I've been watching the Daily Show for a few years now -- since before Jon Stewart became host.

The show is consistently the best written and funniest show on television (they have the Emmys to prove it). Monday nite's show was utterly hysterical.

Must See TV on NBC? I don't think so . . . This is required viewing.

Posted at 08:14 PM in Current Affairs, Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Coupling's first episode ran last night: Understand that I'm a huge fan of the original BBC version, so I'm somewhat biased. And, I missed the first minute of the show, as it started at 9:25, not 9:30. (TiVo was busy recording CSI).

First, the good news: NBC's Coupling isn't nearly as bad as some of the harsher reviews made it out to be. The cast, a toothsome group of hardbodies, tries hard (maybe too hard). They are prettier than the BBC version.

The bad news: Some of the racier adult dialogue was cut: The aforementioned swallow joke didn't make it into the pilot. The biggest risk to an edgy show with mature content is that it gets toned down, dulling the sharp repartee. That's definitely a risk factor here; so far, the show seems to have made it to the US with its "British accent intact."

Some other weaknesses: Imitations often pale when compared to the original, and this one is no different. There's little in the way of pacing -- the show moves along in a hurried fashion, no doubt due to the 6-9 minute time difference in a 30 minute show.

Its also worth noting the differences in casting: In the BBC original, the players range from attrative (Sally) to sexy (Jane) to gorgeous (Susan). All the men are good looking, including Jeff who is cute in a Kramer kind of way ("loathsome, offensive, brute, yet I can't look away").

The NBC version is a collection of pretty hardbodies and hollywood glamourpusses. All the woman are strikingly beautiful: Jane is exotic, Sally (Sonya Walger of "Mind of the Married Man") is a stunning blond, while Susan, with her pale blue eyes and dark hair, is simply gorgeous. The men too are handsome, in a male model sort of way. If this gig doesn't work out, they can always do ads for Tommy Hilfiger. The exception is Jeff, who looks a bit like Andy Richter.

A word on the reviews: Most of the reviews I've read seem to be written by prudish 50 somethings who apparently think that all television programming should be suitable for 12 year olds. Apparently, this group of critics believes any adult content --and by that i mean mature, and not XXX -- over the airwaves is inappropriate. Since the vast majority of Americans recieve their programming evia satellite or cable, its a distinction without much of a difference. On my dish, NBC's Coupling is on channel 241, BBC's Coupling is on 135, and Sex and the City is 300.

My takeaway: I'll continue to watch it, unless it veers away from the cheeky and literate tone of the original. But to anyone else, I strongly suggest you either get BBC America, or order the first 2 seasons on DVD.

Posted at 08:20 AM in Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

There is a terrific blog covering chow in New York:

NYC EATS.

Check it out . . .

Posted at 11:36 AM in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday night is the premiere of Coupling on NBC. Do yourself a HUGE favor and set your TiVo to start recording the Beeb’s version; The first show of the season will come up in a few weeks or so.

Coupling is the latest television import from Britain, following in the footsteps of The Weakest Link, Trading Spaces, GroundForce, While You Were Out, What Not to Wear, etc. The BBC version of Coupling falls somewhere between Sex and the City and Seinfeld. Smart, sharp writing, likable cast, clever plotlines, fearless subject matters. If you meander over to Radio and Telly, you can see a plot synopsis of the first 3 seasons.

The easy -- and false -- comparison is to Friends, because the ensemble cast has 3 males and 3 female leads, most of whom have been sleeping with each other. That’s about as far as the parallels go.

To me, Friends was always a poor man's answer to Seinfeld. Friends started well, but the clingy, cloy shmaltz was far too sentimental; eventually the show became far too Hollywood, right down to its big season finale wedding cliffhanger (I mean really!).

Coupling’s subject matter covers everything from hiding pornography from your girlfriend, penile inadequacy, the melty man (impotence), breasts with brains, to vibrators. The dialogue was beyond sharp (“Some men are born lucky. Some are born very lucky. Patrick was born a tripod.”) We’ll see if that carries over.

The premiere episode of the BBC version has the following repartee in it:

Susan on Patrick: "One swallow doesn't make a summer."
Steve on Jane: "One swallow does not make her my girlfriend."

Let's see if that carries over to the States . . .

Where Seinfeld’s target audience were the smart 20- and 30-somethings, Friends targeted both younger and dumber, with the fat tail of the demographics rich with teenage girls and suburban wannabes.

Friend’s had some (but not much) in the way of balls, while Seinfeld had big, hairy cojones. The BBC version of Coupling owed much more to Seinfeld in terms of subject matter, tone and attitude. The casual use of the words “Fuck” and “Shit,” in the BBC version obviously won’t make it to NBC; I expect the “implied blow job” -- you see the recipient’s face and hear their moans during the act -- doubtfully won’t either.

The clips I’ve seen of the first NBC show follow the plotline pretty closely; I wonder how much will get lost in translation from English to American -- "two nations divided by a common language."

The one hope for the NBC show is that the orginial writer and producer (Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue) are working behind the remake. Maybe the producers will stay true to the ribald and edgy format. Already, two affiliates -- WNDU in South Bend, Indiana and KSL in (shocker!) Salt Lake City, Utah -- have announced they won’t carry the show.

Perhaps there’s some sliver of hope . . .

Posted at 08:53 AM in Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

A sitcom starring former Monty Python star John Cleese has been dropped from US television after just two episodes. Bosses at ABC television made the decision because the show, Wednesday 9.30, failed to pull in high ratings.

Cleese, 61, who played an Australian TV executive who axed shows because of low ratings, was quoted in the Daily Telegraph as saying US TV executives were "scared" by the war for ratings and had "no idea." But the comedian told BBC News Online that he was not angry at the show's demise, but that he had "laughed" when he heard the news. He said: "It's very funny that a sitcom about the insanity of American television executives should be cancelled immediately after the second episode was transmitted - it's just plain silly.

"Many good shows need time to find an audience. (Sitcom) Cheers is famous for its poor viewing figures at the start, but (NBC president) Brandon Tartikoff kept it on because he trusted it - and we all know what happened.

US drops Cleese sitcom
Tuesday, 9 April, 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1918773.stm

Posted at 01:17 AM in Humor, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Economics can, at times, be fascinating, enlightening and challenging. Other times, it's just so much bullshit. Especially in the hands of an intellectually dishonest partisan.

Inconvenient statistic? Just rationalize them away.

Here's a prime example: In "Election Economics," Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute gets out the big shovel:

When government officials asked people if they had a job last month, 137.6 million said "yes." But when employers were asked, they said they had only 129.8 million on nonfarm payrolls. There are several reasons why the number of people on business payrolls is bound to undercount the number of workers. If more people are working at home as self-employed consultants, or working through temp agencies, they would not show up as payroll employees. And "nonfarm payrolls" ignores the fact that agriculture added 155,000 workers in August. What is nonetheless quite remarkable is that these two measures of employment are now much further apart than they were back in early 2001.

Ahhhh, yes, the work-at-home-consultant. Haven't we all, at one time or another in our lives, either been, or known, a "work-at-home-consultant?"

It sounds so much better to say "work-at-home-consultant" than it does to to say "He's unemployed."

Posted at 11:03 PM in Finance, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

All I can say is "wow."

(click on the photo for a full size pop up)

Posted at 04:46 PM in Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

More amusement from Borowitz:

CALIFORNIA TO RECALL LOS ANGELES
Arianna Huffington in Bid to Become State's Largest City

Recall fever swept across the Golden State once again today as California activists pushed forward a new ballot initiative that would recall the entire city of Los Angeles.

Anti-Los Angeles sentiment has been building in California for the past several years as the city has grown steadily more annoying, but few political insiders predicted that the state's voters would go so far as to vote it off the map.

Providing fuel for the recall movement, however, was a report in last Thursday's Los Angeles Times indicating that the city of Los Angeles, while comprising far less than half of the state's population, currently consumes over eighty percent of the state's supply of botox.

Posted at 10:27 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

-Morpheus, The Matrix

Red Pill or Blue? Nader supporters chose “none of the above,” and took the Green pill instead. Like Neo in the Matrix, they now find themselves wishing they took the Blue pill.

Had they chosen differently, a lot of the issues besetting the country would likely have happened anyway. The market would have crashed. Terrorists would have attacked. Many of the corporate scandals would have erupted just the same (although I think Ken Lay of Enron would have been indicted by now). The CEOs of Tyco, Worldcom, Enron, et. al. would have been shown to be the same nefarious gang of thieves they turned out to be. (yeah, Grasso would probably have been forced out just the same).

But many other issues would be different: We probably wouldn’t be losing soldiers in Iraq on a near daily basis, and the budget deficit would likely be much smaller. From tax cuts to corporate reform to the environment to judicial appointments to the Partriot act, even to Tom Delay fooling the department of Homeland security into tracking quorum fleeing Texas Democratic state legislators, an entirely different agenda would be dominating the headlines. The world would be a very different place.

The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?

What's changed the most for the Greens is their raison d'etre. The underlying philosophical pillar supporting the entire political structure of the Greens has been demonstrated to be but a myth. That’s something plainly visible in the alternate universe we now live in. If Gore was President, the Green's could have still kept on believing their mythical premise -- their belief that there is no difference between the the two parties could have safely endured. They would have been in a position to snicker: “See, we told you so. It was a choice between tweedle dum and tweedle dee.

The end result was the same. The actual Gore administration would have been pretty similar to their imagined, Bush administration. No difference between the Red Pill or the Blue Pill.

Not only was that thesis factually wrong, the law of unintended consequences reared its head. Of course, the actual Bush administration turned out to be nothing like what a Gore presidency would likely have been. And, its only going to get more so. If you thought the two parties were the same before, consider this: now that the GOP has shifted so radically to the right, the Democrats will move to the center -- and still be called leftists. The void left in the middle, and to some degree, the middle right, might very well be filled by Democrats.

Thus, we can argue that the Naderites not only helped W become President, they helped tilt the entire political spectrum rightwards. It would be funny, if it wasn't so sad.

In the comments on 3rd Party Candidates, Mike implies a loaded question:

“Is it worse to attack the mistakes of one's 'natural' political allies, or to make excuses for the crimes of one's political 'adversaries'?”

I neither excuse the crimes of my enemies nor attack the mistakes of my allies. Indeed, I try to have neither politcal enemies or allies. Instead, I point out facts that some people find inconvenient:

It's a fact that 3rd party voters have an impact on elections; It's a fact that their impact often results in an electoral victory by the party furthest away on the politcal spectrum from the minority 3rd party. These are facts. Rail against them, tilt at windmills, blog deeop into the night; It won’t change the political reality of what 3rd parties do in America.

I do not disagree or deny with many of the accusations that have been made; they are valid and true regarding all the dirty politics and constitutional crimes that took place. But I am also aware that these things have been going on forever, and by both parties (Chicagoan Democrats can tell you what “vote early, vote often” means).

OK, I admit it -- the system has been corrupted by bad people. But that doesn’t change anything about politics in America. It's too late to go back down the rabbit hole.

You have two choices and only two choices; Pick one: The Red Pill or the Blue Pill?

"I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?" -Cypher, The Matrix

Posted at 07:27 PM in Film, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Brad DeLong has an interesting thread running on Nader over at his blog. I previously addresed this issue in "No Patience for the Ignorant."

I always feel suprised when I read naive commentary about the political system. There are lots of ways the 2004 election results could have had a different outcome. But the bottom line, in hard numbers, is that Nader took away enough votes from Gore that Bush was in a position to ascend to the presidency, if that phrase offends you less than saying he won.

I'm not talking about votes in California or NY or other blue states where 100,000 one way or another didn't matter. Nader voters created a tiny opening in Florida for James Baker & Co. to accomplish what they wanted. Without that, W is not Prez.

Nader voters can mea culpa all they want (i.e., RepentantNaderVoter.com).

We can discuss the what ifs forever:

-What if Gore ran a better campaign (his was awful);
- What if he didn't run away from Bubba;
- What if it rained more in Ohio, etc.;

All the issues raised about purged voter rolls, etc. are valid; They certainly had a decisive impact on the final outcome. But if you are looking for a proximate cause, the primary event that allowed those issues to be relevant, was that 5%+ of votes were siphoned off by a legitimate candidate with legitimate issues -- who had no chance of winning.

In a Parlimentary system, a 5% candidate can negotiate their votes to form an alliance government, so that their key issue gets supported/legislated/funded whatever

In a two party representaive electoral college system, a 3rd party candidate hurts the candidate they are closest to politically. Its simple math. Greg Palast ("Best Democracy Money Can Buy") raises many issues that helped W win. But here's a newsflash: Politics is a dirty, nasty, sharp elbowed affair that has a rich tradition of lying-cheating-stealing to win.

Don't make it right . . . but its reality none the less.

So the point that Nader shouldn't have mattered if only everyone played fair and by the rules is charming but naive.

3 conclusions:
1) Its ugly out there;
2) Actions have Consequences;
3) In the US, 3rd party candidates help their politcal opponents the most.

If you like W, thank Nader; if you don't like W, blame Nader.

Posted at 09:00 AM in Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Some interesting prose in today's NY Times:

Today paleontologists are reporting the discovery of a nearly complete skeleton of Phoberomys pattersoni, a distant relative of the guinea pig, that they can now confirm weighed about 1,500 pounds.

