50 years of art. 25 books. Two books per year for 12 1/2 years

I was an enormous Charles Schultz fan growing up; had a huge Peanuts collection that seems to have gotten misplaced over the years. Now I can replace the entire lot collection in one fell swoop: The Complete Peanuts

From the publisher:

This first volume, covering the first two and a quarter years of the strip, will be of particular fascination to PEANUTS aficionados worldwide: Although there have been literally hundreds of PEANUTS books published, many of the strips from the series’ first two or three years have never been collected before — in large part because they showed a young Schulz working out the kinks in his new strip and include some characterizations and designs that are quite different from the cast we’re all familiar with. (Among other things, three major cast members — Schroeder, Lucy, and Linus — initially show up as infants and only “grow” into their final “mature” selves as the months go by. Even Snoopy debuts as a puppy!) Thus THE COMPLETE PEANUTS offers a unique chance to see a master of the artform refine his skills and solidify his universe, day by day, week by week, month by month.

PEANUTS is one of the most successful comic strips in the history of the medium as well as one of the most acclaimed strips ever published. (In 1999, a jury of comics scholars and critics voted it the 2nd greatest comic strip of the 20th century — second only to George Herriman’s Krazy Kat, a verdict Schulz himself cheerfully endorsed.) Charles Schulz’s characters — Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, and so many more — have become American icons. A poll in 2002 found Peanuts to be one of the most recognizable cartoon properties in the world, recognized by 94 percent of the total U.S. consumer market and a close second only to Mickey Mouse (96 percent), and higher than other familiar cartoon properties like Spider-Man (75 percent) or the Simpsons (87 percent). In T.V. Guide’s “Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All-Time” list, Charlie Brown and Snoopy ranked #8.

Sign me up!

via linkfilter

Posted at 07:02 AM in Books, Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Mother of all Google searches: we+know+he+has+weapons+of+mass+destruction

via Tom Tomorrow

Posted at 12:46 AM in Current Affairs, Media, Politics, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

This came out one year ago today. It was very much overlooked. IMHO, its much more significant in the "war against terrorism" than the goings on in Iraq.

(CNN) – The following is a partial transcript of Thursday's court hearing in which Richard Reid was sentenced to life in prison for his confessed plan to try and blow up a jetliner with explosives he had hidden in his shoes. The exchange is between Reid and Judge William Young.

RICHARD REID: I start by praising Allah because life today is no good. I bear witness to this and he alone is right to be worshiped. And I bear witness that Muhammad Sa'laat Alayhi as-Salaam is his last prophet and messenger who is sent to all of mankind for guidance, with the sound guidance for everyone.

Concerning what the Court said? I admit, I admit my actions and I further, I further state that I done them.

JUDGE WILLIAM YOUNG: I didn't hear the last. I admit my actions and then what did you say?

REID: I further admit my allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the religion of Allah. With regards to what you said about killing innocent people, I will say one thing. Your government has killed 2 million children in Iraq. If you want to think about something, against 2 million, I don't see no comparison.

Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons. I don't know, see what I done as being equal to rape and to torture, or to the deaths of the two million children in Iraq.

So, for this reason, I think I ought not apologize for my actions. I am at war with your country. I'm at war with them not for personal reasons but because they have murdered more than, so many children and they have oppressed my religion and they have oppressed people for no reason except that they say we believe in Allah.

This is the only reason that America sponsors Egypt. It's the only reason they sponsor Turkey. It's the only reason they back Israel.

As far as the sentence is concerned, it's in your hand. Only really it is not even in your hand. It's in Allah's hand. I put my trust in Allah totally and I know that he will give victory to his religion. And he will give victory to those who believe and he will destroy those who wish to oppress the people because they believe in Allah.

So you can judge and I leave you to judge. And I don't mind. This is all I have to say. And I bear witness to Muhammad this is Allah's message.

YOUNG: Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you.

On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive one with the other. That's 80 years.

On Count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you on each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2 million.

The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines.

The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.

The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need not go any further.

This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and a just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this to you.

We are not afraid of any of your terrorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here. And I say that to everyone with the utmost respect.

Here in this court where we deal with individuals as individuals, and care for individuals as individuals, as human beings we reach out for justice.

You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist.

And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists.

We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.

So war talk is way out of line in this court. You're a big fellow. But you're not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist. A species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders.

In a very real sense Trooper Santiago had it right when first you were taken off that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and you said you're no big deal. You're no big deal.

What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing.

And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you. But as I search this entire record it comes as close to understanding as I know.

It seems to me you hate the one thing that to us is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose.

Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely.

It is for freedom's seek that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their, their representation of you before other judges. We care about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties.

Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms.

Look around this courtroom. Mark it well. The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow it will be forgotten. But this, however, will long endure. Here, in this courtroom, and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done.

The very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged, and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.

See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag still stands for freedom. You know it always will. Custody, Mr. Officer. Stand him down.

REID: That flag will be brought down on the Day of Judgment and you will see in front of your Lord and my Lord and then we will know. (Whereupon the defendant was removed from the courtroom.)

YOUNG: We'll recess. All rise.

Source:
Reid: 'I am at war with your country'
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/31/reid.transcript/

Friday, January 31, 2003 Posted: 11:10 AM EST (1610 GMT)

Posted at 12:05 AM in Current Affairs, Media, War/Defense | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

We mentioned last week that it was only a matter of time before Google came ahuntin some Booble.

Now we find out, courtsey of our pals over at Adult Video News that a Cease & Desist letter has already hit the Boobs at Booble.

If you want any Booble swag,
better hurry before its all gone. I figure a t-shirt will sell for $100 on eBay the day the litigation is announced. (I'll take an XL, please)

via Booble swag boing boing

Posted at 06:20 PM in Humor, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Here's an odd little site: Googobits.


Its essentially an organized collection of obituaries sourced via Google.

Odd . . . and yet, strangely compelling.

Posted at 07:31 AM in Current Affairs, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Look here: I don't do Friday cat blogging. With all due respect to Kevin Drum, this is simply not my gig.

I like cats; I love dogs (especially big hairy drooly affectionate ones ones). Consider this my one shot at FCB.

Posted at 06:03 AM in Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

From the Korean firm Nextway, comes the "Digital Dream Device:"

"Mr D-Cube, I have someone from Apple's legal department on line 2 . . "

via Gizmodo

Posted at 06:56 AM in Design, Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

From the deliciously nasty new blog Wonkette:

"Expect a "mock-free zone" around President Bush and "reasoned discourse" from Dennis Miller's new show tonight. But don't look for too many celebrities. Says Miller, "I don't care what Gary Coleman thinks about Afghanistan, which to me was the flaw of 'Politically Correct' [sic] towards the end."

He's sooooooo right. Because who cares what some washed-up comic actor with no political background thinks about poli- . . . er. . .huh.

No, we do not begrudge Miller his shot at fame. If Paris Hilton can become a household name by being filmed performing oral sex on an lackadaisical ex-jock, why shouldn't Dennis?"

The mouth-watering irony is that the king of ascerbic asides is now a jumbo partisan target for acid throwers of all stripes. So that's what they mean by blowhard . . .


Wonkette via Fimoculous


UPDATE: 1/28/04 11:30pm
Just came across this F.A.I.R. notice: "Conflict at CNBC's New Dennis Miller Show - Producer works for California governor"

Posted at 06:49 PM in Media, Politics, Weblogs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

If you hate these goddamned trucks and the morons who drive them, this ad ad is for you.  

Over a LOUD guitar riff, a Hummer is seen driving across some wilderness. Its "virtues" are ticked off across the screen. (BTW, the music rocks -- who is this band?)  
 
Not safe for SUV owners . . .

via adrants

Posted at 05:18 PM in Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Fascinating piece of work from Harpers, circa 1872. (Any of this sound thoroughly modern?):

"Among the damaging documents and letters found in the private cabinet of the emperor after the flight of the imperial family from France, and published, with numerous others, in the favorite French form of the brochure (pamphlet), was a plan for the “organization of the press for the approaching elections.”

It is an elaborate paper, drawn up by one of the heads of the Ministry of the Interior, in the division of the Press, and explains with wonderful frankness the modus operandi of press management under the empire. It gives an exact idea of the manner and the system by which the Emperor Napoleon managed universal suffrage, and prepared public opinion through the medium of his subsidized presses in Paris and the provinces. The fact of the existence of such a system, and of a department under the Ministry of the Interior charged with the manipulation of the French press, had long been notorious; but the perfection of the machinery and its results were first brought to light by this unexpected revelation, which is curious as well as instructive.

In the plainest possible language, and with a startling display of facts and figures, the chief of the Press Bureau shows how, where, and when imperial “inspiration” is made to manufacture public opinion.

He commences by saying that in view of the approaching elections the thorough organization of the press became a pressing necessity. The time was short, the duty urgent, especially in the departments. There the government agents, with few exceptions, had made no preparations to secure the public suffrage either in the prefectures or in the ministerial bureaus, while the opposition, by an opposite play, was manifesting an extraordinary activity for its effective organization by the establishment of new opposition journals and the improvement of the old ones. There is, therefore, a vital necessity, says the minister, for the entire reorganization of the press of the departments.

With these preliminary remarks he submits the report of the chief of the Bureau of the Departments, or, as we should phrase it, the country press, explaining in detail the progress already made and the steps to be taken, which he sums up as follows: . . .

Source:
Press Management Under the Empire: a Leaf from the Private Papers of Napoleon III
How “imperial ‘inspiration’ was made to manufacture public opinion”
By Edwin De Leon
Originally from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 45, iss. 268, September, 1872.
http://www.hedtk.com/harpers.org/PressManagement.html

Posted on Monday, January 26, 2004

Posted at 05:09 PM in Current Affairs, Media, Politics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack