Smuggler's Run

I'm really interested in who sold what to Iraq, so I'm glad someone's covering this story in the mainstream press. When the dust clears in Iraq, we'll see who violated the embargo. My guess...everybody.

What the Libertarians have to say about the war

I find the Libertarian Party endlessly fascinating and frustrating. Their website is a refreshing change of pace from the major party sites and offers interesting, sometimes contrarian, libertarian views on Gulf War II. Needless to say, most of them are concerned about the USA Patriot Act and its ilk, as well they should be. Here's what former presidential candidate Harry Browne had to say about our current situation:

"We know that politicians lie. They've lied to us about Social Security, about the projected costs of Medicare, about surpluses that never existed, about the Gulf War, about enough matters to fill an encyclopedia.

The fact that we're now talking about national security shouldn't cause us to have more faith in government and politicians. Quite the contrary: because it's our lives that are at stake, we should be more skeptical then ever.

[I am sometimes asked]: "But what would you do about Iraq? Would you trust a known liar like Saddam Hussein? How would you get Hussein to disarm?"

I wouldn't even try -- anymore than I'd try to disarm Israel or China or Pakistan or India or Korea. Not one of those countries, including Iraq, has tried to attack us.

America's entry into World War I "to make the world safe for democracy" caused the war to last an extra year, allowed the communists to come to power in Russia, allowed Adolf Hitler to come to power in Germany, and laid the groundwork for World War II.

Our government's attempts to fight communism or spread democracy around the world have caused millions of innocent people to die in Iran, Indonesia, Iraq, Panama, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Grenada, Cambodia, and many other countries. All the good intentions in the world are little comfort to the people buried prematurely all over the globe.

What I want is for our government:

To quit pretending it knows what's best for other countries.

To quit inciting terrorists by backing coups and dictatorial regimes.

To quit generating hostility by bribing foreign governments to allow American troops to be stationed in a hundred countries.

To quit giving our money to foreign countries -- no matter whose side they're on."


I don't agree with all of his statements, but it's interesting to see fierce conservative opposition.

DJ shift...and Girls Gone Wild fodder!

A fellow DJ and Film Thing co-host, Allison Taffel, is in a sorority. She spent a great part of my DJ shift telling me that the sorority girls like to shower together and walk around topless. I was, you know, sorta interested. The maintenance guys set up the shower stall doors so that you can't see out, but you can see in. So there's that, too. I always thought that shit was a product of Hollywood and overblown adolescent imaginations. Now my life has meaning.

Here's what I played on my radio show (Mon. 12-2PM Eastern on WUOG, 90.5FM):

Gary Wilson--Forgotten Lovers (awesome reissue!)

Minus the Bear--Monkey! Knife! Fight!
Western Keys--Gettin' Sick
Herman Dune--Shakespeare and North Hoyne

Nobukazu Takemura--Lost Treasure (4th Version)
Vitesse--Small Gift

Happy Ashtray--Drawn Caravan
Spouse--Whatever Happened to Pete Shelley?
Sci-Fu--India Is

Chris Whitley (blah!)--Bliss To Breakdown (demo)...blech!
Dirty Poodle--My Little Van
Grandaddy--AM 180
New Pornographers--Fake Headlines

Bardo Pond--Two Planes
Low--Sunflower

Swearing At Motorists--Over the Middle Bridge
Snowglobe--Beautiful
Fred Scotti--Tarantella Guappa
Elvis Costello and the Attractions--Watch Your Step

Beans--Alpaca Llama

Wild Weekend...Teengenerate-style
Wow! Busy weekend... I went and practiced with Allison and Daniel (Dan?) and it was fun, though I think they were overly embarrassed about their music. They kept calling it "stupid" and "sucky" and stuff, but I thought it sounded pretty good. It was fun to get back behind a drumset and play with other people, not just myself (wait a second...I meant...forget it). For some reason, I felt very Mick Fleetwood tonight. I couldn't get out of this Fleetwood Mac beat rut. It's kind of hard to explain, really. I just realized that I have no idea what their band is called.

Courtnie really knows how to wield a pickaxe. Seriously. We spent a good portion of the weekend taking down our old, mismatched shrubs in the front yard and getting ready for a massive overhaul of our house's floral facade. Good times, but I'm sore. Courtnie did a lot of work. I picked me a good wife, I tell you. Among the plants purchased: jasmine, hawthorne, pampas grass, forsythia, a creeping vine of some sort, something with an "a."
I can't wait to get my PhD in Horticulture!

Watched Six Feet Under. Swept out the bathroom. Helped Mark move a halfway assembled computer desk. The usual, you know? Went to a great party at Scott Sosebee et al.'s place. Didn't get drunk, much to my eternal shame. Courtnie did! She conked out like a light when we went home...bet you can guess who didn't get laid that night! Haha...

Let's see...ate good bad Mexican food at Mexicali Grille. We both got margaritas, mine with salt. I think I get the margaritas just for the salt, actually. Also indulged in selections from McDonalds' $1 Menu.

We bought a hatchet.

Does anybody remember Aladdin's Castle? What happened to the American arcade? It's in sad shape, all light gun games, extreme sports bullshit, and fighting games, which are invariably better on a home console and not lorded over by slimy Marvel Vs. Capcom warlords who will defeat you in less than 10 seconds. Games at yuppie places like Dave and Busters cost $1 a game, at least. That's highway robbery. 720, where are you? We need you now more than ever!

Here's who I played on my experimental radio show, Crisis!, on WUOG, 90.5 FM, in a sort of an order:

The Brotzmann Group
The Dead C
Tomas Jirku
A whole lot of Negativland including a bunch of "Crosley Bendix" stuff
Marc Tremblay
Yves Daoust
Wendy Carlos
Randall Smith

Of course, the turntables weren't working at the station on the one fucking night I decide to do an all-vinyl show. I hauled a ton of records up here for no reason. On that note, I'm out.

Oh, yeah, at the prodding of David McCarty and others, I'm starting to write headings for each post...with great consternation. I hate having to be cute and punny all of the time.

I'm listening to Eddy Grant's first band, the Equals, right now. They're pretty fucking good, I must say. I'm trying to find the Marmalade album, Reflections of Marmalade, to no avail. My sister was supposed to get me a turntable but she forgot, just like my dad forgot about the picnic table he was supposed to get me two years ago. What a bunch of jerks!

I played Zoo Tycoon yesterday and I loved it. We made a grizzly bear named Smokey, and we kept putting the zoo visitors in the cage with him so we could watch Smokey chase them around. He wasn't a very happy bear, though, and the government shut us down. Oh, well. I want to play it again right now, even if it is sort of a kid's game.

Oh, yeah! This is good news: Richard Perle resigned his chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board. He's still on it...along with Henry Kissinger and Newt Gingrich. Still, it's something.

I'm so sick of Ann Coulter and Andrew Sullivan (who has completely discredited himself as a serious thinker as of late with his constant "you're with us or against us" bashing of the media) lately that I'll let Spinsanity do the talking for me:

"While Coulter and Sullivan focus on different targets (the New York Times and the British Broadcasting Company, respectively), their arguments are strikingly similar. Both invent dark pro-Saddam motivations and absurdly ascribe them to entire media institutions - Sullivan goes so far as to suggest that the BBC is trying to "make the war more bloody" - based upon a series of suspect assertions and leaps of logic. It's fine to criticize media outlets for being unreasonably critical of the US in their news reporting, but to attack them as enemy sympathizers in wartime for such coverage is extremely inflammatory."

Can't blog. Playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. So beautiful.

Of course he did.

For all the talk of this being a "web war," I don't seem to be getting all of the information that I want when I want it. I have access to computers at work and at home, but the TV (and the print media the next day) seems to be the best, albeit disorganized and biased, source of up-to-the-minute information. I think we're seeing the limitations of the "new media" as it butts up against the precarious and dangerous confines of the so-called fog of war. There are just certain things that are unknowable, it seems, until the shit clears. I guess I was functioning under the assumptions of technology-juiced hubris in thinking that I would have the minute details of this war immediately at my beck-and-call.

A link to a download of REM's protest song, "The Last Straw." It's pretty good, and a lot more personal and less overt than most of the protest songs out there, which read more like chronologies of events or litanies of complaints than actual messages. I like it. In fact, the song, despite some very-in-the-background keyboard flourishes, sounds pretty old-school to me.

I ate two Krystal Chiks for lunch...mmmm. I couldn't help myself.

In case you Homestarrunner fans out there don't know it, here's the Mellow Mushroom site, done by the same folks. Not as funny, but pretty cool for a restaurant website.

Did I mention that I love Krystal Chiks?

Though I disagree with their assessments of Woody Allen (no funny movies since Love and Death?!?) and others, the New York Press' #1 Most Loathsome Person in New York for 2003 is Keith Blanchard, publisher of Maxim, and what they say about him is absolutely hilarious. It reminds me of the glory days of Melody Maker and NME...

1 Keith Blanchard, Editor, Maxim
The smarmy doughboy of the lad mags is still under the illusion that Maxim is the first tits and gadgets magazine ever. Honestly thinks his glossy is a populist organ of substance and not a sheep-herding, post-frat social crutch for drooling, entry-level, corporate cogs. Once disparaged lengthy articles as "rants" aimed at "cranky retirees" and claims his monthly catalogue is the brave, new face of journalism. If so, then journalism exists to give cubicle dudes whack-off material for when their web use is being monitored.

More on Richard Perle, from the Right's favorite punching bag of late, Eric Alterman. Choice quote:

Testifying before Congress in 2000, Perle insisted, "We need not send substantial ground forces into Iraq when patriotic Iraqis are willing to fight to liberate their country." Last year, he conceded that the US troop requirement might go as high as 40,000.


No wonder the military guys are so pissed off at the civilian war planners.

Does anybody actually believe Richard "Mr. Makeup" Perle's claims that the democratization of Iraq will lead to a golden age of democracy in the Middle East? In Iraq maybe, but in Syria? Yemen? It's Cold War thinking. Anyway, after the "Hersh is a terrorist" incident the guy should have zero credibility...now this, from the New York Times:

"As chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle has been an influential architect of the Bush administration's Iraq policy and war plans. At the same time, it turns out, he has signed on to represent a major telecommunications company that has a strong financial interest in lobbying the Defense Department. This is a conflict pure and simple, and Mr. Perle should immediately drop one of his two roles.

Mr. Perle, who served as an assistant defense secretary under President Reagan, is indisputably an important part of the current Defense Department. His position as chairman of the policy board, to which he was appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, is unpaid. But he is nevertheless considered a "special government employee" and is subject to federal ethics rules.

Global Crossing, the telecommunications giant, is now in bankruptcy. It has retained Mr. Perle to help persuade the Defense Department to drop its objections to a proposed sale to foreign buyers in Hong Kong and Singapore. The deal has been opposed by the Defense Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a threat to national security because it would put Global Crossing's fiber optics network, which is used by the United States government, under foreign control. Mr. Perle stands to make up to $725,000 from his work for Global Crossing.

Mr. Perle insists that there is no conflict in his case because the Defense Policy Board is not involved in approving the Global Crossing deal. But that is not the right test. Global Crossing's fee is clearly payment, at least in part, for the influence Mr. Perle exerts through his Defense Department post, and federal ethics rules prohibit using public office for private gain. To remove the conflict, Mr. Perle will have to choose between the gain and the office."


Maureen Dowd, in another NY Times article, notes that last "Wednesday he participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call to advise clients on investment opportunities arising from the war, titled, "Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"

What a piece of shit.

If you want me to buy your penis enhancement cream, don't send me an email entitled "Stime for a hefty dongrf."

Salon has a series of scary pieces about society's (and the US government's) increasing need to suppress dissenting and unpopular speech. It's starting to get really scary in this country. I'm kind of glad I'm in our little liberal oasis in the South...Athens, GA. Things aren't that great here sometimes, but compared to other places in the South...sheesh!

Dusted Magazine has gone ahead with daily updates! Take that, Pitchfork! You want some more, CMJ?!

I've lost, like, six posts today, all filled with staggering wit and insights. One of them was my mile long Oscar roundup. I don't feel like typing it again, but I'll say this about the Oscars:
--Adrien Brody is the new golden boy, and I'm glad The Pianist won a bunch of stuff.
--Steve Martin is pretty hilarious, I think.
--It seemed hypocritical for liberal Hollywood to boo Michael Moore for saying what most of them probably felt.
--I liked the toned down, and subsequently shorter, awards ceremony.
--Mark and I tied at 15 apiece in our Oscar pool, but he got all of the weird live-action short film et al. categories where everyone picks whichever name seems the funniest. He made a complete sweep of those categories! He also made two batches of Pizza Rolls for us to eat, constantly reminding Renee and I that they're "America's Funtime Finger Food."

What the hell is up with Blogger?

Mary, a coworker, watched a movie last night called the Harrad Experiment featuring Tippi Hedren, a young Don Johnson, and an "exposed" (as in full frontal) Bruno Kirby. She said it was awful, except for Don Johnson's "improbable pit stains." Ha! I think that's going to be the title of my next record.

It looks like Halliburton got a post-war contract. Surprise, surprise!

I forgot to wear deodorant today. And of course it's the hottest day of the year so far. I am an idiot.

Notice the thinly veiled derision in the repeated use of the word "civilian" in reference to Rumsfeld and his "civilian aides" in this article. It really stood out when I read it.

Here's the playlist for this week's radio show on WUOG, 90.5FM. Remember that we're webcasting again, and I'm on every Monday from 12:30-2PM Eastern! I thought it was a pretty nice show...not outstanding, but plenty nice. Here goes:

Paul Brill--Macon
Songs:Ohia--Farewell Transmission
Mick Turner--Moth #2-3

Pilot to Gunner (blech!)--We Got Games At High Speeds
Faris Nourallah--A Famous Life
Woven Hand--Glass Eye

Vitesse--Just For A Night
New Order--Every Second Counts
Lyrics Born--One Session Radio

Dromedary--Ukranian Stomp
Ride--Leave Them All Behind

Mellow--Another Mellow Winter
Flaming Lips--In the Morning of the Magicians
Mercury Rev--Tonite It Shows

Built to Spill--Car (live...by request!)
Swearing At Motorists--Talking Pictures (for Honey Plotte!)
Angels of Light--My True Body


Thanks for listening!

Wow. Lots of stuff to talk about...

On the war front: things aren't going as well as they seemed at first. To be honest, I was starting to believe that we'd just waltz into Baghdad.

On the house party we went to in Auburn: Your American Math was great: a lot more rocking than usual, probably because of the house party vibe. Todd and I discussed that, thankfully, we never lived in a "house party" house, you know, no furniture, a fucked up bathroom, a derelict kitchen, people in and out all the time. Still, it was a blast to be there with all of the younger kids, and the sheer purity of it (rock and roll for its own sake) was really refreshing. The first band, the Electron C, was two girls, barely competent on their instruments, playing instrumental indie rock of the "we don't have a singer yet" variety. Courtnie was bored, but I loved it. The second band, called something like "Let's Fight NASA" were a raucous set of youths who supposedly have been playing for four years and haven't gotten any better. I can believe it. They sounded like the Afghan Whigs gone math rock/metal. The singer wore a huge paper-mache moon on his head. There were little Mexican and US flags stuck in the top of it.