Phoberomys is thought to have grazed, with no violent intent, on grasses. In short, it was not an H. G. Wells rodent, like the enormous predatory rats that killed and carried off a horse in "The Food of the Gods." It was a C. S. Lewis rodent, like the large and friendly beavers of "The Chronicles of Narnia." South America was also home to a giant beaver, now extinct, but Lewis notwithstanding, there is no evidence that it was a talking beaver.

-Distinctly Big, if Extinct: The 1,500-Pound Rodent

Posted at 11:44 AM in Media, Science | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

You so rarely get to see intelligent economic and religous parody
tied up into one offensive and amusing package, but here it is:
The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus.

I'm only titillating you with the first panel;
You'll have to go to BuzzFlash to see the other 10 . . .

Thanks to Economist-to-be for the pointer

Posted at 10:37 PM in Finance, Politics, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I dont know why . . . but I want one!

Thanks to GMSV for the pointer

Posted at 05:11 PM in Humor, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Dept of Labor is giving DVDs of a documentary film they sponsored and finaced that pays tribute to 9/11.

" This film is the story of their patriotism, strength, and determination. I'm proud that the U.S. Department of Labor played a part in helping to tell it. I know you will be as inspired by their story as I am." -Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao

Is anyone else a little curious as to why the Department of Labor is now producing films, and giving away DVDs of them at taxpayer expense? Not to be a spoilsport, but I'm curious as to what this cost.

I assume Ms. Chao is smart enough not to crank out a thinly disguised re-election commercial. For a group of politicos who argued so vociferously in favor of smaller government, and railed against wasteful spending, I'm surprised to see this sort of profligacy for what is a very non essential program.

We must have reached the point where the federal deficit is just "what-the-hell" big. That's where every little 5 million dollar project becomes, what-the-hell, what's a few mill out of half a trillion?

This does not bode well . . .

The splash page is here
To order a complimentary copy of “Up From Zero” on DVD
DoL Press Release

Posted at 08:20 PM in Current Affairs, Film, Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Long Island is devoid of good BBQ joints, much less one with a smoker on premises.

So explain to me how I managed to miss this one for the past 19 years? Probably due to the unassuming store front on a main drag in Port Washington; that, or the formica tables.

Hickory's is a solid if unassuming eatery. The focus is clearly the food, and not the decor. We tasted the brisket and devoured the pulled pork. The dry rubbed baby back ribs were terrific; Don’t make the mistake we did; Slathering extra sauce over the ribs hid some of the delicious flavor of the smoker and hand rub. The home made french fries were also delicious.

The interior rated a 0 on our decor scale; Others obviously agree, as they do a huge take-out business.

If you are a homesick BBQ fan who lives on Long Island, there really is no other authentic BBQ to be found for 100s of miles.

Hickory's Wood Flame Grill
674 Port Washington Blvd
Port Washington, NY
516-883-7174
Mon-Sat 11am - 8:30pm

Thanks to Steve our kitchen contractor for the pointer!

Posted at 06:42 PM in Food and Drink | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Quote of the Day

The Information Age will not be remembered by the fun, high-flying and overwhelmingly feel-good Dot Com days, despite the ongoing presence of Dot Com-developed technologies. Rather, the Information Age will be remembered as a period when 12-year old girls from New York slums, senior citizens, and innovative college students are harrassed by greedy cartels seeking to scare their future customers into submission; when the profit goals of high-tech vendors determine how client businesses and people are organized and interact; when everyone is presumed a potential criminal until proven otherwise according to oppressive industry-defined criteria; when a once-awesome revolution in global communications became converted into a cesspool of unsolicited and offensive marketing messages; when knowing how to do something that's illegal is just as illegal as actually doing something that's illegal; when the legal protections over freedom of speech are trumped to preserve corporate secrets or marketshare while hiding vulnerabilities that endanger the public; when our lives are monitored and dissected by marketing firms looking for the best way to sell us things we don't need or want; and when technology's promise and alluring capabilities are used to surreptitiously entrap and willingly imprison members of the information-age society instead of truly empowering them.

-Richard Forno
High-Tech Heroin, 09-12-03
www.infowarrior.org

Posted at 02:11 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thought provoking article over at the Philadelphia Daily News:

Why Don't We Have Answers To These 9/11 Questions?, by William Bunch

Here are the questions; There is an expanded discussion by the author at the Philadelphia Daily News.

1. What did National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice tell President Bush about al Qaeda threats against the United States in a still-secret briefing on Aug. 6, 2001?

