tabloid media attempt to destroy Michael is interesting. He used to be a media favorite, that is, until he made a brilliant business decision. He bought the entire Beatles catalogue of music, owning the rights to all the songs and royalties. This move struck a nerve with many music fans and the press. Now I don’t believe in conspiracy theories but after the success of Michaels record setting albums "Thriller" and "Bad" he dethroned a dead Elvis and became the new "king of pop." To add insult to injury he then marries Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ only child. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Let’s not forget that White supremacy is still alive and well in the hearts and minds of some members of the media and music fans.

This group may not believe in conspiracy theories, but they sure seem to find them around every corner.

Radar Magazine's Monsters Inc - the scariest people in America. Our honorees-stand, please, all of you-have distinguished themselves in the arenas of physical and verbal abuse, overweening arrogance, and by the imposition of a particularly nasty influence over the culture at large. Yet even that is not enough to guarantee inclusion on this list. Creativity is rewarded here, as is consistency; it's not easy to throw a tantrum that lasts a career.

The list includes Russell Crowe, Tara Reid and Michael Moore.

This seems a rather odd distinction. Eminem gave Weird Al permission to do a parody of 'Lose Yourself', but now he won't let him make a video of the parody song. He apparently claims that "a Weird Al video would somehow detract from his legacy or make him seem like a less hip hop artist." Yankovik's new album - 'Poodle Hat' gets released May 20th.

Ugh. The absolute worst, most horrible, ridiculous sports/movie cross-promotion attempt ever: X-Men vs. NBA and WNBA players. So very lame.

Oh, and I didn't mention it previously, but X-Men 2 rocks. Brian Singer has done an amazing job with the two movies so far.

The main part of this site is going to be awfully slow this week - I've just got too much work to do and not enough time to write more than a sentence or two at a time. I will, however, continue to update the 'Without Comment' section on the left with 5-10 new things each day.

As someone who's been threatened with a lawsuit over the content of this website (twice actually), I can understand the need for a 'protective' web host. I've been lucky enough, that in both cases, the lawyers involved contacted me directly about their concerns and I was able to get it taken care of. However, what all to often happens is that the lawyers will go straight to your host - the host will get scared - and you'll get your website taken offline.

That said, Jim's idea may have some real legs: My pledge will be simple: I will not shut you down on any threat of a lawsuit. I will not regulate your content. If the lawyers come a'knockin, I will "accidentally" lose all your personal information with one click of the delete key. In short, I will be a human digital shield, only I won't run away when they start shooting.

He's looking for feedback on this idea, so go go have a look and chime in.

I re-worked the look of the Bret Easton Ellis Celeblog. Still very simple, but a little more compact and cleaner looking.

Good to see that at least some school districts are taking the threat of violence seriously. Oh wait, did I just say that? Because its not true: Girls not allowed to talk to boys at an Oregon elementary school (K-6). The hanky panky on the playground at Peterson Elementary School in Klamath Falls may have been as innocent as hand-holding or as stolen as a kiss. Whatever happened, it was enough for sixth-grade teacher Mary Bond to lay down the law to her students last week: there would be no talking between boys and girls.

And when the students protested (literally, with picket signs and all) in response, the administration's response was as idiotic as the 'rule' that sparked the protests. School officials were miffed that they hadn't been given prior notice about the Monday gathering. "None of the parents came to me, or gave me an opportunity to follow up on it," said Principal Jim Smith. "Obviously, if you have a concern, we should see if we can correct the situation, not call the paper and have a protest."

Perhaps if the parents had been given prior notice of the school's concern, they could have tried to correct the situation, not have some heavy handed administrator put a lock-down on all boy/girl speech. It works both ways.

Not that they deserve any credit after being such bone-heads, but the principal did lift the speech ban after the protest and bad media coverage.

The trailer is up for Underworld, which looks to be very good (at least visually) from what I've seen. The trailer is a mix of The Matrix, The Crow, and a little bit of Blade and even Harry Potter (the train sequence). Definately worth a look.

UPDATE: Here's the Dark Horizons news page about the movie. The plot description sounds a bit cheesy: A modern-day "Romeo and Juliet" story set in the world of vampires and werewolves, in which one lover is a vampire and the other a werewolf.

Some good news on the terror front. The State Department, in its annual report on global terrorism, says the number of terror attacks declined sharply last year ... there were 199 terrorist attacks last year, a 44 percent drop from 2001 and the lowest figure in more than 30 years. Looks like the good guys are winning.

I think I'm addicted to the concept of Celeblogs. I just put up another one for Bret Easton Ellis. I tried to keep the design super-simple (which I accomplished), but now I don't like the way it looks. So expect a redesign of it next week.