That's all for now...Oscar talk later.

I'm going to Auburn, AL, my hometown, for the weekend, so I must bid you adieu for a few days. I have to clean out my car and other stuff before we go. I'm dreading it. My car, a 1996 Geo Prizm, just turned over 100,000 miles. I'd been building up to this moment for weeks, and when the moment finally came....I missed it! When I looked down at my odometer, it said "100069" which in and of itself is pretty cool. 69, dude!

My blog will be passing a 1000 visits today or tomorrow, and I'm going to miss that, too. Actually, it'll be 1000 visits since I put up the counter three weeks ago. Who knows what interesting people visited my site before the counter? Jennifer Love Hewitt? Gabe Kaplan?

I'm going to be seeing Your American Math at some house in Auburn tonight. If you're in Athens, don't forget to check out the Pacific UV (my old band), Viva, and Good Ship show at the 40 Watt. It should be a pretty good one.

Au revoir!

Behold! The famed Dunkin Donuts War Summit of 2003! I like the guy whose justification for war is this: "Maybe Saddam Hussein is supporting Al-Qaida." Maybe.

Here's a fiery, yet still levelheaded new blog I found: Notes on the Atrocities. I like her reminder on why this is still a "bad war":

"The White House never made a clear argument about why it invaded Iraq. That’s reason enough to oppose a war. But far worse, the President introduced a number of foreign policy shifts to justify this war that remain unexamined, unexplained, and hidden behind false arguments.

It doesn’t matter how this war turns out. The very act of going to war establishes a number of dangerous precedents: the US is now prepared to go to war arbitrarily against whom it deems the most dangerous—without public dialogue or international collaboration—without clear disclosure to American citizens about the cost, risks, hidden political and commercial goals, or long term benefits.

This is what reasonable Americans need to separate from the chaos of war, the flashy logos, and the thunderous wartime rhetoric: we all need to keep our eye on the ball. This war is a bad war because it has no clear foundation, no clear objectives, and puts into place policy priorities that American citizens should be loathe to follow."

My stepsister, Kerri, got her #1 choice for her med school residency, the University of Kentucky in Lexington. It's a pretty cool university and a pretty cool town so I wish her luck. My stepmom mentioned that they had Long Island Iced Teas (made with cranberry juice...mmm!) and margaritas at lunch, and now all I can think about is margaritas. I'm trying to find Courtnie and/or Seth, so we can play videogames and/or drink margaritas.

I'm so alone.

Again from David, this one is pretty interesting. It's about the exaggeration of the "coalition" and the differences between the coalitions of Gulf Wars I and II.

The difference between Reuters and the American press coverage of the war seems like two different worlds.

Sorry Marietta folks, but here's further proof that Cobb County sucks. I got this from CNN Lies, but it's strange that I missed it seeing as how I pour over the AJC website every single day for nuggets like this one.

Thanks to David for this one. It appears like it goes along with some of what I (and many others) have been saying: the Gulf War II damages our War on Terrorism by hurting our already poor standing in the Middle East and driving wedges between us and traditional allies. I'm glad the "expert" in the article brought up the forged nuclear documents since no one else seems to care about them.

And Optimus Prime is fighting the good fight for the USA! Here's what a general at the Pentagon had to say about it:

"I got a letter from a general at the Pentagon when the name change went through and he says it was great to have the employ of the commander of the Autobots in the National Guard."

Haha! Thanks to Atrios (who's on top of everything!).

I tried to tell someone here at work that French Toast was an American creation (created by J. French of Albany, NY in the 1700s), and he wouldn't believe me. Have we gotten that jingoistic? Is jingoistic even a real word? I'm tired of scanning and none of the war information is coming as quickly as I thought it would. Strange, huh? It's like we've been mollycoddled by the internet to expect information when we want it, dammit!

In other news, I desperately want to rekindle my love affair with barbecue. I will probably need to rekindle my hate affair with exercise as well.

The second Shoreline Froth practice was spent trying to figure out how to use the Groovebox. I think that Bren killed his computer.

I have to blog about something beside the war, but I can't think of anything to blog about. Our pets kept Courtnie and I from getting any appreciable sleep for two nights in a row. Beatrice makes biscuits on Courtnie's torso area constantly...on her boobs, to be exact. It drives her crazy, but I tell her that Beatrice is just being sweet. That doesn't seem to help. Charlie whines at me about every two hours. Then he scrapes at the bed. Then he whines. Courtnie described our current mental state the best: "It's like cabin fever." Too many animals around.

Ron Jeremy was in the movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar.

It wasn't a general, but Rear Admiral Keating who said: "It's Hammer Time!"

So, the war has begun it seems...doesn't it feel a little anticlimactic? I guess the US...excuse me, the "coalition," will roll out the big guns in the next few days. The dreaded "CNN Effect" is already setting in: the coverage was so repetitive and boring last night that both Courtnie and I fell asleep in front of the TV. If I hear the phrases "embedded," "shock and awe," and "decapitation strike" again, I'm going to decapitate myself.

Lou Dobbs and other conservatives are trying to discredit the notion that Europe is against this war by naming all of the countries offering support or even token support to the "coalition." I think they're missing the point. The governments of many of these countries may be supporting the US and Britain, but the fact of the matter is that the Europe people don't support the war at all. The European governments, most of them anyway, may be sucking up to the US, but the European people, by a vast majority, are not. The smug female co-anchor of Moneyline last night said, "the numbers don't lie!" in regards to the numbers of European countries supporting the war, and I wanted to slap her smug face. Europe, as in the people of Europe, does not support this war, regardless of the hundreds of troops their leaders muster to send to help the "coalition."

In other news, I need to quit biting my fingernails. I made one of them bleed today.

Here's my wake-up call for libertarian talk show host, Neal Boortz, who has been extremely un-libertarian in his bellicose support of the war...this comes from Carlos Pena of the Cato Institute, the conservative/libertarian think-tank:

"President Bush says the United States is about to embark on a course of war because the United Nations and diplomacy failed. But the truth is that the United States does not need U.N. approval to act in America's own self-defense—and diplomacy never had much chance of success. The administration had Iraq in its sights long before September 11. Ultimately, the path Bush has led the United States down is not about weapons of mass destruction, Security Council Resolution 1441, weapons inspections, or disarmament. It has always been about regime change and using America's military power to enforce a world order deemed favorable to U.S. interests. Further, the United States is setting a potentially dangerous precedent by engaging in preventative war - not a pre-emptive strike against an imminent threat - based on the uncertainty of not knowing whether a threat might materialize at some point in the future. Now that the administration is where it wanted to be all along and war seems certain, we must hope for a swift and decisive war with a minimum of casualties on both sides. And we must avoid at all costs an endless occupation of Iraq in a fool's errand of nation building."

Sounds like a bunch of liberals, eh? No. It sounds like a bunch of intelligent people who are turned off by neocon/Bush imperialism. As Joe Conason points out, critics from the right are not demonized by the likes of The New York Post's Page Six and Tom Delay, about whom Conason says this:

"On Tuesday, the strutting House leader urged Sen.Tom Daschle to "fermez la bouche," taking a cheap shot at the Democrat for criticizing the President's diplomatic failure. Having served in the Air Force, Daschle doesn't need to prove his love of flag and country to the likes of DeLay. The only uniform in DeLay's closet is his pest exterminator outfit. (He once explained that he had been unable to fight in Vietnam because too many minorities had joined up and taken all the available Army bunks.)"