2. Why did Attorney General John Ashcroft and some Pentagon officials cancel commercial-airline trips before Sept. 11?

3. Who made a small fortune "shorting" airline and insurance stocks before Sept. 11?

4. Are all 19 people identified by the government as participants in the Sept. 11 attacks really the hijackers?

5. Did any of the hijackers smuggle guns on board as reported in calls from both Flight 11 and Flight 93?

6. Why did the NORAD air defense network fail to intercept the four hijacked jets?

7. Why did President Bush continue reading a story to Florida grade schoolers for nearly a half-hour during the worst attack on America in its history?

8. How did Flight 93 crash in western Pennsylvania?

9. Was Zacarias Moussaoui really "the 20th hijacker"?

10. Where are the planes' "black boxes"?

11. Why were Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials so quick to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks?

12.Why did 7 World Trade Center collapse?

13. Why did the Bush administration lie about dangerously high levels of toxins and hazardous particles after the WTC collapse?

14. Where is Dick Cheney's undisclosed location?

15. What happened to the more than $1 billion that Americans donated after the attack?

16. What was the role of Pakistan's spy agency in the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl?

17. Who killed five Americans with anthrax?

18. What happened to the probe into C-4 explosives found in a Philadelphia bus terminal in fall 2001?

19. What is in the 28 blacked-out pages of the congressional Sept. 11 report?

20. Where is Osama bin Laden?

Thanks to CalPundit for the pointer

Posted at 07:36 AM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Compare & Contrast:

Clay Shirky's Fame vs Fortune: Micropayments and Free Content

with

MIT Technology's Selling Online Content—25 Cents at a Time

Posted at 06:57 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I decided not to address the issue of 9/11 today. Several of you have asked why, and in brief, I have nothing additional to add on the subject.

Two years ago, I worked for a firm who's HQ was on the 29th floor of 2 World Trade. I fully detailed the experiences of September 11, 2001 in "A Personal Recollection From a Day of Horror."

Its still up on my mostly neglected Geocities site, along with a PostScript, which was my Coda to the entire episode, and an explanation of how that piece came to be. (There's also a several 100 emails from readers posted).

Anyone interested in my perspectives can find a bellyful there . . .

Posted at 09:55 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Quote of the day:

"If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations. No such thing as random coincidence. No such thing as small change. No such thing as too much lubricant."

-Mark Morford Recall God And Fake Orgasms, September 10, 2003 San Francisco Gate

Posted at 04:23 PM in Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Is it just me, or are people becoming even more rude than before? I may have to start a blog titled "People From Hell" (all due respects to Richard Lewis). I'm sure I can fill a few gigs worth venting about a select few of my fellow commuters on the LawnGyland Rail Road.

Tonight's entry: Heinous Nail File Woman. 

This morning, some quasi-female gets on at Albertson. She sits a but row in front of me, across the aisle, on the South side of the train. I'm looking at her diagonally from over her right shoulder.

The train pulls out of the station, and I'm buried in the Science section of the NYT. Suddenly, a rasping noise. My head pops up at the discomfort of that sound, and I look around.

Its some passenger. This particularly heinous breed of clueless, self-involved protoplasm is actually "doing her nails" on a crowded morning commuter train. I am transfixed in horror as this gnome proceeds to work each nail to a point. All the while, a fine mist of cellulose, amino acids and keratin disburses into the air for the rest of the commuters enjoyment: Breathe deep the morning air!

I am agag over this. Not agog, which I believe involves the dropping of a jaw, but rather agag, which unfortunately has bile rising in my throat.

Nail File Woman is west and south of me, all the better to observe the fine cloud of nail shavings, billowing into the air in response to each stabbing stroke of the file clutched in the harpy's hand; Human deitrius rises in a cloud against the Sunlight streaming through the train car's windows. Its just Gross . . . What a putrid way to start a morning.

Thank God I'm not the poor bastard sitting next to the troll. He's asleep, head back, mouth lolled open so as to better have his aveoli recieve her gift of nail shaving residue. I'm convinced that he will be seeing a respiratory specialist sometime soon, who will be utterly stumped by his symptoms, having never witnessed nail file poisoning before outside of a Korean manicurist. Eventually, this leads to an academic paper and a heretofore previously undiscovered disesase now known as Goldberg's Keratin Syndrome or words to that effect.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Once the troll is done with its filing procedure, out comes the nail polish -- Hmmmmm, doesn't that smell delicious at 8:12 am. I'm tempted to say something, but I find myself without voice, utterly transfixed as I am at the sheer couthlessness of this bridge underdweller.

I notice her hands -- these crude objects, misshapen, rough hewn. At that instant, it dawns on me that she has the infamous "Man Hands." The hands of a man. It's like a creature out of Greek Mythology. She was part woman, part horrible beast.

Wait a second. Look at the legs. Holy shit, is this a post-operative tranny? Im not sure, since I cannot get a good look at his/her face. (Probably just as well).

I watch the polish go on . . . This must be a man . . . Would any Woman ever so unceremoniously slap THAT ugly a shade of dusty rose on their nails? Either shes a man or a complete idiot or both, 'though the fact that shes actually doing her nails on a commuter train certainly lends evidence to the middle selection at the least. Get Bravo ont he phone -- its time for "Queer Eye for the Gross Gal."

She finishes up, puts the polish away as we pull into Jamaica. Thankfully, she departs.

Okay, lets total up her score:

Nail File Woman

 

Offensiveness	8
Self Involvement	7
Classification	Single Middle Aged Woman
Suggested Punishment	denailification
Special Comments:	"She's a MAN, baby!"

Update:  September 10, 2003

Now that this is here, if anyone ever comes across this heinous creature on a commuter line (or Bus or Airplane), you can say to them "Hey, I read all about you on the internet -- people who do their nails in public. They say you are a specially self involved breed of sociopath, sexually frustrated, overly dependent on sex toys which use batteries. Also, the web page said that it is unhealthy to breath in your filing dust. So please stop."

Posted at 10:41 PM in LIRR Commuter From Hell | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Lawyers, Guns and Money

Well, I went home with the waitress
The way I always do
How was I to know
She was with the Russians, too

I was gambling in Havana
I took a little risk
Send lawyers, guns and money
Dad, get me out of this

I'm the innocent bystander
Somehow I got stuck
Between the rock and the hard place
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck
And I'm down on my luck

Now I'm hiding in Honduras
I'm a desperate man
Send lawyers, guns and money
The shit has hit the fan

Send lawyers, guns and money...

Posted at 03:45 PM in Music | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Skittlebrau: As with most crazy ideas, the Simpsons thought of it first:

Homer: "I'm feelin' low, Apu. You got any of that beer that has candy floating in it, you know, Skittlebrau?"

Apu: "Such a product does not exist, sir! You must have dreamed it."

Homer: "Oh. Well then just gimme a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles."

And so with that, the Skittlebrau project was born. My years of drinking training had led up to this moment, the first scientific Skittlebrau investigation. I realized that for such a daring experiment, I would have to do the drink tasting myself. Crazy you say? Crazy like a fox (yeah, I don't know what that is supposed to mean either) . . .

Check out the full line of Skittlebrau products here.

If the original is not working, try Google's cached version.

Pointer via Good Morning Silicon Valley

Posted at 02:09 PM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack

After a long rainy season, Summer is here! (ignore that its after Labor Day)

That's right, its going to be sunny and in the 80s this whole weekend -- I'm off to the beach -- see ya Monday!

Posted at 07:51 AM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

There is a C-level pundit I am familiar with. He has been engaging in some pretty pathetic behavior, I suspect, for the purpose of promoting his upcoming (and embarrassingly titled) book.

I was thinking of denuding this "author" of his name, like the Shrill Blond Harpy before him.

However, I cannot seem to locate his book, at either Amazon or B&N. And I suspect that denuding him of name would generate more publicity than he's worth. Perhaps he can't find a publisher.

In other words, he's not known enough to be "renamed." So I will ignore him for now.

Lets see how that works out for the time being.

Posted at 07:37 AM in Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Are you a:

Isolationist
Liberal
Realist
Neoconservative

Take the Christian Science Monitor Neocon quiz!

Turns out I'm a Realist . . . but you knew that already . . .

Posted at 01:25 PM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

If this is true, its deeply disturbing. I recall seeing that live on TV, and feeling a welling of "pride" in my heart for our US military.

Now, I feel manipulated.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

April 9th: One of the "most memorable images of the war" is created when U.S. troops pull down the statue of Saddam Hussein in Fardus Square. Oddly enough... a photograph is taken of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to one of Chalabi's militia members... he is near Fardus Square to greet the Marines. How many members of the pro-American Free Iraqi Forces were in and around Fardus Square as the statue of Saddam came tumbling down?

The up close action video of the statue being destroyed is broadcast around the world as proof of a massive uprising. Still photos grabbed off of Reuters show a long-shot view of Fardus Square... it's empty save for the U.S. Marines, the International Press, and a small handful of Iraqis. There are no more than 200 people in the square at best. The Marines have the square sealed off and guarded by tanks. A U.S. mechanized vehicle is used to pull the statue of Saddam from it's base. The entire event is being hailed as an equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling... but even a quick glance of the long-shot photo shows something more akin to a carefully constructed media event tailored for the television cameras.