Wow. That Tom Delay stuff is funny. And a quick glance over the Democrats vs. Republicans military service records reveals that the Democratic leadership seems have a much higher rate of military service than the Republicans. Go here for the whole "Chickenhawk" database, which I know is old news to some.

According to one of our generals, "it's Hammer Time." What the hell is this? The early 90s? Oh, wait...

I found his quote on cnn.com, but now I can't find it anymore. He said "it's Hammer Time" twice!

No less interesting is this story about aborigines and weather. Really!

Yep, gettin' a whole lot of work done today.

The terror is over.

Give me a break! Thanks to Tom Tomorrow for this one. He also has some funny information on Antonin Scalia.

The French aren't so bad after all!

And Howard Dean further cements his place as the only Democratic presidential candidate I'm willing to support. Listen up:

Tonight, for better or worse, America is at war. Tonight, every American, regardless of party, devoutly supports the safety and success of our men and women in the field. Those of us who, over the past 6 months, have expressed deep concerns about this President's management of the crisis, mistreatment of our allies and misconstruction of international law, have never been in doubt about the evil of Saddam Hussein or the necessity of removing his weapons of mass destruction.

Those Americans who opposed our going to war with Iraq, who wanted the United Nations to remove those weapons without war, need not apologize for giving voice to their conscience, last year, this year or next year. In a country devoted to the freedom of debate and dissent, it is every citizen's patriotic duty to speak out, even as we wish our troops well and pray for their safe return. Congressman Abraham Lincoln did this in criticizing the Mexican War of 1846, as did Senator Robert F. Kennedy in calling the war in Vietnam "unsuitable, immoral and intolerable."

This is not Iraq, where doubters and dissenters are punished or silenced --this is the United States of America. We need to support our young people as they are sent to war by the President, and I have no doubt that American military power will prevail. But to ensure that our post-war policies are constructive and humane, based on enduring principles of peace and justice, concerned Americans should continue to speak out; and I intend to do so.

I hope this inevitable war goes off without a hitch...actually, I hope it will transpire like last time, with mass Iraqi surrenders and the like. Saddam's a nut, so he won't go into exile, but I'm still holding onto a sliver of hope. I read a report on Fox News (you judge for yourself) about Iraqi forces preparing to surrender. I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of my liberal brethren want for the US to get its ass kicked, but I don't. In fact, I think it's pretty deplorable to be anti-war and then wish that the war ends up being a bloodbath. Chrissie Hynde, are you listening?

Someone here at the library left some "unadulterated funk" in the left staff elevator. We all agreed that it'd be worse only if it was covered up by a lot of perfume...euro-style!

Two observations from this morning:
1) Corn Pops are amazing.
2) It's nice to have a new toothbrush.

Reggae, the Matrix, the I Ching, and Thomas Hobbes made me do it!

Oh, here and here and here are three very weird stories courtesy Dave Barry's blog. Not that he puts up anything but weird stories.

I probably should do some work now.

UPDATE! The tractor-in-the-pond standoff continues!

Today, I have discovered that I am a trencherman.

Jake Tapper has a pretty decent rundown of the president's speech last night.

I thought it was a well-written and pretty well-delivered speech, short and to the point. Did I think it was bullshit? Yeah, most of it, but I can see it convincing some on-the-fence folks. The president's speech-giving skills, though, are so solemn and gloomy. Can anybody perk the guy up? Maybe some coffee. Or cocaine.

I played with old pal (and ex-Modfather along with myself), Seth Hall, last night at 283, a bar, as part of a new singer-songwriter series. I played a shaker and a snare drum with brushes, Violent Femmes style. It was fun. The other two artists playing that night, Shauna and Patrick, were really amazing. Usually these songwriter showcase things can get a little treacly, but both were interesting and confident, with some great songs. A nice surprise.

In case you're wondering, the War On Terrorism is probably effectively over, as we won't be able to get anybody to help us out. I hope that's not the case, but the writing seems to splattered all over the wall. And did President Bush ever consider inspections more than a formality or an obstacle? Did anybody ever really get the sense that he gave two shits about what the UN had to say? Me, I wonder why he even bothered. If the inspections reports went his way, he was all "Let's go to war!" and if they didn't he would get impatient and accuse the UN of dragging its heels or something. Like I said, why even bother? We're in much worse shape now than we were back in October.

And is Saddam going to use chemical weapons? I wouldn't put it past him, but goddamn, man, talk about proving somebody's point!

From the Washington Post via Josh Marshall:

... with more diplomatic suppleness, more flexibility on timing and less arrogant tactics and rhetoric, the administration might have won the backing of long-standing friends such as Turkey, Mexico and Chile. In effect, Mr. Bush and some of his top aides, most notably Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, have managed to convince much of the world that French President Jacques Chirac is right and that America's unrivaled power is a danger that somehow must be checked -- ideally by the votes of other nations on the Security Council.

Someone linked to me from Tom Tomorrow's website, which is pretty cool, but I can't find a link on his site. Can anyone else find one?

Counterspin Central has plenty of interesting information, including links to gruesome photos, concerning Rachel Corrie, the protestor (Fox News, I think, called her a "human shield") who was run over by an Iraqi bulldozer. No one in the US government has said anything about it, to my knowledge. Incidentally, here's some stupid web chatter about her death. Free speech need not apply in the occupied territories, it seems. I think the PLO sucks and suicide bombings are atrocious, but does anybody else think that defending democracy should mean ghettoizing a portion of your population, lobbing tank shells into crowds of people, and bulldozing down the houses of suspected terrorists, usually harming innocents in the process? Don't the Israelis understand this only exacerbates the situation and proves the Palestinian position? Sharon and Arafat have to go...

Break radio here at WUOG, so I can play what I want. Not that it really mattered before, but I like to play rotation stuff because it keeps my show fresh. Anyway, today was a fun one...lots of "hits." Here's the playlist:

BeeGees--"Odessa" (I played the whole goddamn record. Ha!)

Pixies--Tame
MC5--Kick Out the Jams
Brian Eno--Needle In the Camel's Eye
Stooges--Raw Power (live)
Replacements--Seen Your Video
Mission of Burma--Academy Fight Song
Television--See No Evil

David Bowie--It's No Game (Part 1)
Alex Chilton--Sugar Sugar/Got the Feelin'
Cheap Trick--Southern Girls
Chris Bell--I Am The Cosmos
The Nerves--When You Find Out
Big Star--Stroke It, Noel
Soft Boys--Positive Vibrations
The Jam--In the City
X-Ray Spex--Oh Bondage Up Yours!
Wire--12XU

John Cale--Paris 1919
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--Witness Song
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--Ship Song (I had to use the bathroom at this point, so two in a row)
Billy Bragg--Must I Paint You A Picture
Nick Drake--Pink Moon
Tom Waits--Emotional Weather Report

Mogwai--Ithaca 27|9
Slowdive--Machine Gun
My Bloody Valentine--Glider
Super Furry Animals--A Touch Sensitive
Broadcast--You Can Fall
New Order--Elegia
New Order--Temptation (unfortunately, it was a different mix than I expected...oh well)

I discovered this blog while DJing. He likes King Crimson (duh!) and the Delgados and Love, so he can't be all that bad. It's fun to see someone ramble about nothing but music. I should probably do more of that.

Courtnie got a job!!! It's in Loganville and she says the facilites are fantastic. I'm so happy for her. She had a really good feeling coming out of the interview, and, sure enough, there was a message on the machine for her when she got home.

To celebrate, I will eat some Cool Ranch Doritos.

An open letter to V+ and Salon's Charles Taylor:

Your diatribes against Nader voters have failed to convince me of their supposed guilt in all this war nonsense. Remember...no one anticipated Sept. 11 and the ensuing bellicosity (is that a word? how about belligerence) of the Bush administration. Sure the tweedlee/tweedledum analogy was overly simplistic. But to blame the election's results on a small cabal of idealistic (and, yes, self-righteous) voters is ludicrous. Blame the press for their treatment of Gore and the kid gloves they wore when criticizing Bush. Blame the Bush campaign for running a hollow, but appealing campaign, filled with empty, easily palatable and devious rhetoric. Blame the Workers of the World party, which also got enough swing votes in Florida. Blame Gore for losing Tennessee, Arkansas, and Ohio.

Nader voters did not know what was going to happen in Florida and it's disingenuous and anachronistic to say that Nader voters knew it was going to be close. Did anybody really think that Gore was even going to have a shot in Florida? Did anybody think it would be that close? Blaming defecting Democrats on Election 2000 is like a football player blaming a close loss on a penalty, not on individual performance...what about the dropped passes, the missed tackles, etc. that happened earlier in the game? To say that the final plays are all that mattered is illogical and ahistorical. Nader's role in the election is overhyped and overplayed. They only got 3% of the vote...that's 3% Gore could have gotten if he'd not spent the last two debates sucking up to Bush. There are a million reasons (wimpy Democrats--the ones who turned off Nader voters--comes to mind as a big reason) we are in this pre-war situation, and Nader voters should hardly be the object of your ire. It all seems like desperate ad hominems borne of frustration at an inevitable, unenviable situation, the squandering of post-9/11 goodwill by a brainwashed president. Nader voters should be the least of your worries.

Ann Coulter quotes, taken out of context! I love it...she gets what she deserves!

By the way, I think she's become a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

I hope Sean Hannity disgusts you as much as he disgusts me. Alan Colmes is a fucking pussy and lets him get away with murder on their show. Read this. It's old, but good. I read half of Sean Hannity's book at Wal-Mart. It sucks.

Bren Mead and I tried to start a band over the weekend and our first practice transpired with a whimper, not a bang. Bren found out he had viruses on his computer, so we spent the great bulk of our time trying to find a virus scan program on Kazaa (which, ironically, is probably where the virus originated). Rock and fucking roll!

Right now, the band is called The Shoreline Froth.

We had a dinner party for Phoebe's birthday, and it was a lot of fun, though when the ladies started rocking the Hair soundtrack, complete with dance moves and harmonies a la 11th grade cheerleading/band camp sleepovers, Aaron and I escaped to the safety of my backyard and talked about video games and shit, then read each other the pink questions from our drunkenly aborted game of Trivial Pursuit (Genus I edition...circa 1987), and finally commandeered the entertainment center and played Mario Party and Metroid Prime until the wee hours of the morning (1:15AM). Ah, video games...is there nothing you can't do?

I was supposed to DJ this morning at 9, but someone else showed up and wanted to do it. I'm DJing today from 3-6PM Eastern instead, so check me out at www.wuog.org.

Courtnie's going to a big job interview today, and it sounds pretty hopeful. I'm crossing my fingers for the fine lass.

Let's see...didn't feel much like blogging this weekend. To be honest, I don't feel much like blogging right now. With the war seemingly inevitable, warblogging seems pretty pointless. I think the whole country, pro- and anti-, has hunkered down for the war. Hell, I think the whole world has. There's just this pervasive sense of hopelessness for the anti-war folks. All of the recent demonstrations I've seen have looked fairly half-hearted, when they should be ramping it up for one last battle. Everyone knows that Bush is lying when he says he cares about diplomacy, just like the Democratic presidential candidates lie when they say they want the economy to get better. If he wanted diplomacy, why did he order the UN weapons inspectors to leave today? He's destroyed our post-9/11 worldwide goodwill. The honeymoon is over. Hell, the War on Terrorism is effectively over. The next couple of years might be pretty rough, diplomatically.

Anyway, watched Six Feet Under last night: sad, funny, well-written and acted, BUT...does anybody feel like not much is happening? I don't want it to be like The Sopranos' last season: sad, funny, well-written and acted, BUT nothing really happens. Oh, well, it's still better than anything else on TV when it's on. Though I was too tired to finish, the HBO movie, Normal, with Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson, was really good. It was sweet, humorous, and devastating all at the same time. You can kinda tell it was based on a play.

I watched The Rookie the other night, and it was pretty great, too. I had to fight to hold back the tears at the end. It's the least sappy baseball-as-life movie I've seen in a long time.

Brian Eno weighs in on the war...the antithesis of the Charlie Daniels rantings. I usually don't trust musicians' and celebrities' opinions, but Brian Eno's a pretty smart guy. And he's put out at least five of my favorite records of all time.

Oh, I'm back to linking, I think, but not with ferociousness of two weeks ago, where I think the content on my blog took a nosedive.

I feel really good today. I'm in a really good mood. And I'm listening to the Smiths' Louder Than Bombs, which makes Jack a happy boy.

Weird.

David hooked me up with this...Brainwashed!!!

Bush owes Tony Blair. So why did Donald Rumsfeld come out and criticize British military preparation? Do we want to burn that bridge, too? Amazing.

In case you were wondering, here are the translated lyrics for the Russian Happy Birthday song. They are taken from a cartoon or something:

"Birthday"

Let pedestrians run awkwardly
Over the puddles,
And water will flow over the asphalt like a river.
And it is not clear to the pedestrians
On this stormy day,
Why I am happy.

Chorus:
I am playing the accordion
In plain sight of the pedestrians.
It's so sad, a birthday
Is just once a year.

Suddenly a wizard flew in
On a blue helicopter,
And will show a movie for free.
He will wish "Happy Birthday"
And of course, he will give
Me a present of 500 Eskimos**.
(**Brand of ice-cream bar on a stick)

Does anybody really care about Rob Zombie? Did anybody ever care about them? White Zombie fans, defend yourselves!

And what the hell is up with Queens of the Stone Age? Their Athens show has been sold out for a month! That band fucking sucks. Hands down the most overrated band since At The Drive-In. Hands down.

What is it called when a hostage starts to identify with the kidnapper? Stockholm Syndrome? I can't remember... I was just wondering if Elizabeth Smart had that; she was found only 15 minutes from home? Couldn't she have escaped? Just curious.

Courtnie went out on the town last night and it sounds like they had a blast. Read all about it right here. Me, I stayed home, read some stuff for a class, talked to my mom on the phone (only a few weeks until her wedding!), played some Metroid Prime, and watched The Third Man. Again. I love that movie. Is there a better final 20 minutes to any movie? I would love to discuss it here, but if you haven't seen it, I'd rather you watch it and see for yourself. It's a masterpiece: all canted angles, shadows, and zither. It's probably one of the greatest "accidentally great" movies you'll ever see.

Courtnie doesn't know this yet, but I want to go to the Okefenokee Swamp for Spring Break to see some alligators.

One of the bus drivers on the North-South bus route is really hot, but she listens to the Fish 104.7. Nothing will nullify attractiveness like Christian Contemporary.

What a beautiful day! I don't think the weather outside could be any more beautiful, and I'm cooped up here in the library...the Land That Sun Forgot. I'm in the middle of scanning the governor's executive orders from 1999. At least it's something semi-important, though most of it is committee appointments. There are 102 pages of this stuff, and each one has to be filed in a separate directory and converted from .tif to .pdf separately. The key word here is "separate." That's basically a tautology--separate::time-consuming, mind-sucking boredom.

On top of the downtown parking deck, I spent about 5 minutes looking over the bucolic Athens cityscape and gazing at the Appalachin Mountains far off in the distance. I love this town.

I went to a Yo La Tengo show (the always-a-pleasure Glands opened up), and it was pretty darned good, better than last time, though they were touring behind an album that hasn't come out yet, so I didn't know a majority of the songs, which singer/guitarist Ira Kaplan alluded to at the beginning. The last time Yo La Tengo played here, they were touring behind ...And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, their quietest album this side of Painful, and people on the fringes of the crowd would not shut the fuck up. The band, who are affable folks, was obviously miffed and they unleashed a furious and inscrutable Sun Ra cover as an encore to show their disdain. Well, the talkers were there last night, but, apparently bored by the new songs, they left about halfway through so the rest of us could enjoy the show. The townie contingent in Athens is a double-edged sword. They go to a lot of shows, so crowds are good, but they sit in the back and socialize while people are trying to listen. This time around Ira only looked pissed one time, when the band had played a quiet new song...he said to James McNew, "I don't think anybody heard that one, let's play it again." And they did. Hahaha! After that, things were better because people starting shushing the talkers and yelling (I understand the irony in this) "Shut the fuck up!" Oh, they played "Sugarcube" and the rockin' version of "Big Day Coming," which was pretty great. Still no "Tom Courtenay."

The new material (though I thought one song was a real clunker) sounded pretty cool. Spare, but...groovy. That's right. If this record lives up to the live show, the new record will have a deep, almost hypnotic groove. Lot's of samples, swooshes, and analog drum beats. It sounded like the kind of stuff I'd like to make. Sigh. Two of the new tunes were absolute rockers. Ira Kaplan has to be indie rock's most unassuming, diverse, and supremely talented guitar hero. He does the job of three men up there. I still wish they would bring in one or two extra musicians, but I understand why they don't. Their version of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War" was a real highlight (they did their funky version) and it was preceded by a 10 minute noise jam which was arguably better than much of the Godspeed You! Black Emperor show I went to this weekend. Ira Kaplan put up a request list at the merch table beforehand, and I requested "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac and "Something About You" by Level 42 (he saw that one and said, "um, I don't think we'll be playing that"). For their fantastic encore, Yo La Tengo performed a truly sloppy, but crowd-pleasing version of "Hey Jude," a nice subdued version of "Marianne With the Shaky Hand," an airtight version "Gloria" (the Them version), a perfect rendition of "You Really Got Me," and the worst Beatles cover I've heard since their version of "Hey Jude": "Hello Goodbye," which was a shadow of its former self. Ira sang and played drums on the Beatles songs and Georgia failed miserably, trying to figure out the songs on the piano. James McNew fared slightly better on the bass, but the Beatles covers were truly execrable and absolutely hilarious and fun at the same time. All of these were requests on the list, and the band announced they will be playing requests on WFMU on Saturday night for their annual fund drive. I'll be listening...

After they massacred "Hello Goodbye," Ira said, "that's a McCartney/Lennon song if I've ever heard one!" Hilarious.

Check out this user review of Stroker Ace from IMDB...it brightened a dreary day at the office:

Summary: We'll live forever, knowing together that we did it all for the glory of Burt.

I love old Burt Reynolds movies. They're funnier and better than every other movie combined. They might as well have stopped making movies after "Cannonball Run 2", but I guess how could they have known that there weren't going to be any more good ones? Man this movie's good. Burt Reynolds has to dress up like a chicken and drive around in a racecar a lot, and the luxuriant Loni Anderson is on hand, looking extremely hot in an eightiesly way. Burt and Loni, those were the days! I used to have this magazine that had Loni Anderson in it advertising for a vaccuum cleaner. I sure loved that advertisement! Plus there's this one part in the movie where the audience at the racetrack is upset at something Stroker Ace (Burty R.) is doing, and it shows one guy in the audience bending over and sticking his finger up his butt to display his disappointment! I laughed so hard I almost passed away into the night! If you can find this movie, rent it! And then never watch another movie again, because I tell you right now: there's no point.

My apologies to Joe Conason and Salon, but here's something interesting about Richard Perle, foreign policy adviser...

The latest Perle jam
In the higher circles of the Bush Administration, investigative journalism is now regarded as a form of terrorism. At least that seemed to be the definition used by foreign policy adviser Richard Perle during an appearance yesterday on CNN, when he described New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh as a "terrorist." Toward the end of a routine war-promoting television appearance for Perle -- during which he debated former Congressman Tom Andrews, national director of Win Without War -- Wolf Blitzer asked him about an article by Hersh that explores Perle's private business activities.

Posed during the final moments of the program, Blitzer's question may have been incomprehensible to many viewers -- but in an era of press subservience the CNN anchor deserves credit for asking it at all. Perle's response was outrageous, even for him:

BLITZER: ... There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which he makes a serious accusation against you that you have a conflict of interest in this because you're involved in some business that deals with homeland security, you potentially could make some money if, in fact, there is this kind of climate that he accuses you of proposing.

Let me read a quote from the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just out now. "There is no question that Perle believes that removing Saddam from power is the right thing to do. At the same time, he has set up a company that may gain from a war."

PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've said this over and over again, will diminish the threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about is investments in homeland defense, which I think are vital and are necessary.

Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.

BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say that? A terrorist?

PERLE: Because he's widely [perhaps "wildly"] irresponsible. If you read the article, it's first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.

BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?

PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a serious piece since Maylie [actually "My Lai," Hersh's 1967 expose of an American massacre in Vietnam].


Actually, Perle has no reason to complain about Hersh's article. The veteran journalist afforded him every opportunity to respond to questions about the conflicts of interest between his role as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a secretive group that advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and his private business activities as a manager of an entity incorporated in Delaware and somewhat ominously known as Trireme Partners, L.P. (For those who have forgotten their classics, the trireme was the ship of war whose invention allowed Athens to dominate the Mediterranean during the fifth century B.C.) Trireme, which also boasts connections with DPB member Henry Kissinger and Gerald Hillman, a New York businessman who also sits on the Pentagon board, invests in "companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense."

According to Hersh, Trireme has raised $20 million from Boeing, one of the three largest Pentagon contractors. That's a scandal in itself, although Hersh focuses instead on an embarrassing luncheon in Marseilles where Perle met with Iran-contra and BCCI scandal figure Adnan Khashoggi and another Saudi businessman. These were curious potential partners for Perle, who has frequently excoriated both the Saudis and Americans who do business with them.

"It was normal for us to see Perle," Khashoggi told Hersh. "We in the Middle East are accustomed to politicians who use their offices for whatever business they want." Less sanguine about the meeting was Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador, who accused Perle of seeking a payoff from his government.

"Here he is, on the one hand, trying to make a hundred-million-dollar deal, and, on the other hand, there were elements of the appearance of blackmail -- 'If we get in business, he'll back off on Saudi Arabia' -- as I have been informed by participants in the meeting," Bandar, a close friend of the Bush family, told Hersh.

Now Perle already has done much to embarrass the United States in his privileged role at the Pentagon, where he wields great influence with little accountability. By popping off at various times, he has instigated diplomatic incidents with the Saudis, the Germans and the French. In the past, his financial entanglements with the Government of Turkey and Israeli defense contractors have raised questions about his role in American policy-making, a history that Hersh reviews in the New Yorker. A business relationship between him and Boeing would be unethical on its face and a possible violation of federal rules.

At the moment we have no way of knowing how unethical Perle's conduct may have been, because the minutes of the Defense Policy Board's meetings are secret. (The presence of Dr. Henry "Conflict" Kissinger in this unappetizing scenario is scarcely reassuring; nor is that of lobbyist Newt Gingrich, another DPB member.) A DPB member told Hersh that Perle had failed to inform the board about Trireme.

Perle arguably should be required to resign because of his grossly intemperate public attack on Hersh; and Rumsfeld should certainly demand that he apologize.

But in any case, Perle's mixing of business and policy at the Pentagon deserves immediate scrutiny by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Indeed, what may be in order is a probe of the Defense Policy Board, its influence over policy and procurement, its secrecy and its lax ethical standards.

I finished up my paper...sort of. It was a first draft, and it's definitely rough and/or unfinished. Good paper, though, or at least it will be when it's finished. I'm exhausted, though. Elise is in town for the GSYBE/Yo La Tengo one-two punch, so we've been hanging out, which is nice. I wish she lived here again.

One of the reasons for my exhaustion was Rock and Roll Trivia last night at Transmetropolitan, where I talked myself and others from a correct answer that Becki and I thought of at first (Tower of Power) to an incorrect answer (Earth, Wind, and Fire). It would have bumped us from fourth place to second place. Fuck. I did come through in a pinch on a question about Elvis Costello's backing band on My Aim Is True (Huey Lewis and the News) and Bill finally got his Styx question, which I didn't even understand. Overall, a tougher round than last week, and a lot of questions about the Hall of Fame, which we probably should have studied up on. Good inductions this year.

Back to scanning!

I went to go see Godspeed You! Black Emperor last night, and it was...pretty good. Well, the first few songs were great, but it begins to wear on you after a while. Unfortunately, I feel like they've fallen into a bit of a rut and really need to vary up the formula. I used to really, really like them, but now it seems sort of, well, boring at times. Their music needs to get more intricate, I think. Or either get crazier or prettier. Right now they're somewhere in between. It seems like Mogwai's been having this problem lately. Still, it was great to see so many people out at the show...this can only bode well for the 40 Watt and Athens credibility. The Lips come in April! Yo La Tengo on Tuesday!

I'm in the middle of a huge paper, so blogging will be fairly sedate for a few days. Sorry.

My favorite songs of the moment: "Holiday" by the Bee Gees and "My Neighbor's Having A Seizure" by Summer At Shatter Creek.

I just called Courtnie and when she asked "How'd it go?" I said, "One thousand dollars!" The mixture of fear and anger and disbelief in her "What?!" was priceless. I'm sorry. She said she felt like throwing up.

I'm on a no-link trip right now, but Brandon just put up a new YMSP82 song for download. Scroll down here and find a link to his website. Then click on the message that says "When We Go Out." Thanks for playing!

I went to Municipal Court today to defend myself against the evil charges of illegal sign posting that were levied against me by the ACC Marshals. I put up some signs for a yard sale in the "right of way," which is punishable by a minimum $50 charge and a maximum of $1000 per sign! Needless to say, I had no idea that this regulation existed, and the information is not exactly made available. It seems like a revenue builder to me. Anyway, I went to court, wearing a fairly nice suit (especially compared to the sandals and socks approach of many of my fellow defendants) with a speech in my head about Social Contract Theory and chipping away at our civil liberties and the tyranny of an unchecked government, blah blah blah. It was going to be great. Except if I pleaded "not guilty," I'd have to go to a real trial. And the only way you got to say anything was if you pleaded "guilty," but I wasn't about to do that. So I pleaded "Nolo contendere/No contest," paid my $50 and went on my way. No John Locke. No John Rawls. No civil liberties.

The Municipal Court runs like a fucking machine. It's faster than Night Court! They ask you about your plea beforehand and then have you come up to the bench one by one after taking all of the parking violators (1/3 of the people there) out en masse to a separate room. The judge was pleasant, understanding, but stern when she needed to be. She cut almost everybody's fines in half, except for the illegal dumping people (1/2 of the people there...they busted most of them for throwing away trash in dumpsters with their names on it). Most everybody pleaded "Nolo" and I suspect that they were in similar situations, wanting to contest the fines and the nature of the regulations themselves, but not willing to spend the time and money to do so. The judicial system has made it so expensive to contest these small cases that it's really win-win for Athens-Clarke County. It's just easier to pay the fine. Knowing this, it was nice to see an understanding and compassionate judge on the bench.

Weirdest case: a lady separated from her husband, who promptly moved into a camper in her backyard and refused to leave. She couldn't get him off the property because it was technically both of theirs, but she was in the process of getting a divorce. When his generator broke down, he started stealing electricity from her with an exposed extension cord/wire setup (it was hard to visualize from the way it was described) that a neighbor noticed was lying in a patch of dead leaves...and sparking! She unplugged it and then the Marshals showed up. She was still fined $200, but the judge halved it and said she try to find a way to get the husband to pay half of it. Except he doesn't have a job and is an alcoholic. The judge made the suggestion that the lady should get a divorce and then kick him off the property, semi-jokingly. The lady said, with all seriousness, "I'm working on it."

From Joe Conason, but stuff I wondered about after hearing Bush's extremely evasive press conference last night:

"He didn't explain why. Why Iraq, why now, why inspections can't be allowed to work, and why this war at this time is worth ruining our traditional alliances and our international prestige."

Joe Conason also calls the commentators "exasperated" afterwards, and that's an understatement. He failed to answer half of their questions, only repeating the same overly simplistic good vs. evil mantra over and over again: "Saddam is a threat to security, etc. etc." It was so scripted that I wonder why they even bothered with the pretense of a real Q&A. It was frustrating.

Somebody came to my weblog today by searching for "Iraq's fucking sexy men" on Yahoo. Go figure.

Now Charlie is barking at nothing. I have shown him that it is, indeed, nothing, but still he persists.

Charlie is growling and whining at the door, but I can't let him in 'cause he's got muddy paws. I hate to hear him growl. It is sound of my nightmares. For some reason, he has picked Courtnie as the recipient of the affection and me as the dispenser of food and the "bathroom facilitator." Now, Courtnie will complain that he sleeps on her legs all night, which is weird and true, but that's a far cry from the whining at 3 AM. I love that fluffball, but sometimes I go weeks without a good night's sleep.

Speaking of Courtnie, I'm trying to find her right now. I think she might go see some "gender illusionist" with flat hair. Don't ask. If she would take her cell phone out with her, it'd be a lot easier to reach her, but who am I to talk? I flat-out refuse to get a cell phone, partially because I spent so many years on the phone that I don't want people to reach me anywhere and partially because my old roommate, Anthony, challenged me on the issue, saying I would have one within the year. I will win said challenge.

Tina Brown sucks.

What's surprising about all of this French are cowards talk is that the French were quite the military power through much of their history. Anybody remember Napoleon? He took over half of the fucking continent and reorganized the Holy Roman Empire into the much better Confederacy of the Rhine. He lost eventually, but that was decades of French dominance. And their fighting in the 30 Years (though they entered late in the game they still got Alsace) and 100 Hundred Years Wars was nothing to scoff at. During the 100 Years War, they lost Normandy and regained it, gained Brittany and made serious moves into the territory commonly known as the Benelux region. If memory serves me right, they lost some land in the Loire River valley or something, but God, it's been a long time since I studied it. Can you imagine fighting in a war that went on for 100 years? That's crazy talk. And yet because of their admittedly swift surrender in WWII (and people forget their brave, aggressive, casualty-ridden defense of their country in WWI...but we bailed them out, right?), which was against a nearly unstoppable, pre-Russian invasion Blitzkrieg, they are known as cowards. No country could have stopped Hitler that early in that condition. I think he blindsided everybody. It was only when he went to Africa and Russia that things started to unravel, NOT when the US intervened on behalf of the French. We still got our asses whooped for quite a while before making the push to Berlin.

Yeah, sure, they lost the War of Spanish Succession and the Seven Years War and the Franco-Prussian War and the War of Indochine. But we basically lost the Korean War, lost the Vietnam War, and sorta lost the Gulf War insofar as we failed to remedy the situation. Sure, France is no United States in terms of military power, but to discount a long history of aggressive fighting because of the surrender of WWII, and to use that "coward" image as ammunition against the French refusal to rubber stamp the US (I will say that their issues are clearly economic, not moral; Jacques Chirac is an asshole, and just as duplicitous as Bush) seriously clouds the debate between the US and France. It has no bearing whether or not we "bailed them out" in two wars.

Of course I say I'm going to go link-free and then Brandon puts up an MP3 of one our band's, Young Master Sunshine Photogenic 1982, songs on his weblog. So here's the link. Scroll a little bit down and click on "West Georgia." It's a good song, if I do say so myself. A true story as well.

No one really saw our band when we were together (for a scant three months, I think), but I think we were really good, especially given our slack practice schedule. Brandon and I really gelled musically, and it's a shame I don't get to play with him anymore in Transmatique or YMSP82. Even though I left Isobel/Pacific UV and the Modfathers during that time period, I look back to 2001-2002 as one of the best stretches of my musical career, especially for my development as a musician and a songwriter. YMSP82 only played three shows, each with declining attendance, but I think we got through to the people that saw us (our girlfriends!). I still listen to the EP we recorded all of the time. The Pacific UV record will be coming out on Warm Recordings this spring, which is quite exciting. It's a good album, if I do say so myself.

It's been raining for, like, ever here in Athens, GA, which means the wholesale slaughter of earthworms on the sidewalks of the UGA campus. We need the rain: I suspect that my lawn is completely dead from the 1-2 punch of last year's drought and subsequent water restrictions.

There was an anti-war protest on campus yesterday and though I agree with their general stance, some of it was just downright goofy. Someone please tell me why an anti-war protest requires a drum circle? Why does one need to wear costumes? And the "Bush is a war criminal" signs, while potent to some, really do nothing to further a serious debate about real issues concerning the war. It's sort of embarrassing, really, the whole thing. I guess it was part of this "Books, Not Bombs" protest, but that point was not really stressed. And though I think the oil issue is salient to the discussion of the war, I think the connection is almost as tenuous as the Iraq/Al Qaeda/Sept. 11 connection. The anti-war folks need to give them up in favor of better, deeper, more philosophical arguments as well as better logistical arguments, which both do exist.

Strange things are happening at Gwinnett County malls. I'm trying to go link-free for a week, so this will be the last one in a while. I feel that my blog has become too link-happy, and I'd like to go back to more personal contact.

Aha! Found Mandy and Co.'s blog address.

I realize that my blog has taken a turn for the raunchy in the past couple of days. I'm sorry.

I have no intention of celebrating Mardi Gras tonight as I have a ginormous paper due on Monday. Still, it would be nice to be at the Uptown Lounge tonight to witness the inevitable Girls Gone Wild reenactment. Courtnie's downtown right now and I'm stuck here at the library. This sucks.

In other news, I just had a pre-Lent Polish donut called a "paczki" which blew my mind. Get thee to a grocery store to pick one up before they stop selling them this year. It was awesome...the creamiest and fattiest donut I've had in a loooong time.

I have nothing more to say. Which is pretty amazing really.

Emerson sent me this little nugget!

I want my virginity back...so I can give it to Prince Felipe!

In the face of potential war, sometimes it's just fun to kick back and revel in a little trifle like this bad boy. I never liked Doogie Howser. I hated that show.

Somebody named Tira wrote a comment on one of my posts, so I thought I'd link to her site. She's a musician in DC and has a disturbingly detailed and large picture of a vagina on her weblog. Enjoy!

Also, I don't think I've linked to Melting Dolls or V+ in a while. Go check out "Gene Clark" here. And don't forget about Rebecca, Toby, and my lady friend.

Oh yeah! Beth!, Brandon, Angie, Dave Barry, and MC.

I'm done. That's all of the major blogs that I read. I can't remember what Mandy's weblog address is...sorry!

The hits just keep on coming...

We went to Rock and Roll Trivia last night at Transmetropolitan. Our team, Team "Queermont" did pretty well, coming from behind to snag 2nd Place. The Of Montreal and Co. team, Trogdor, did amazingly well, picking up 1st prize and a $40 bar tab. Which is pretty sweet 'cause in Athens, that's like 50 PBRs at Happy Hour (75 cents apiece). We missed some bonehead questions at first (I was so sure that Marilyn McCoo was the first host of Solid Gold...it was Dionne Warwick), but in the second round we were pretty dominant, thanks, in no small part, to Jeff Montgomery's Pylon-naming skills.

I like this USA Today series about the 10 hardest things to do in sports.

Courtnie insisted that I put up this link. I never thought this would come out in public, but since it has, I decided to head the controversy off at the pass and celebrate my "softer" side.

This comes via MC. That is one fat cat.

This one's for the ladies...check out Prince Felipe of Spain! Yowza! Even I have a crush on him. I wish I were royalty...sigh.

Taking a break right now...

This weekend, I was crossing the street in front of Wuxtry downtown (you Athenians know where it is), and this kind woman in a black Honda Accord who was turning left let me and a substantial crowd of pedestrians cross the street at the crosswalk. Well, this guy in a new Volvo is back at the light honking at the lady in the car, even though she was just doing what she was supposed to do, let the pedestrians cross the street at the designated crosswalk when there was a "walk" sign up. So this pisses me off. I hang around and wave the Honda woman past and then begin to very very slowly cross the street, standing right in the middle of the lane, so the honking guy can't get past. He was soooo pissed off, honking like crazy. What he didn't notice was the cop behind him. I prevented him from turning until the light turned red, then ran to the sidewalk. He screeched around the corner and was promptly pulled over! Haha...chump. It feels good to get revenge on assholes.

Can't talk...working on a paper critiquing (though there's not much to critique...it's a great book) bell hooks' Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood. Sorry.

Oh, one more thing. My review of the Brad Bordine's Same is up on Dusted Magazine now. Check it out!

This weekend, I:

--tilled up my backyard and helped Bren Mead, my next door neighbor, till for his future monster garden. We rented this very strange looking, space-age tiller from Nationsrent, a new Honda design, and it worked like a motherfucker. Unfortunately, I am quite sore today, but I don't want to admit it to Mr. Bren "I'm not too sore" Mead, who out-tilled me by a ratio of about 3:2.

--went to a cocktail party where, as far as I can tell, there were no cocktails.

--thankfully got out of re-painting the living room. Rebecca and Courtnie did it while Bren and I tilled away (stopping to take multiple breaks of course). The living room looks fucking amazing, my favorite color yet (it's been four different colors in the last two years). It's a taupe/sand/green/gray thing...hard to explain...with a tomato red accent wall in the back of the dining room section. It's stunning. They did a wonderful job.

--cleaned out a litterbox.

--did not see any movies.

--am anticipating Six Feet Under tonight.

--felt strangely dejected about Brandon's deconversion back to anti-war status.