Centre for Research on Globalisation: The pulling down of the Statue was a staged media event

Posted at 11:27 AM in Media, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Quote of the day:

"What makes the Judge Roy Moore’s Rock story so bizarre, though, is that the Justice’s chosen symbol completely subverts the point it is supposed to make. Of the Bible’s Ten Commandments, only two (VI and VIII) proscribe activities that secular law regards as criminal. It is not illegal in the United States to: have another god before Yahweh; manufacture graven images (for instance, pieces of granite with Scriptural texts carved on them); say “God damn it” when you spill the ketchup; go to “Terminator 3” on Sunday; abuse (verbally) your parents; engage in extramarital sex; or (except under oath) tell untrue stories about your neighbor. And if it were a crime to covet the ass parked in the driveway of the people next door, it is hard to know how capitalism would survive. Coveting asses is the whole basis of our prosperity.

-Louis Menand, MOSES IN ALABAMA
New Yorker Magazine, 2003-09-08

Posted at 09:06 PM in Politics, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

OK, this is the last one, I swear. First Fox, then Babs, now Fox again.

In the Fox v Franken case (discussed here and here), I gave the Fox legal department the benefit of the doubt. I assumed that Fox executives were merely acquiescing to Bill O'Reilly's complaints, in an attempt to assuage their talent's bruised ego.

But it turns out that Fox v Franken was the SECOND recent big lawsuit that the Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate 1) got embarrassed in court over something stupid; 2) incidentally promoted what they sought to suppress.

It seems there was a previous imbroglio over "Faux News" T-shirts: At several Austin, Texas anti-war protests, there was some anger at Fox News for their rather pro-war stance. Some clever entrepreneurs decided to print t-shirts capitalizing on the sentiment.

Thus was born "Faux News" T-shirts.

According to the Austin Chronicle, “the T-shirts parody both Fox News' logo and its laughable "We Report, You Decide" motto as "We Distort, You Comply." A companion T-shirt featured an Aryan boy wearing a Nazi Brown Shirt uniform with the motto "O'Reilly Youth," referring to Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly.

The "radicals" behind these t-shirts is a group called agitproperties.com. The shirts and agitproperties were on their way to dying a normal death, as interest faded in the shirts post-war; Their website barely managed a measly 300 hits per day.

Then the rocket science crew in the Fox legal department sent a cease and-desist order to Agitproperties. Predictably, sales have boomed. From the Austin Chronicle:

"Sales had been depressed lately, and then Fox sent the cease-and desist letter." That led to press coverage, first by the British Register newspaper. "We went from 300 hits a day on our Web site [ www.agitproperties.com ] to 41,000 a day," [The T-shirt's Austin creator, Richard] Luckett said. "My Internet service provider shut me down [for using too much bandwidth], but we got our own server."

That was followed by more media coverage from Salon.com, Fox competitor MSNBC, and numerous other sources. "We're getting support from all over the world," says Luckett. "And orders ... I can't tell you how many we've sold, but it's been phenomenal. I go to the post office twice a day with huge shipments. The post office hates me."

The American Civil Liberties Union took Agitproperties' case, no doubt armed with the extensive case law that protects parody.
--Fox News Fauxs Up, Austin Chronicle

At a certain point, you just have to shake your head in utter astonishment. I mean, how many times will these guys make the same mistake? The Fox v Franken case came less than 60 days after the Fox v Faux T-shirt case!

Is there such a thing as to dumb to live? You decide.

Posted at 11:33 PM in Current Affairs, Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

My friend (and college roomate) Mike Barrett notes that on Sunday, September 21, both Paul Wolfowitz and the Dalai Lama will be in NYC around the same time;

Paul Wolfowitz on Sunday, September 21 at 3 P.M. will be at the Tishman Auditorium, at The New School University (First come, first seated). The Dalai Lama on that same Sunday, September 21 at Noon will be in Central Park.

Mike points out that with these two polar opposites in such close proximity, "if they meet, it might result in the annihilation of the universe as we know it."

Posted at 02:34 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I saw something this AM that I had never witnessed before (note that I couldn't figure out what category to file this under, so I used travel, which makes a little sense):

Coming out of the 7 train in Grand Central Station, I approach the long escalator which travels the equivalent of 2 floors up to the main sub floor, which is below the Grand Station main floor. (For those of you unfamiliar with NYC and its environs, I take a suburban commuter train to Hunter's Point Station -- just outside of Manhattan -- and then transfer to a subway for a 2 stop, 5 minute commute into Manhattan).

As I approach the escaltor, I spot an older woman (aged 60-70), accompanied by a younger man (30-40) who may have been her son. They both looked Indian/Pakastani/Middle Eastern-ish to my ignorant, poorly traveled eye. She's wearing a white shawl, which was draped over her shoulders, and covered her head, but not her face. She was gingerly trying to step onto the escalator, but simply couldn't work up the nerve. She kept grabbing the moving handrail prematurely, pulling her off balance before she was ready to take that 1st step. (As this unfolded, the departing subway managed to crowd politely stepped around them).

There was something about this scene that was tender and compelling. I watched for about 30 seconds, and it dawned on me that this woman had probably never been on an escalator before. Not knowing whether an offer of assitance would help or be off-putting, I stepped around them, and walked up the escalator.

But this was fascinating to see.

Posted at 11:26 AM in Travel | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

File this under "When will they learn, part II" (Subcategory: Celebrity Stupidity)

A few short weeks ago, I railed in this very space against Fox's lawsuit versus Al Franken. That case, which has since become widely known as the "Fair and Balanced" lawsuit, had the perverse effect of catapulting Franken's book to the top of Amamzon's best seller list.

To add insult to injury, the Federal Judge on the case not only tossed the suit, he mocked Fox for being on the wrong side of a 1st Amendment case.

Fox execs have since "leaked" that they knew the case was a loser from the gitgo, but they were placating their signature star, Bill O'Reilly. It turns out that Franken had gotten the better of O'Reilly at some bookfair broadcast on C-Span. Wittle Billy's feewings were huwt, and daddy Fox was twying to make it awl better.

The Moral of that situation made it clear (at least to any one with half a brain) that in a modern, networked society, censorship works not to suppress an "undesirable" item, but rather operates to generate incidental exposure and publicity, thus promoting the object of the censorship.

Along that vein, I recently became aware of a new litigation very much along the same lines of Fox vs Franken. It seems that Barbra Streisand, well known for espousing an environmental agenda, sued the California Coastal Records Project, a "landmark photographic database of over 12,000 frames of the California coast shot since 2002."

Streisand was asserting that the inclusion of a single frame that includes her blufftop Malibu estate invades her privacy, violates the "anti-paparazzi" statute, seeks to profit from her name, and threatens her security.

The irony of this, is that had she never sued, the unlabeled photograph of home would have been one of 12,000, and no one would have been any the wiser. Prior to the lawsuit, her name was nowhere to be found on the California Coastal Records Project. Her home would have merely been "3850.jpg;" -- No name, just one photo out of 12,000. Instead, the story has been picked up by the media, and her home has been identified, and reposted around the internet. Kinda like this -

Barbara Streisand's House:

Photo Courtesy of http://www.californiacoastline.org/

Folks, can you see the delicious irony here? Fox and Streisand, hardly political bedfellows, find themselves lumped together with the radical islamic clerics who sought to supress Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses --and incidentally made it one of the most purchased, least read books in the history of movable type.

This is Public Relations 101, People!

I'm proud to display and identify Streisand's home; Based upon her behavior, its obviously what Babs wants -- more publicity for the mansion -- and as someone who likes her music, I'm only too happy to oblice her. I suggest that anyone with a blog post and repost this photo.

In a modern society, if you want something to go away, IGNORE IT. Making loud, whiny complaints -- and that especially includes litigation -- only draws attention to the item you want suppressed. The supresser functions as a publicity machine for the item sought to be supressed.

When will these people ever learn?

UPDATE: DECEMBER 3 2003 -- A Los Angeles judge today threw out Barbra Streisand's $10 million suit against a California environmental group that posted a photo of the singer's cliffside Malibu estate on its web site. In a 46-page tentative decision, the summary from which you'll find below, Superior Court Judge Allan J. Goodman declared that the aerial photo's publication was protected by the First Amendment and, to boot, was not "highly offensive to a reasonable person." Swatting away Streisand's claim that her privacy was violated, Goodman stated, "As a matter of law, there is nothing private or personal" about the photo, a copy of which you'll find at right. Making matters worse for the performer, Goodman indicated that he is ready to award legal fees to the California Coastal Records Project and the group's founder Kenneth Adelman, who snapped the image which so offended Babs.

Source: Smoking Gun, via Stare

Recent article:
Streisand goes coastal over Web photo effort
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/08/31/MN305247.DTL

Posted at 10:53 PM in Current Affairs, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack