Posted 6:48 PM by Blah blah

Johnny Got Married! (Photos)

Oh my God, Johnny and his Korean girlfriend Sehee just got married!!! (I'm probably the last to know. Serves me right for not keeping up with what's going on with bloggers' lives.)

Here are their cute wedding reception pix! Here's a cutie pic of the couple (on the left).

Wow. I met Johnny and Sehee last year in Berkeley, where they live. Many many wishes for a lifetime of happiness, you two!

That said, I'm going on blog vacation for a while. The next wedding, coming up in May, is for Raven and Mona. See you guys after a break.

Posted 7:27 PM by Blah blah

Sad Day for the Financial World (Business)

S.E.C. Chastises Morgan Stanley's Chief for Comments (NY Times):

"Morgan Stanley's efforts to play down its role in the Wall Street research scandal appeared to backfire yesterday, as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission released a blistering letter addressed to the firm's chief executive.

William H. Donaldson, the commission chairman, said in a letter dated Wednesday that he was 'deeply troubled' by comments from Philip J. Purcell, the Morgan Stanley official, which he said 'evidence a troubling lack of contrition.'

He warned that Morgan Stanley could face further legal action if it continued to deny having acted badly in the research scandal, which was the subject of a $1.4 billion industry settlement."

Regulators Reach Final Settlement Against Wall St. Firms (NY Times).

"The $1.4 billion settlement by 10 firms and 2 well-known stock analysts reached tentatively last December but completed in the last few days, resolved accusations that the firms lured millions of investors to buy billions of dollars worth of shares in companies they knew were troubled and which ultimately either collapsed or sharply declined.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, state prosecutors and market regulators accused three firms in particular - Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch, and Credit Suisse First Boston - of fraud. But the thousands of pages of internal e-mail messages and other evidence that regulators made public today painted a picture up and down Wall Street of an industry rife with conflicts of interest during the height of the Internet and telecommunications bubble that burst three years ago.

At firm after firm, according to prosecutors, analysts wittingly duped investors to curry favor with corporate clients. Investment houses received secret payments from companies they gave strong recommendations to buy. And for top executives whose companies were clients, stock underwriters offered special access to hot initial public offerings....

In a reflection of regulators' concerns about the prospect for conflicts of interest at Citigroup, Wall Street's biggest bank, the settlement bars its chairman and chief executive, Sanford I. Weill, from communicating with his firm's stock analysts about the companies they cover, unless a lawyer is present.

But the regulators found fault with every major bank on Wall Street.

In addition to the three firms accused of fraud, five others - Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Piper Jaffray and UBS Warburg - were accused of making unwarranted or exaggerated claims about the companies they analyzed. UBS Warburg and Piper Jaffray were accused of receiving payments for research without disclosing such payments.

And Salomon Smith Barney and First Boston were accused of currying favor with their corporate clients by selling hot stock offerings to senior executives, who then could turn around and sell the shares for virtually guaranteed profits.

The two banks agreed to end that practice, known as spinning....

The firms also agreed to abide by what officials said were significant new ethics rules and to build barriers between investment bankers and stock analysts in hopes of relieving analysts from the business pressures that many succumbed to during the 1990's. For example, the compensation of analysts is to be based on the quality of their research, not their contribution to the firm's investment banking business....

Any top Wall Street executive directly involved in investment banking, however, would be barred from discussions with his company's analysts under the terms of the agreements....

In addition to the restitution, the firms also agreed to pay $487.5 million in penalties, $432.5 million to fund independent research, and $80 million for investor education. Mr. Blodget agreed to pay $4 million and Mr. Grubman $15 million to settle the charges against them.

The fines, restitution and other penalties were divided as follows: $400 million will be paid by Citigroup; $200 million each by Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch (which includes an earlier Merrill settlement of $100 million); $125 million by Morgan Stanley; $110 million by Goldman Sachs; $80 million each by Bear Stearns, J.P. Morgan, Lehman, and UBS Warburg; and $32.5 million by Piper Jaffray."

Analysts to Pay Millions in Fines (NY Times):

"Henry Blodget, the former Internet analyst at Merrill Lynch, and Jack B. Grubman, the former telecommunications analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, are expected to pay almost $20 million in fines and penalties and agree to be barred permanently from the securities industry today, according to a person briefed on the investigation. The sanctions are to be disclosed when regulators announce the final agreement in the $1.4 billion investment banking research settlement....

[E]very time an investment banker wants to speak with an analyst a lawyer or compliance officer must be either present in the room or patched in via telephone. For bankers and analysts used to spending weeks together on the road pitching new deals, it will be a new and somewhat colder world."

Posted 8:30 AM by Blah blah

Sex and the Single Senior (Thoughtful, Quirky)

Inspiring! Go girl! Why am I not surprised she lives in Berkeley?

Sex and the Single Senior (NY Times):

"Before I turn 67 — next March — I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me."

And how. Ms. Jane Juska placed this personal ad in The New York Review of Books in the fall of 1999. Over the course of a month, she received 63 responses and spent the better part of a year following them up, an experience she recounts in her first book, A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance (Villard). It turns out that Ms. Juska did indeed have a lot of sex with a lot of men she liked, and still does, having seen one of them as recently as that morning. He's 35. Which might explain the lower-back problem....

Some postmenopausal women feel a lessening of sexual desire, or at least are said to. That was apparently not her experience. "No," she said firmly. "I was probably even more interested because I wasn't as afraid as when I was younger, of not doing it right or, well, being thought randy."...

She finished her second glass of sauvignon blanc. "The best part of all this is that I have a writing life now," she said. She is working on a second book, about teaching. "The other huge surprise," she said, "was finding intellectual partners, which is almost as exciting as the sex, in some cases more. To be able to talk to a really smart man, who says, `I would value your opinion on this.' Where I grew up you had to bow and scrape to the nearest man and keep your mouth shut."

Posted 4:43 PM by Blah blah

Fareed Zakaria: Why Do They Hate Us? (Politics, Thoughtful, Profile)

More detailed info on Fareed and his bio: Man of the World (New York).

Please listen to this gripping, insightful, and eloquent speech at the World Affairs Council by Fareed Zakaria, "Why Do They Hate Us?" It's the best explanation I've ever heard of why young men in the Arab world are: 1) Angry and hopeless enough to kill themselves, and 2) Why they use that anger against the West.

Hear his speech (Click on 04/23/02).

As a detailed companion to his explanation, watch this excellent speech by Thomas Friedman at Yale's Center for the Study of Globalization: Reflections on the Post-9/11 Middle East (Jan. 30, 2003). Friedman travelled around the world with a camera crew from the Discovery Channel, making the documentary "Searching for the Roots of 9/11." Friedman digs into the backgrounds of the 9/11 hijackers and notices something very interesting---they ALL became radical, not at home in countries like Saudi Arabia, but in Europe! His view is colorful and, unlike Zakaria's, filled with anecdotes from his travels and conversations as a reporter. To understand the fuller picture of "why they hate us," we must listen to Friedman too.

Read Zakaria's Newsweek article on the same topic. (Read his article archive. He's the guy who wrote "The Arrogant Empire," the article I had prominently linked up top.)

Who is Fareed Zakaria? A wunderkind. From his bio: he's editor of Newsweek International. Describing him as "the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation," Esquire named him "one of the 21 most important people of the 21st Century." Zakaria was born in India, has a B.A. from Yale (in history) and a Ph.D. from Harvard (in international relations). In 1992, at the age of 28, Zakaria became managing editor of Foreign Affairs, the leading journal of international politics and economics—a position he held through 2000. He recently joined the ABC television show ‘This Week’, where he offers political analysis and serves as a regular member of the roundtable. He's also the author of THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, a hot book that argues that democracy does NOT automatically lead countries to adopt liberal values, that "unregulated democracy undermines liberty and the rule of law."

Young (below 40), Indian, good-looking, brilliant, great on TV, and well-respected by government officials like Condoleezza Rice, Zakaria is HOT HOT HOT. He's been called an "intellectual pinup" and an international affairs "rock star." Some high government office is probably in his future. His writing and speaking are clear, thoughtful, nuanced, and persuasive, backed by his deep understanding of history.

When I have a chance, I'll try to post an entire transcript of his speech, since I think it's very important for us. In the meantime, please listen to the webcast.

Posted 12:43 PM by Blah blah

For Foreign Policy Lovers: Speeches/Talks in Streaming Video (Thoughtful, Politics)

To learn more about what experts have to say about our foreign policy, economy, politics, and all that important but "boring" stuff that ultimately affects all of us, please check out these links. Here's what the movers and shakers in politics, academia, media, and business have to say.

Of course I don't find this stuff boring. I LOVE this stuff. You'll find unexpected gems and eloquence if you dig into these sites. I wish I had more friends who cared about world affairs. I'm dying to talk to people about it. In fact, I'm starving. To those who have replied to me about politics, thank you thank you! Please keep doing so.

1. Charlie Rose Show. What more can I say about this wonderful TV interview show on PBS that I haven't already? Watch interviews with some of the world's most influential people, in science, arts, business, and politics, over the Internet. I've joined his message board and am finding more people who share my interests in politics and humanities. Goodbye RBJ teenyboppers!

2. Conversations with History, from UC Berkeley's Institute of International Studies. See transcripts and videos of interviews with all kinds of movers and shakers who have visited Berkeley. Some guests include: U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Berkeley English professor Frederick Crews on creative writing, director Oliver Stone, head of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Joseph Nye, ex-Governor General of Hong Kong Christopher Patten, Chinese human rights dissident Wei Jingsheng, Dean Tom Farer on being an international lawyer, ex-U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata, MIT physicist Victor Weisskopf, and former 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (featured in that Russell Crowe movie The Insider).

3. Rice University Webcasts, speakers at the James Baker Institute for Public Policy. My favorite diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, gave this clear and enlightening speech about Iraq last October. I hear he's advising three Democratic presidential candidates now, so he has a good shot at becoming our next Secretary of State. I really hope he does. Richard Holbrooke has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times. He's truly a great man! He inspires all of you who may only be used to corruption in politics.

You MUST watch this speech by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Very fun and lively talk about globalization and how the world has changed.

Also see this great discussion, Political Islam and the Jihad Against America, with Allen Matusow.

Other people from the Rice Webcasts include: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, ex-S. African President Nelson Mandela, PLO head Yasir Arafat, "father" of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, and MIT psychology professor Steven Pinker on How the Mind Works.

4. Commonwealth Club of N. California, America's oldest and largest public affairs forum. This club has been going for 100 years. "Along the way, Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates have all given landmark speeches at the Club." Speeches are broadcast on National Public Radio, and you may both listen to them and read their transcripts on the website.

5. World Affairs Council of N. California, similar to the Commonwealth Club. Big thinkers, big issues, important people. Listen to the speeches. Speakers include: Sun Joun-Yung (Korean ambassador to the U.N.), William Cole (head of the Asia Foundation), Caspar W. Weinberger (chairman of Forbes and ex-U.S. Defense Secretary), and China experts like Orville Schell.

See Fareed Zakaria's excellent 4/23/02 speech, "Why Do They Hate Us?" about the Muslim world's view of America.

6. Frontline, the PBS investigative reporting program I keep plugging on this site. They do some of the best investigative TV reporting, period. You may view the complete TV broadcasts of 15 of their programs now.

7. Council on Foreign Relations. Charlie Rose, Walter Russell Mead, and other thinkers are members of this influential foreign policy think tank. It publishes the journal Foreign Affairs. See the transcripts/videos of their public forums. Speakers include Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, Richard Holbrooke and the French & German Ambassadors to the U.S., Alan Greenspan, and President Hu Jintao of China.

8. Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Their videos include: Iraq Teach-In Q/A with Yale professors, Thomas Friedman, Kofi Annan, Carl Pope, Sandy Berger, and Zhiwu Chen about the China economy.

9. NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. This PBS program is the best in-depth daily news program on TV. They always have extended 20-minute discussions about major issues.

This ought to fill the appetite of you policy wonks out there!

Posted 11:07 AM by Blah blah

War to "Make a Point"

Officials: 9/11 Was Main Reason for War (ABC News):

To build its case for war with Iraq, the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but some officials now privately acknowledge the White House had another reason for war — a global show of American power and democracy....

Former CIA Director James Woolsey said on Nightline this week that although he believed Saddam was a serious threat and had dangerous weapons, going to war to prove a point was wrong.

"I don't think you should go to war to set examples or send messages," Woolsey said.

But what if Sept. 11 had never happened? Would the United States have gone to war with Iraq? Administration officials and others say no, at least not now.
________________
Don't you wish Bush and gang had to put their butts on the line regularly, like British leaders? They'd probably be less arrogant and heavy-handed if they were at the mercy of parliamentary votes. That shows what Tony Blair and Jack Straw did in March as real courage.

When Blair stood on the brink (The Guardian):

"Senior cabinet ministers at the centre of Tony Blair's war strategy were braced to quit along with the prime minister in the run-up to the Commons vote on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.

Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, told the Guardian that he intended to resign if the vote went against the government. The home secretary, David Blunkett, also said that cabinet ministers close to Mr Blair would 'go down with him.' The prime minister revealed last week that he had told his family he might be forced to quit over Iraq."

Blair's secret war meetings with Clinton (The Guardian): "Tony Blair took repeated secret advice from the former American president Bill Clinton on how to unlock the diplomatic impasse between Europe and the US in the build-up to the war on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal." I'm happy he did and not surprised. They are friends and think alike on this issue. Go Tony!

Posted 10:34 AM by Blah blah

Rumor Control Center

Also from the Harvard Lampoon. Conan O'Brien used to head it. Also, see this parody the Lampoon staff wrote in the late 60s, Bored of the Rings:

TRANSCRIPTION OF RECORDED PHONE CONVERSATIONS. 5/13/87.

"Rumor Control Center. How can I help you?"
"Yeah, hi. Listen, I heard that there's a big Jap sub patrolling the bottom of Lake Erie. Is this true?"
"Let me check, sir. (pause, shuffling of papers) No sir, I can confirm that this rumor is not true."
"If it were true though, how would it have gotten there?"
"Would you like me to check on that, sir?"
"Naw. I was just wondering. Thanks."

"Rumor Control Center. How may I help you?"
"Hi. I five in upstate New Jersey-you know, near the radioactive waste dump. Anyway, a friend of mine told me that I'll get cancer within three years. Is this true?"
"What city do you live in?"
"Passaic."
"Mmm-hmm. (sound of computer printing out) And how long have you lived there?"
"Eleven years."
"Mmm-hmm. (sound of coin flipping) No, ma'am. You will not get cancer within three years."
"Whew."

"Rumor Control Center. How may I help you?"
"Hello Jim. This is Mr. Johnson."
"Oh, hello sir."
"What's the count today?"
"Well Mr. Johnson, we've had 33 radiation leaks, 25 microwaved babies, 17 teenage date/bloody-hook-on-the-car-door's, and 95 lysergic-acid-in-the-water-supply's."
"What's the confirmation status on the acid rumor?"
"As per your instructions, sir. Denied 91, confirmed 3."
"Good work."

"Rumor Control Center. How may I help you?"
"Hello. I have reason to believe my girlfriend is screwing my best friend when I'm at work."
"Well sir, I'm not sure how we could check-"
"Her name's Cathy."
"Is your best friend a Mr. Dolph Johanssen of 39 Roseland St.?"
"Yeah. "
"Big guy? Big Swedish guy?"
"Yeah."
"Enormous dong?"
"I don't-um... never mind."
"Thank you for calling."

"Rumor Control Center. How may I help you?"
"Yeah howdy. Today's my first day on the job, and a bunch of the other workers sent me out to buy a board-stretcher."
"Would you like an address where you could purchase that item, sir?"
"You mean there is such a thing?"
"One moment. (sound of file cabinet opening) No sir, there is no such thing as a board-stretcher."
"Those guys! Sheez. How about skyhooks? Where can I buy a carton of skyhooks?"
"No sir, those do not exist either."
"How about a hunting jacket?"
"Try Thurman's Sporting Goods on East 32nd."
"Great. The guys said they'll take me snipe-hunting this weekend if I tracked down an air-imploding device."
"Sir? Hello?"

"Rumor Control Center. How may I help you?"
"Larry, this is Mr. Johnson again."
"Yes sir."
"If my wife calls asking about me, please tell her I'm in the middle of a meeting."
"Yes sir. I am to confirm the rumor that you are in the middle of a meeting."
"Well, yes."
"Are you actually in a meeting right now, sir?"
"No, I'm calling from the Kit-Kat Klub. And listen-"
"Could I put you on hold for a moment, sir? I have a call on the other line. Rumor Control Center. How may I help you?"
"Hi, Larry. This is Mrs. Johnson. The word on the streets is that my husband is drinking at some sleazy bar."
"I can deny that rumor, ma'am."
"Okay. The inside line also says that he just called you and told you to tell me a lie concerning his whereabouts."
"I can confirm that rumor."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, ma'am. Hello, Mr. Johnson?"
"Oh shit. I can't talk now, Larry. My wife is in a phone booth right across the street."
"Yes sir. Goodbye."

-by Paul Simms, creator of the TV comedy News Radio

Posted 10:24 AM by Blah blah

Confuse an Old Person Every Time

From the Harvard Lampoon. Yeah, I'm sick:

Today, with adult education on the rise, and senior citizens enrolling in all the self-improvement programs they can find, it is becoming harder and harder to confuse the elderly. To help you adjust, I've collected twelve sure-fire ways to confuse your grandmother and set them down here. I hope they prove useful.

What you do: Tell your grandmother that your grandfather is gay.
Grandma: 'Oh yes, he's a merry old fellow all right...'
You: 'No, Grandma, "gay" means "dead."'

What you do: Take your grandmother to a gay bar.
Grandma: 'Why are all those men dancing with each other?'
You: 'Those aren't men, Grandma - those are holograms.'

What you do: Take your grandmother to a gay porno film.
Grandma: 'Oh my word!'
You: 'So, Grandma - how do you like Nintendo?'

What you do: Go to your grandmother's house for dinner and pile your plate sky-high with peas.
Grandma: 'My, junior, I had no idea you were so fond of peas!'
You: 'Peas? I thought they were marijuana pellets.'

What you do: Show up at your grandmother's door wearing a false nose.
Grandma: 'Oh you, always the kidder!'
You: 'Don't laugh, Grandma; I have lyme disease.'

What you do: Go for a drive with your grandmother. Turn the radio up to full volume on static.
Grandma: (covers ears) 'Make it stop!'
You: 'Aw c'mon Grandma, don't you dig jazz?'

What you do: Take your grandmother to the zoo.
Grandma: (admiring the ducks) 'My, such lovely creatures...'
You: 'Can I have five bucks Grandma? I wanna go get a microdonkey.'

What you do: When your grandmother comes to visit, sit in the living room playing with a viewmaster.
Grandma: 'Hello, junior, how are you today?'
You: 'Shhh! I'm recalibrating my penis!'

What you do: Ask your grandmother what year she was born.
Grandma: '1914.'
You: 'Wow...so you were alive when Jethro Tull was president!'

What you do: Buy your grandmother a gold necklace and have her try it on.
Grandma: 'How does it look?'
You: 'Oh, Grandma - it's perfectly cumfucked!'
Grandma: 'What?'
You: 'I mean it looks like shit.'

What you do: Sever the corpus calosum connecting the left and right hemispheres of your grandmother's brain.
Grandma: (pointing to spoon) 'Fork.' (clutching head and trembling) 'Fork!'
You: 'Ha ha, Grandma. I confused you.'

What you do: Buy your grandmother a V.C.R.; ask her to set it to record your favorite show every weeknight.
Grandma: 'I'd love to, junior; programming V.C.R.'s is something of a hobby of mine.'
You: No!! Foiled again!!!

Posted 1:09 AM by Blah blah

Subscribe to Salon Premium

By the way, if you care about sustaining a source of independent investigative reporting and always thought-provoking articles, please subscribe to Salon Premium, the paid version of Salon.com.

Happy second birthday, Salon Premium! I used to read Salon.com all the time, as my main online magazine. It's the closest I found to an online version of the New Yorker, my favorite magazine. Once the war started, I began branching out to other magazines, to warblogs, and I've found myself turning back to Salon as an oasis in an ocean of right-wing, jingoistic news and commentary, such as Fox News. Salon is not left-wing. It tries to be balanced. Well-known conservative Andrew Sullivan is a columnist, as are others. But Salon always provides the deeper perspective online, something the New Yorker does better than anyone in print.

And Salon is always always fascinating, whether talking entertainment, politics, business, relationship stories, or sex. I owe Salon payback for the many hours of enjoyment it has given me. I'm a subscriber to Salon Premium. Please help keep the magazine going by subscribing too!

Says editor David Talbot: "If every one of our current Salon Premium subscribers brings in just ONE additional subscription, Salon will finally break even this year. In the current economic climate, advertising cannot be counted on to secure Salon's future. But YOU can help do that by buying at least one gift subscription."

Keep this wonderfully San Franciscan, alternative voice alive. It's written for people who like to think.

Posted 10:59 AM by Blah blah

Jon Stewart's Sept. 11th Speech

Something everyone should watch is Jon Stewart's moving and eloquent speech after the Sept. 11th tragedy. It's hard for me to watch without getting tears in my eyes. That's one reason I like Jon better as a comedy host---he has great sincerity, even in his comic monologues.

Good comedy is usually built on something very true and depressing. It's usually a way to get relief from the insanity and pain we go through. The best comedy does not hide from true emotion and sadness. It respects it. It tries to find the silver lining, helps kiss our wounds, and gives us the spark of joy to stand up again.

Watch Jon's Sept. 11th speech in streaming video. This took guts.

Posted 10:32 PM by Blah blah

Revised Funniest Sites

I've updated my list of "Funniest Sites," to 25 total. I've also linked it at the top of this page, in pink.

These are the funniest sites I have ever found in all my years on the Internet. Enjoy! If you have any more suggestions, please email me. (And don't tell me Garfield. Actually, Alaysia, your feet look a bit like Garfield's. No significance. Maybe you had a "cat ancestor" thousands of years ago. Ask your doctor. Just kidding.)

Does that mean I can be dull and serious now?

Posted 1:57 PM by Blah blah

See the most comprehensive site completely about Jon: Jon Stewart Intelligence Agency! Great articles and transcripts about him and the show.

More on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
"Liberal" and "Conservative" are Obsolete.

As I wrote before, here's more on why you should watch Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. As the world gets more grim and serious, The Daily Show stays very funny as well as politically sharp, something very rare on TV now. It's the perfect show for people like me, who are politically moderate and disagree with both the far left and far right. That's why I so strongly support both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. I feel the truth is usually in the middle.

It's hard to be a raging moderate. Humor is a sharper weapon than anger, as you saw when some people were ticked off by my rant on N. Korea.

Jon Stewart's Perfect Pitch (NY Times):
________________
In an interview with Mr. Stewart and Ben Karlin, the show's co-executive producer, I asked why material like this has failed, as yet, to make "The Daily Show" a target of the patriotism police who have tried to impose a rigid wartime speech code on most of American discourse, pop culture included. "It's different coming from us than the Dixie Chicks," said Mr. Karlin, who was formerly an editor of the satirical newspaper The Onion. "It's more expected that we're going to process a news event and have a take on it." Maybe, but it's also a matter of tone.

As Laura Miller has observed in Salon, Mr. Stewart is not self-righteous — an increasingly rare quality right now. This is a time when antiwar voices have often felt (not without reason) that they have to be strident to be heard above the military music, and the keepers of jingoistic political correctness feel they must be just as shrill to shout them down. "The Daily Show" is anomalously rational. "Our audience can watch without feeling like we're grabbing them by the lapels and shouting `This is the truth!' in their faces," said Mr. Stewart. "Our show is about not knowing what the truth is."

"The Daily Show" prides itself on its bipartisanship. "People ask, `Why aren't you really making fun of Democrats right now?' " Mr. Stewart says, "and we say we'd love to if we knew where they were." But what makes the show original is that it tends not to even recognize party-line categories. In Mr. Stewart's view, "Liberals and conservatives are two gangs who have intimidated rational, normal thinking beings into not having a voice on television or in the culture." He argues that they are on their way to extinction: "Liberals and conservatives are paradigms that mean nothing to anyone other than the media. Liberals were relevant when there was a giant cause to fight for — civil rights. They accomplished it so well that the only thing left for them to do now is to get women into Augusta. So what are they? And what are Rush and the Ann Coulters battling? They're still fighting the cold war. You know, Russia gave up a long time ago."...

But the relief that a viewer can take away from "The Daily Show" has less to do with its specific point of view than with its unfailingly polite but firm refusal to subscribe to anyone else's program. For those who share Andy Rooney's gloom, it's a place to find a smart take on the war that does not abide by the strict guidelines that come with either blind support or apoplectic rejection of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

"It's so interesting to me that people talk about late-night comedy being cynical," Mr. Stewart says. "What's more cynical than forming an ideological news network like Fox and calling it `fair and balanced'? What we do, I almost think, is adorable in its idealism. It's quaint." He's not wrong. During this war, the notion of exercising cant-free speech on an American TV network, even a basic cable network, has proved to be idealistic, quaint and too often restricted to Comedy Central at 11 o'clock.
________________
Hear hear Jon! You capture my view EXACTLY. I'm now a member of the Jon Stewart Party.

Posted 12:32 PM by Blah blah

Acting Class

My chat with Valerie:

me (7:12:24): i could never be an actor
me (7:12:35): but Pjammer keeps telling me to take a class
me (7:12:47): it's true...to write good drama, you need to act
me (7:12:54): to understand what actors go through
me (7:13:11): the writing is very different from essay writing, which is my forte
val (7:14:44): take a class and wake up the sleeping actor in you
me (7:14:09): i took 2 weeks of an acting class before
me (7:14:28): we did all kinds of improvisations
me (7:14:33): met a lot of interesting people
me (7:14:49): they were very funny
val (7:16:26): were you any good at the acting class?
me (7:15:12): no :) my classmates were!
val (7:16:41): hahahahhaa
me (7:15:26): one of our exercises
me (7:15:41): we had to act like
me (7:15:49): we were in love with members of the audience
me (7:16:03): and say the phrase "i'm bored, bored, bored...."
me (7:16:10): while acting like in love
val (7:17:41): hmmm
val (7:17:47): that's difficult
val (7:17:52): bored and yet in love
me (7:16:29): The whole point is, it's not WHAT you say
me (7:16:32): it's HOW!!!
me (7:16:35): it's all subtext
me (7:16:51): which is why to write drama, you can't be like a story writer on paper
me (7:17:04): sometimes, you barely have any words
me (7:17:12): or the words look flat on the page
me (7:17:27): but on screen or stage the actor gives it life
me (7:17:30): with boring words
val (7:19:02): hmmmmm
val (7:19:13): makes sense
me (7:17:51): so it's a different way of thinking...
me (7:18:08): you only learn to write better drama by being an actor yourself
me (7:18:20): So this exercise...
me (7:18:28): people tried to act "love"
me (7:18:31): but it came out mostly "lust"
val (7:20:05): ahhhh
me (7:18:42): it's easier to act sexy
me (7:18:45): than to show "love"
val (7:20:14): some people really mistake those two words in real life
me (7:18:58): it's harder to bring out
me (7:19:03): "love" in your actions
me (7:19:08): so it turned into
me (7:19:14): making love TO the audience
me (7:19:26): It was embarrassing...
val (7:20:58): it was?
me (7:19:34): having to reveal that part of yourself
me (7:19:43): of how you act with someone
me (7:19:46): to strangers
val (7:21:15): acting does involve some baring of the soul
me (7:19:53): oh yeah!!
me (7:20:00): well this girl was great
val (7:21:33): an actor has to be brave enough to do that
me (7:20:15): she slowly lay down on a table
me (7:20:35): and leaned so her head was over the edge
me (7:20:38): upside down
me (7:20:58): she said "i'm bored....borrrred....borrrrrrrd!"
me (7:21:02): but seductively
me (7:21:08): haha...it was great!
val (7:22:37): hahahaha
me (7:21:28): not love though---lust
me (7:21:46): another exercise we had to do...
me (7:21:56): we were given a situation
val (7:23:29): what kind of situation?
me (7:22:09): you are part of a couple arguing over a tv remote control on a couch
me (7:22:29): so you argue for a while
me (7:22:38): then the teacher switches off the lights
me (7:22:44): when they come back on
me (7:22:48): you are all lovey-dovey
val (7:24:20): hahhahaha
me (7:22:58): then the lights go off and on again
me (7:23:01): and you are arguing
me (7:23:10): it was HILARIOUS
val (7:25:13): you had to switch from arguing to lovey-dovey at a flick of a switch
me (7:23:52): yup!
val (7:25:22): heheehe you have to be alert
me (7:24:11): "i hate you...why do you always have it your way...
me (7:24:24): ohhh honey...i'm so happy to be with you...
me (7:24:33): i HATE you...gimme that!"
val (7:24:41): hahahhahaa
val (7:24:43): fun fun
me (7:24:46): it's like real life! accelerated
me (7:24:51): haha
me (7:25:16): yeah acting classes are really entertaining...my classmates were great!
me (7:25:23): one girl had been a "hand model" in some beauty products commercial
val (7:27:04): her hand was used in a commercial?
me (7:25:42): yeah
val (7:27:13): my friend was a thumb model
val (7:27:27): and he kept bragging about that
me (7:26:05): hahahaha how do his thumbs look? "best thumb in the East"
val (7:27:50): well, pretty good i guess
val (7:27:52): hehehe
me (7:26:34): thumb model for what?
val (7:28:21): we'd kid him that it was the most photogenic part of him so that was why it was the only part that got any screen time
me (7:27:12): hahaha
val (7:28:41): he had to do the thumbs up sign for a credit card company here
me (7:27:31): hahaha...wow..how did they ever discover his thumb?
val (7:29:05): i have no idea
me (7:27:47): was the thumb singing at a nightclub
me (7:27:58): and discovered by a tired casting agent?
val (7:29:25): hahhahaa
val (7:29:38): i think his photo spread was all thumbs
me (7:28:18): hahahaha!!!
me (7:28:26): he had separate agents for each body part
me (7:28:40): his right ear is still out of work
val (7:30:05): goodness that would be expensive!
val (7:30:10): hahahahahhaa
me (7:28:56): it lost out to tom cruise's ear

Posted 1:32 AM by Blah blah

"Deep Throat" May Have Been Found

Fascinating! This is one of the major mysteries in American history! Journalism professor, students identify 'Deep Throat' (U. of Illinois):
_______________
After four years of work, involving more than 60 students over eight semesters, professor Bill Gaines and his current class believe they know the identity of the anonymous source who helped two Washington Post reporters expose the Watergate scandal.

Gaines, who won two Pulitzer Prizes as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, announced the results of their investigation at a news conference at 4 p.m. (EDT) today (April 22) at The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. Joining him were two students from his spring 2002 class, Thomas Rybarczyk and Kelly Soderlund.

Their conclusions also were posted today at a web site [check out Deep Throat: Uncovered] that is the work of another Illinois journalism class, on online publishing, and includes links to documents, video, audio and graphics related to the evidence cited by Gaines and his students. Along with the evidence is a wealth of general information about Watergate, the "Deep Throat" investigation, the candidates considered and the students involved.

The man they’ve identified as "Deep Throat" is Fred Fielding, a lawyer who was first assistant to John Dean, chief counsel to President Richard Nixon, at the time of the Watergate break-in in 1972. Gaines and the students make their case with extensive documentation.

"Everything that we have, we show there’s a document," Gaines said. Unlike many previous speculations on the source’s identity, "it’s not interpretation, it’s not guesswork," he said.

Fielding fits all the personal characteristics of "Deep Throat," as described by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, through their newspaper stories, their book All the President’s Men and the movie of the same title."

Posted 6:20 PM by Blah blah

Craigslist Ad

Last night, Sordidfairytale (SFT) was telling me she requests more humor and more nudity on this blog.

Since a hacker broke into the Berkeley machine that houses my old website, it has been down for the last three weeks. They've delayed rebuilding the operating system. Hence no pix here, dammit. They are instead, however, offering me a two-night timeshare vacation package in Cancun, Mexico, complete with street beggars.

Of course I said NO. I'm too much of a geek to go to a Mexican beach. Come ON!

"Now that I've talked to you about my preference for porn, you're probably gonna link me tomorrow," said SFT.

Who, me? :p

Since you want humor, let's start with YOU, SFT. Here's a personal ad she posted on Craigslist, back in her single days. Gives you an idea of what San Francisco women can be like.

Here are pix of her from January.

I think all personal ads need to come with blogs and Alaysia's toes attached. Alaysia wants to be the "Salvador Dali of feet." Hehe!

Posted 3:26 PM by Blah blah

Starbuckers

From The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

STARBUCKERS, INC. 4/07/2003

Playboy Magazine announced that it is searching for female Starbucks employees to pose nude for an upcoming "Women of Starbucks" feature, giving the unemployed male screenwriters who work on laptops everyday at the coffeehouse chain a chance to finally, after being rejected by her for a date five times, see that chick behind the counter naked.

To kick off the application process, the magazine issued the statement, "Calling all coffee-making cuties," which should help clarify that they are looking more for the Express-jeans-wearing girls from the suburban franchises, than the 35-year-old Phish-fans who operate the New Hampshire chains.

Playboy's Theresa Hennessey explained the company's logic, saying, "Starbucks is such a big part of American pop culture, and Playboy is always trying to stay on top of the latest trend." In keeping with that, the following month features an interview with Stone Temple Pilots and a 10-page spread on the ladies of "Melrose Place."

In response to the news, Starbucks has only released the cold statement, "Starbucks is not affiliated with this project and does not endorse it." An insider at the company revealed that they aren't upset about its employees going nude, but rather that Playboy might airbrush a tall mocha to appear as a grande latte.

This is the latest of Playboy's recent corporate-themed pictorials, following ones featuring the women of Enron and Worldcom, which were designed to help raise money for those who had recently lost their jobs. "Women of Starbucks" ends this charitable trend though, largely to discourage the recently fired lunch ladies of Rushmore Elementary School from continually sending in their nude photos.

Posted 3:16 PM by Blah blah

Mira Says...Conservative "Sluts"

Visiting this "Catholic confession thread" on RBJ, which I find very amusing, I found this from Mira, the so-called "Corean vixen":

"In advance, I'd like to apologize to all the 'freak' so to speak readership of mira@sh5mp! (really, I do love you) for misrepresenting and misleading you.

To your dismay, I am not the following:

-a slut
-a ho
-a skank
-and all other synonyms/permutations of such.

I do however, enjoy self-protraiture, am a bit of a closet exhibitionist, but am incredibly:

-dull
-boring
-conservative

in real life. That's right. The Internet is the only place I put the 'R' in risque. Thank you."

Haha! You go ol' timer! Get out those librarian reading glasses. I'll get your dentures for ya.

What a sweet friend you are, girl. :D

Isn't it interesting how often people in general use the Net to let themselves scream and talk sexual fantasies and dress up in women's clothes and dance a virtual cucaracha, but when you meet them in real life, they may be shy, quiet, dream of lifetime monogamy, water their plants when they're supposed to, prefer staying at home Friday nights to study, can't stand heavy metal, puke at the smell of alcohol, listen to their moms, eat vegetarian, prefer the missionary position, and have only had two boyfriends their whole life?

Actually, this "fantasy representation" of ourselves isn't just confined to the Net. People in Hollywood are always complaining how the public sees them as more glamorous, sexually promiscuous, bitchy, ditzy, diva-like, and stupid than they really are. Ben Affleck complained, in the March 2003 cover article of Vanity Fair, how people have this fake picture of his girlfriend Jennifer Lopez: "In the physical sense, she's extremely chaste. She's characterized as oversexed. I mean, the woman's had five boyfriends in her whole life! She's a deeply misunderstood woman."

I believe Ben and feel sorry for Jennifer. From what I've seen, in deep Charlie Rose interviews with Hollywood people, in bios, in articles, and from life, is that most successful people must work incredibly hard, withstand tremendous discouragement, believe in themselves with an almost cocky self-confidence, command themselves with spartan discipline, and be "nice" and get along with their coworkers. With few exceptions.

In entertainment it's just the same as in engineering. It's business. The people who rise to the top (see Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise in interviews) tend to be really nice in person, humble and unpretentious---even self-deprecating---calm, mature, and "conservative" by Hollywood standards. Look at David E. Kelley, husband of Michelle Pfeiffer and creator of The Practice. Both he and Michelle Pfeiffer call themselves "shy" in real-life. In fact, when they first met on a blind date, it was hard for two shy people like them to talk at all!

Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing, is nowhere as organized as Kelley.

"Sorkin said he spoke with Kelley and learned that Kelley is a Zenlike master of personal discipline. Sorkin recalls,

"He said, 'Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I write Ally McBeal, Thursday, Friday, Saturday I write The Practice, Sunday I'm with my wife and kids.' And I thought, I have a real schedule, too. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I freak out cuz I haven't thought of what next week's show is. Thursday I start yelling at people because I haven't thought of what next week's show is. Friday I go, 'Ohmigod, there's going to be a half hour of dead air on ABC next week,' and then it finally gets done."

Ok, well there goes my theory. :D

Still, don't you notice that the people who tend to last and succeed in the long run in the arts are just like the people who last and succeed in business and engineering? About Cindy Crawford: "Crawford enrolled at Northwestern University to study chemical engineering on an academic scholarship. Crawford made straight A's through high school." That's right---Cindy and I could have been classmates, in another life! She left to become one of the most famous supermodels in the world. She usually talks about how she tries to be professional and "always on time." No drama queen in site.

And so it goes in Hollywood and in real-life, vs. the big screen or the Internet. The people who actually lead and star in those dream factories are more like our parents than we might want to think.

Posted 12:42 PM by Blah blah

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

If there's one reason I'd get cable TV (which I lack), it would be to watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. Watch video clips on their site.

Here's a great article on the show, Jon Stewart's Perfect Pitch (NY Times).

Read this about why it's so good. I find it funnier and smarter than Letterman. TV's boldest news show. (Salon.com) Where Letterman and Leno play it safe and refuse to sink their teeth into real political humor, The Daily Show grabs the bull by the balls and makes you spit out your lunch laughing. He skewers both sides equally.

Like Stewart says in his video clip "Tug of War," about the fall of Baghdad:

Saddam's reign has ended!...No matter what side of the political fence you are on, if you are INCAPABLE of feeling the tiniest amount of joy at watching ordinary Iraqis celebrate this, you are LOST to the ideological left. And let me also add if you are incapable of feeling badly that we even had to use force in the first place, you are ideologically lost to the right. And I would implore both of those groups to LEAVE THE ROOM NOW. Do not watch the program.

It's like ice skating. You throw out the high score and the low score. The rest of the people---you are welcome at the table.

From the Salon.com article:
________________
The show specializes in satires of bogus experts: No matter what the subject at hand, for example, Stephen Colbert is introduced as the show's "senior analyst." He's the senior U.N. analyst, senior media analyst, senior theater analyst, senior death analyst (commenting on a Texas execution), etc. He can always be counted on to speak utter drivel with unflappable authority.

After the war started, Stewart had the following conversations with Colbert, who was wearing his "senior media analyst" hat:

Stewart: What should the media's role be in covering the war?

Colbert: Very simply, the media's role should be the accurate and objective description of the hellacious ass-whomping we're handing the Iraqis.

Stewart: Hellacious ass-whomping? Now to me, that sounds pretty subjective.

Colbert: Are you saying it's not an ass-whomping, Jon? I suppose you could call it an ass-kicking or an ass-handing-to. Unless, of course, you love Hitler.

Stewart [stammering]: I don't love Hitler.

Colbert: Spoken like a true Hitler-lover.

Stewart: Look, even some American generals have said that the Iraqis have put up more resistance than they were expected to.

Colbert: First rule of journalism, Jon, is to know your sources. Sounds like these "generals" of yours may be a little light in the combat boots, if you know what I'm saying.

Stewart: I don't think I know what you're saying.

Colbert: I'm saying they're queers, Jon. They're Hitler-loving queers.

Stewart: I'm perplexed. Is your position that there's no place for negative words or even thoughts in the media?

Colbert: Not at all, Jon. Doubts can happen to everyone, including me, but as a responsible journalist, I've taken my doubts, fears, moral compass, conscience and all-pervading skepticism about the very nature of this war and simply placed them in this empty Altoids box. [Produces box.] That's where they'll stay, safe and sound, until Iraq is liberated.

Stewart: Isn't it the media's responsibility in wartime ...

Colbert: That's my point, Jon! The media has no responsibility in wartime. The government's on top of it. The media can sit this one out.

Stewart: And do what?

Colbert: Everything it's always wanted to do but had no time for: travel, see the world, write that novel. I know the media has always wanted to try yoga. This is a great time to take it up. It's very stressful out there -- huge war going on. Jon, hear me out, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, "Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach."

Stewart: Stephen, Stalin said that. That was Stalin. Jefferson said he'd rather have a free press and no government than a government and no free press.

Colbert: Well, what do you expect from a slave-banging, Hitler-loving queer?

The sketch doesn't do much more than take the through-the-looking-glass logic operating behind the stances of many media professionals and exaggerate it just a hair. It's a far better way of needling the mindlessness of mainstream journalism than to simply rail against them for kowtowing to popular sentiment.

Posted 5:20 PM by Blah blah

Happy Easter! More Roller Hockey

See Patrick's sister's adorable new puppy pictures!

Happy Easter, everyone! Well I spent much of today practicing my roller hockey, with Patrick and Sheena. Practiced stuff like dribbling the puck with both the inner and outer edge of the hockey stick; passing back and forth and shooting near the goal; sprinting on skates to the puck from a distance and shooting; skating in a zigzag, passing, receiving, then scoring, etc. It's a great workout for both your lower and upper bod.

I miss my weekly swimming though. The weather here has turned gorgeous and the air is breezy and fresh. If I ever have a chance, I need to go to the Y and jump in the pool. I like that hypnotic relaxing feeling of doing dozens of laps, of trying to push myself.

Learned lots of new stuff about Patrick. He's really a cool guy to hang with and very multitalented and funny. For example, I didn't know his college degree is in music (he was a singer), that he acted and sang in at least 50 theater productions (but left because he got fed up with theater politics), that he likes British sci fi TV, that he dyed his hair slightly blonde, etc.

And Sheena, who's from Japan, is trying to set up an interior design business. She wants to deal with and help preserve traditional Japanese art and clothes.

Oh, we also have a girl staying with us this weekend. She's staying in the room next to mine. My housemate's friend. She had worked with this girl a while back, and she drove up from S. Calif to attend a wedding yesterday. She (the guest) is also getting married next month. Got her MA in counseling at Santa Clara U. I asked her about those relationship books that I was profiling (before we got so rudely interrrupted by the war :P), but she'd never heard of their authors. She wants to be a marriage/family counselor eventually.

Also, I visited my friend Dolly's house yesterday. She knows this doctor from Taiwan who is offering to give people cheap blood inspections. Basically he took about eight tiny samples of my blood, put them under the microscope, and showed them on a TV monitor. From looking at my red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, etc. he could tell a lot about my health, as well as possible ways to improve my diet, and potential threats in the future. Learned a LOT. May talk more about it later.

Enjoy your week, everyone!

Posted 2:36 PM by Blah blah

Honda Accord Commercial

Prepare yourself. You are about to see the most amazing TV car ad in history. According to this fascinating article, London ad agency Wieden & Kennedy shot this ad, for the new Honda Accord, in one smooth take.

It took SIX HUNDRED and SIX TAKES for them to get it right. The film crew nearly went mad.

"Filming was done over four near-sleepless days in a Paris studio, after one month of script approval, two months of concept drawings and a further four months of development and testing. One of the more surprising things about the ad is that it was not a cheat. Although it would have been much easier to fiddle the chain of events by using computer graphics, the seesaw and shunt of events really did happen, and in one, clean take."

Bravo. Perfection. WOW!

Watch the two-minute ad, called Cog.

Posted 11:07 AM by Blah blah

U.S. Angers Yet ANOTHER Ally. North Korea in a Nutshell.

I'm angry today. Sorry for this rant.

I've been closely following this soap opera about North Korea and its drive to develop nuclear weapons. In a major piece of good news this week, N. Korea said it agreed to have nuclear talks with the U.S. and China next week. This is after the U.S. and N. Korea have not been talking for a while, and it followed major pressure on N. Korea from China. Just before they have this critical talk,

"Rumsfeld also said the U.S. has no plans to reward Pyongyang even if it completely abandons its nuclear weapons program.

Fukuda appeared to be irritated by this remark. 'Usually, you don't talk about conditions before talks even begin,' he said."

You sure as hell don't! He has no understanding of diplomacy. Doesn't Rumsfeld understand you keep your mouth shut before any negotiations, especially one as delicate as this? We are talking about potential nuclear war here. He's already stirred up panic and anger in Syria with more stupid, arrogant accusations of them having chemical weapons.

Not only that, but Rumsfeld had ordered plans made for a possible ATTACK on Syria, which Bush actually had to block.

For the history of the major events in this nuclear dispute, please read this timeline (Frontline).

If you are new to this whole story, please start by watching Kim's Nuclear Gamble, the Frontline PBS program I mentioned. You can see the whole thing on the web.

It ends with Bush interrupting the progress that Clinton had made with Kim, by pulling out of the agreements Clinton had already signed with Kim. Kim then angrily stopped dismantling his nuclear material. Bush ended by saying he'd only talk to N. Korea if other countries like China and S. Korea got involved. Kim said no, and he only wished to talk one-on-one with the U.S.

We were stuck. Then this happened:

Good news!
- China Appears to Be Trying to Rein in North Korea. China, afraid of how dangerous this stalemate was getting, started applying pressure on N. Korea. China shut off a major oil pipeline to N. Korea for three days.

N. Korea started to change its mind:
- U.S., North Korea to Begin Talks China Will Serve as Host of Effort to End Stalemate.
- U.S. Makes Concessions for N. Korea Negotiations Washington Shows Signs of Compromise to Get Talks Going.

And now today,
Bad news!

- N. Korea Says It's Extracting Plutonium:

"North Korea said Friday it was reprocessing more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which U.S. experts have said will give the communist state enough plutonium to make several atomic bombs....The North Korean spokesman emphasized the importance that the North sees in a military deterrent to stave off a possible U.S. attack in the wake of the war against Iraq. 'The Iraqi war teaches a lesson that in order to prevent a war and defend the security of a country and the sovereignty of a nation it is necessary to have a powerful physical deterrent force only,' the unnamed spokesman told North Korea's KCNA news agency."

In other words, the U.S. pre-emptive war on Iraq has scared N. Korea (and China too) to perhaps start continuing weapons development again, to defend itself! :( Just great. The U.S. says it sees no physical evidence of this and that N. Korea is bluffing. The U.S. claims it won't attack N. Korea. Uh huh...right.

- Rumsfeld barb on Pyongyang aid earns angry rebuke from Fukuda. This only hurts everyone at this critical time.
- U.S. considers canceling Beijing North Korea talks. What the hell??

Posted 4:00 PM by Blah blah

Brad Pitt's Butt

A question for you ladies: How squeezable should the ideal male butt be? Get me Angelina Jolie's, quickly!

Brad Pitt waxwork gets squeezable bottom (Ananova. Click link for pics):

Madame Tussaud's has unveiled a new waxwork model of Brad Pitt - with a lifelike, squidgy bottom.

The model is the first squeezable waxwork on show at the London attraction.

Staff regularly had to wipe lipstick off his original model - made four years ago - and remove pairs of knickers from its pockets.

A spokeswoman for the museum said: "Brad Pitt is one of our sexiest exhibits anyway, so he is an ideal candidate for the first ever squeezable waxwork.

"He is a huge hit with the ladies and, after Kylie's bottom got so much attention, we thought we'd have a bit of fun with this new figure."

Brad was happy to provide sculptors with a mould of his rear, which was cast in a foam and silicone mixture to achieve a squeezable feel.

The spokeswoman added: 'I think he is quite amused by the idea. We have been in touch with Brad's agent but he seems to be waiting to see how many squeezes he gets before he says anything.'

The Pitt dummy is one of a series of innovative waxworks at Tussaud's. A replica of Graham Norton has the comic's camp drawl, while the David Beckham model has a heartbeat.

Other models which have attracted unwanted attention include Kylie Minogue, supermodel Elle MacPherson and Braveheart actor Mel Gibson.

Posted 1:37 PM by Blah blah

Aliveness

"Never marry a person who is not a friend of your excitement."

-Nathaniel Branden

"I have found, at times of heightened perception...that it is not hard to fall in love several times a day; that is, to keep finding myself deeply moved not only by the people [around me], but also by the landscape, the sounds of the forest, the moon at night, or the changing patterns of wind, light, clouds, and rain. Although this vividness of perception may seem special, it is also quite ordinary. If it be magic, it is ordinary magic, because it is only a keener awareness of what is already there. Though we cannot hold on to such moments, they leave us with a sense of what life could be like if we could live more often at this threshold of vivid presence."

- John Welwood

Posted 9:04 AM by Blah blah

Horror Date Conversations

Given the people I tend to meet here in Nerd/Yuppie/Materialist Heaven, it's more fun laughing about the date later than actually going on it. Plus a great fraction of people don't seem to speak English well, so our talk goes like:

"Well I saw this great movie the other day, Chicken Run, with Mel Gibson..."
"Oh chicken feet? Mmm, I love chicken feet! Especially dipped in monkey toenail hot sauce. And those pigs' ears! Yummm..."

Or, and this was a REAL conversation I had:

"Where are you from?"
"Well I'm from China but came here as child."
"Oh cool, I have a lot of friends from China. What part were you from? Near Beijing?"
"Umm, where's Beijing?"
"Or maybe you were closer to Nanjing, in the south?"
*Blank stare*
"How about Earth?"

Or this:

"Gosh, I'm starving! Let's eat. Wow, this is sooo good!"
*Silence, picks at food.*
"What's wrong?"
"Umm, actually, I don't like to talk when I eat."
"Oh. Well please, go ahead! This food is scrumptious..."
*Silence, barely eats*
"So....hmm...you don't talk much huh?"
"No."
"What interests you? What do you wanna talk about?"
"I don't know."
[I start talking to my fork. I ask my fork if she wants to go out for a nightcap later, but she's busy. She has a date with this hot spoon.]

Posted 11:44 PM by Blah blah

Adam Felber: Funniest Political Blog

Once more, check out Fanatical Apathy, the funniest blog about current events I've ever seen. It makes me laugh like crazy! Its sharp, timely humor rivals that of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. (The Daily Show is also damned funny and the best political TV humor we have now. This show is funnier and smarter than Letterman. See their video clips on the web.)

The writer, Adam Felber, is in New York City. He's a panelist on that funny, intelligent show on National Public Radio, "Wait Wait---Don't Tell Me!" It's a quiz show about the weekly news. Adam "writes and performs for screens of all sizes and resolutions, and spends almost every night on some stage or another. He comprises exactly one half of the Irwin Smalls Trio, a sketch comedy duo. His writing credits include PBS' Wishbone, and his first screenplay, Women Are From, is currently in development at Paramount/MTV Films. Felber has been improvising comedy all over the world for the past 15 years."

Please Watch Avoiding Armageddon! Tamil Tigers

Tonight I saw Part 3 of Avoiding Armageddon. They covered some of the people, ideas, politics, history, and environments that lead people to turn to terrorism. Again, I keep promoting this TV program (9 pm EST, PBS, April 14-17) because I think it profoundly affects all of us, whether we like it or not.

We all must be informed of what is out there and why perfectly reasonable, educated, well-off people STILL decide it makes sense to bomb and kill innocent people.

Please make an effort to watch Part 4, the last episode, tomorrow night.

Tonight's show interviewed children who had been persuaded to join the Tamil Tigers. I didn't know much about them and it shocked me.

The Tamil Tigers are a rebel group in Sri Lanka, the tiny land off the southeast coast of India. Sri Lanka holds a Tamil minority population. They have been fighting the Sri Lankan government, with terrorist tactics, for 20 YEARS. They want a separate Tamil nation. In the process, more than 64,000 people have died.

What's more shocking is they actively recruit and train a huge proportion of CHILDREN to fight. See some of the child soldiers' pictures.

Avoiding Armageddon interviewed a young person who had done well in the Tigers. He joined because his parents had been killed by Sri Lankan soldiers some years back, and he wanted revenge. He talked of their training. He didn't really know the pros and cons for doing what he did. His leaders didn't teach much politics. They mainly taught how to kill. Tigers are not allowed to leave or quit the organization. People dispersed in the group keep a close eye on possible dissent. People who leave are considered traitors.

We are talking about 12-16 year old kids, carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles. This boy did well in his initial assignments, so they "promoted" him to a special group within the Tigers. They didn't tell him what it was for, and he just obeyed orders. This group, which got special glory and honor from the Tigers' head commander, was trained to do suicide bombing against Sri Lankan officers.

Yup, all that work was for these kids to go kill themselves. They wear pouches that hold plastic explosives. Each group member gets a vial of cyanide to wear around his neck. If caught, he's supposed to kill himself with it and preserve all the Tiger secrets.

This boy, who kept his identity secret, ultimately chickened out of suicide bombing and left the Tamil Tigers. But the thousands of other child soldiers, in Sri Lanka, the Gaza Strip, and elsewhere, keep growing.

Posted 5:49 PM by Blah blah

Horror Dates

I was over at Horror Date on eCrush, and boy are these the funniest and most horrifying date stories you'll ever hear! After one girl wrote about how a guy tried to bite her boobs during dinner time, I couldn't stop cracking up! eCrush wrote back: "Where do these guys learn about mating rituals from, the WWF?"

This is the funniest, most awful date I've found so far on Horror Date: The Horror Date Iliad.

This is the 2nd funniest: Send the Holiday Farms Gift Pack To Tony.

Both are long but totally worth it. Also, check out Heaven and Hell (Salon.com). Readers sent in tons of their best and worst online dating stories.

I've had some awful dates myself, including one where a girl, whom I'd just met, wanted to take my car and ditch me! And later she asked if I could lend her a digital camera. There was the girl who was afraid of everything, including dogs. I wrote about those last year on RBJ. Don't think the stories are still online.

But I still have never written about the absolute worst time I ever took out a girl. It was NOT a date. It was a favor for her brother. Actually it was the absolute worst THREE DAYS I've ever spent with a girl, since she was in town staying at my apartment. When I have time, I'll tell you the tale in full glory.

Posted 8:56 PM by Blah blah

SO Cute!!!

I'm chuckling now and can't stop. Look at what Alaysia did for me!

Check out her April 16th entry! Aww, this is so sweet! I've never had someone "walk on me" in that way.

Make sure to also read Alaysia's April 14th entry and see her Art Gallery. She has such a vivid eye and sharp talent for drawing! Her pastel drawings are so rich, evocative, and top notch. They remind me of the drawings of Robert McCloskey, this children's book artist I loved as a kid. He drew books like Make Way for Ducklings and Blueberries for Sal. I used to play violin, and my jaw just dropped when I saw her closeup of a violin's bridge.

Thank you, silly! A big smile for you.

Posted 8:22 AM by Blah blah

Ok, this blog has been getting too serious. I need to talk more about peanut butter, jelly, and "bendy ears," Alaysia! Let me shift gears for a moment...

Posted 7:13 AM by Blah blah

Conservative Christians Eager to Convert Iraq to Christianity

Onward Christian soldiers (Salon.com):
________________
[O]ne group seems certain to gain an avenue into the country: Southern Baptist Convention ministers prominent in the galaxy of the religious right. Among them is Charles Stanley, the former two-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a close ally of former President George Bush and a fervent supporter of the current president's war on Iraq....

His most recent example of activism came in February when he delivered a sermon titled "A Nation At War," placing him among a minority of mostly Evangelical Christian leaders to endorse Bush's plans for an attack on Iraq.

"The government is ordained by God with the right to promote good and restrain evil," Stanley said in his sermon. "This includes wickedness that exists within the nation, as well as any wicked persons or countries that threaten foreign nations ... Therefore, a government has biblical grounds to go to war in the nation's defense or to liberate others in the world who are enslaved." And sampling from a scattershot of biblical passages to inform his argument, Stanley warned that those who oppose or disobey the U.S. government in its drive to war "will receive condemnation upon themselves."...

Even before victory has been formally declared, In Touch is just one phalanx in an army of Christian soldiers who see Muslim Iraq as an extraordinary new marketplace for their theology. Already, churches and ministries on the religious right are poised to send in missionaries and to amp up broadcasts to the region. Like advance troops before the invasion, some U.S. military officials in Iraq have already staked out the country as a natural place to spread the Christian Gospel.
________________
I was raised Baptist in New England. I went to a Southern Baptist church when I first moved to California, too. This blatant disregard for Arab and Muslim culture, as well as ignorance about Arab Christians, is shocking.

I'm so glad the founders of America emphasized the separation of church and state. The corrupt and suppressive Muslim nations we see now are evidence of how combining religion and national politics always ends up hurting people.

Reminds me of a story. When I worked one summer in S. California, I wanted to do some volunteer work with a group that was helping the hungry. This youth group at a nearby church was going out to this park where homeless people slept, to give out food. I introduced myself and joined the group, but only for the purpose of feeding the homeless. I emphasized that I was not a Christian anymore.

We got to the park and got the food out of the van. It wasn't anything like normal food from soup kitchens---mainly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and meager stuff like that. The homeless people gathered around us with eager looks.

Just when I was ready to start doling out food, the church leader said "Wait! We need to speak the message first." He proceeded to spend at least HALF AN HOUR giving us a sermon and asking people to give up evil and come to Christianity. I could see the homeless people, fidgeting and starving, waiting for him to finish his infomercial for God. Only after this ritual would the youth group give out those measly peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I never went back to that group again.

Posted 12:56 AM by Blah blah

A Terrorist's Testimony

Read this testimony of a terrorist! From the Frontline show, Trail of a Terrorist, about a millenium terrorist plot to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport that was luckily prevented. "[I]n the weeks before the New Year law enforcement had disrupted terrorist cells 'in eight countries, and attacks were almost certainly prevented.' "

Again, chilling and scary. "After being convicted for his conspiracy to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999, Ahmed Ressam agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors in hopes of a lighter sentence. In July 2001, he appeared as a witness for the prosecution at the New York trial of co-conspirator Mokhtar Haouari. Ressam's testimony offers chilling details of exactly how a terrorist cell operates, what went on in Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, and how Ressam was a key member of a worldwide terror network stretching from North Africa to Canada, from small towns in France to the mountains of Afghanistan."

Posted 11:21 PM by Blah blah

Please Watch These Weapons Documentaries

I just watched Part 1 of the PBS documentary, Avoiding Armageddon. See where most of the weapons of mass destruction are, on this Flash world map.

As I said before, this is a four-part (eight hour) series that runs every night at 9 pm EST from today through Thursday, April 17, on PBS.

It covers the state and history of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons today, talks about their ties to terrorism, and tells many scary stories of what has happened. From the Flash world map of who has what weapons: "Russia says it has foiled dozens of nuclear smuggling deals since the breakup of the U.S.S.R., but intelligence officials believe enough nuclear material has left Russia to make a bomb. It's also known that groups like al-Qaeda have been seeking lose nukes since the mid-1990s. Terrorists are also showing interest in acquiring chemical and biological weapons. Bottom line: nobody really knows what's out there."

Read about some of the highlights of this series. They include:

Essam al-Ridi, an Egyptian-American who fought alongside Osama bin Laden during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but who subsequently denounced terrorism.

Ehab Yusef, a 17-year-old Palestinian who struggles between his desire to embrace life and the attraction of a martyr's death.

Leonid Smirnov, a mid-level Russian nuclear plant worker who stole radioactive material in an attempt to augment his income.

Leroy Richmond, a survivor of a biological attack, who contracted inhalation anthrax from contaminated letters at a Washington, DC, post office.

Omeed, a 12-year-old who spends his days on the rubble-strewn streets of Kabul, helping support his family, but longing for the better life that schooling would bring.

Completing the inside view of the issues are interviews by world leaders and policy-makers, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former President Jimmy Carter, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Senator Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Tonight they talked about biological and chemical weapons. They interviewed a former U.N. weapons inspector who said that, with biological weapons, it is virtually impossible to enforce compliance through inspections alone. They also interviewed Dr. Ken Alibek. He had been the deputy chief of the Biopreparat, the bioweapons program for the former Soviet Union. He later defected to the U.S. Back in Russia, part of his job had been to FOOL weapons inspectors and make it look like nothing lethal was being made.

Nova produced an excellent program in 2001, Bioterror, which introduced me to Alibek.

Anyhow, you may go to Avoiding Armageddon's website for more info. Everyone should watch this program and be informed! Make sure to tune in tomorrow night.

Also, PBS's Frontline has posted the entire hour of its documentary, Kim's Nuclear Gamble, on its site. You may watch this in streaming video, over the web. As I said before, it covers the history of diplomatic efforts by the U.S. to prevent Kim Jong-il from creating nuclear weapons. He's the leader of North Korea. The program told the sad story of how President Clinton's gradual diplomatic progress with Kim just died when Bush came to power, and why.

Also, check out Frontline's The Roots of Terrorism, a collection of all of its documentaries related to this subject on one page.

If you can't watch the programs on TV, at least please read their websites. These threats are serious and scary, and everyone needs to be educated.

Posted 1:19 PM by Blah blah

Sex Tips from Donald Rumsfeld (Esquire):

"Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: My wife and I are happily married, but the spark seems to have gone out of our sex life. How can we spice it up? —Harry Blumenthal, Bakersfield, California

Secretary Rumsfeld: There's no great mystery here, Harry. It can't be that hard to understand. You get in there, you do your job, you develop an exit strategy, and you get the heck out of there. That's the way sex works. Why does everything have to be so difficult?

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: I'm thinking about trying a threesome, but I don't know how to approach my girlfriend about it. Have you ever tried a threesome? —Dave Barcott, Boulder, Colorado

Secretary Rumsfeld: Nice try, Dave. I can see what you're trying to do, but you're going to have to do better than that. Donald Rumsfeld is not going to be tricked into revealing something stupid about Donald Rumsfeld and Mrs. Donald Rumsfeld by such a question. If I answer, then someone will say, "Oh, goodness, the Rumsfelds are into threesomes," and then it gets repeated and picked up, and then suddenly everybody's talking about Donald Rumsfeld and Mrs. Donald Rumsfeld and threesomes, and that's not what this is about. That said, bring it up in a very loving way and let her choose the third party. Also, alcohol never hurts.

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: My boyfriend sometimes likes to put on makeup and dress in women's underpants when we make love. Should I be worried? —Amanda Stein, St. Albans, Vermont

Secretary Rumsfeld: I am not an expert in this area, but I will refer this question to General Tommy Franks and have him get back to you. "

Hahaha! As some of you know, I was seriously thinking of starting another blog, called "Dr. Saddam." It would be a combo of Saddam with Dr. Phil. Hell, they even look alike, if Saddam shaved his head!

The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld. Recent works by the secretary of defense. (Slate):

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Posted 9:15 AM by Blah blah

Americans Annoyed By "All This International Shit" on the Internet. Web's Increasingly Worldly Flavor Threatens Americans' Worldview. (SatireWire.com):

The profusion of international news available on the Internet has made it increasingly difficult for the average American to ignore the rest of the world, a trend researchers say threatens Americans' long, proud history of disregarding anything not about them.

"With all the foreign newspapers and multi-cultural sites, the Internet is making it almost impossible for the average American to remain uninformed and apathetic," said Samantha Lessborn of Washington State University, which conducted the survey. "Americans can still do it. But it now takes effort, whereas before it was as easy as turning off Tom Brokaw whenever he said 'In South Korea today...'"

According to survey participant Danny Grisham, a 22-year-old from Cheyenne, Wyoming, it's not just the plethora of international news on the Web that is irritating. "Look, I can get around the news. I just turn off Reuters headlines in MyYahoo," he said. "But even some of the search sites like Yahoo and Alta Vista are available in different languages. Like everybody in the world doesn't speak English. Yeah, right."

"I can see where it's important if we're, like, beating some country in the Olympics or bombing them or, ideally, both," Grisham added. "But if some Colombian drug lord sinks a ferry full of Israeli soldiers in North Latvoania or Serbo-Malaysia, or wherever, and Americans aren't involved, what has that got to do with me?"

Other respondents said they were appalled, not just by the availability of non-U.S. news, but by the way important U.S. news is reported by some of these foreign sites. "Yesterday, for instance, the St. Louis Rams beat the Atlanta Falcons, OK, and I go to the London Times site and it's not even there," said Chip Pernadge of Kansas City, Mo. "Jesus, no wonder those guys lost the war and had to give Hong Kong back to Canada."

Sensing a market opportunity, Net Nanny, makers of Net Nanny filtering software, announced this week it will introduce NetNarrow, an English-only product that automatically filters out content that appears to be international. Specifically, the software looks for world datelines and keywords indicative of irrelevant foreign stories, including "Shiite," "post-Apartheid," and "Bob Geldof."

Survey-taker Craig Barker of Brooklyn, New York, said he will be among the first to get NetNarrow. "On the Web, there are so many ways to get news from so many different places, I could really get some fresh insights into what's going on in other countries if I wanted to," he said.. "But I don't want to."

"You'd think these Internet people would know that," Barker added. "I mean, that's why the Internet is called America Online, right? It's supposed to be about America."

Editor's Note: It seems that after reading this entirely fictional story, some investors/customers of Net Nanny believed the company actually was going to produce NetNarrow software. As a result, Net Nanny asked SatireWire to please assure people that this is not the case. No, really.

Posted 4:14 PM by Blah blah

Role of U.S. Special Forces in the War

The Secret War (Newsweek): "It’s been the best-covered war in history. But the key to success was what we didn’t see: Special Forces, psyop, the air war—and the utterly inept Iraqi Army."

Posted 11:06 AM by Blah blah

Articles I posted on Parisoula Lampsos, Saddam's favorite mistress for 30 years. I've read she's in hiding now. Pictures: Her picture 1. Picture 2.

Saddam's Love Shack (AP): " 'Shagadelic,' another soldier shouted. Indeed, the carpet was navy blue shag."

A Shag-dad love pad (NY Daily News): "Saddam, you sexy beast! U.S. soldiers searching door-to-door in an upscale central Baghdad neighborhood for cowering Iraqi government officials stumbled upon what they believe is one of the tawdry tyrant's secret love lairs. Replete with statues of topless women, a whirlpool tub, beanbag chairs and a king-size bed surrounded with mirrors, the townhouse evoked a groovy, '60s-era playboy pad that would make another international man of mystery - Austin Powers - feel right at home."

Inside Uday Hussein's House.
Mark Bowden: Saddam's True Self.

Inside the Secret World (Time): "Snapshots and papers found in a lavish, looted safe house paint a vivid picture of Saddam's unhappy eldest son Uday." He even had a Yahoo email address. This is chilling: "In a 1990 letter, Uday reveals that his father plans to create a greater Iraq that includes Kuwait, Palestine and Arabstan, a region of Iran historically controlled by Baghdad. The note says Saddam is beginning with the easiest—Kuwait."

You should also read this amazingly well-written, detailed, and intimate article about Saddam and his daily life, Tales of the Tyrant (The Atlantic). Also tells how Saddam rose to power.

This is the best article I've ever read about Saddam. Period. Please read this piece, especially you anti-war people! It will convince you once and for all of the following. I personally believe this now:

1. Military strikes were the only realistic solution to the threat of Saddam and his growing weapons program.
2. Saddam, for decades, has had no interest in diplomacy except for helping himself rise to power and stay there. Read about how he misled Iran and started the Iran-Iraq war. See how he lied to and killed his own previous supporters to remain at the top.
3. He lives in a culture of exaggerated vanity and unreality that he created by force. Normal, reasonable methods like sanctions, and even the threat of overwhelming force, do not faze him. His own top people fear to tell him the truth about weakness and failure. Read about how, before the 1991 Gulf War, he still thought he'd win and declared victory after a humiliating retreat.
4. One way or the other, his ambitions and methods would lead to a confrontation with the U.S., either in secret terrorist activities, a buildup of nuclear weapons, or another attack on a neighboring country. I feel the problem of Saddam ultimately had to be solved. I am unhappy with how Bush did it, but I'm happy he did it.

"[Saddam, talking to Salah Omar al-Ali, his Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations:] 'How should we solve our problems with Iran? Iran took our lands. They are controlling the Shatt-al-Arab, our big river. How can meetings and discussions solve a problem like this? Do you know why they decided to meet with us here, Salah? They are weak is why they are talking with us. If they were strong there would be no need to talk. So this gives us an opportunity, an opportunity that only comes along once in a century. We have an opportunity here to recapture our territories and regain control of our river.'

That was when al-Ali realized that Saddam had just been playing with the Iranians, and that Iraq was going to go to war. Saddam had no interest in diplomacy. To him, statecraft was just a game whose object was to outmaneuver one's enemies. Someone like al-Ali was there to maintain a pretense, to help size up the situation, to look for openings, and to lull foes into a false sense of security. Within a year the Iran-Iraq war began."

Interview with Mark Bowden, the author of this stunning article. He's the man who wrote Black Hawk Down, on which Ridley Scott made his 2001 movie. People say this book is one of the most gripping true stories of war ever written. I must buy Mark Bowden's books. Reading his electric prose is like being thrown into the midst of a firing squad. He's a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Posted 10:37 AM by Blah blah

What the Anti-War Movement Should Be Doing

Bravo! I totally agree. From the LA Weekly:

"The responsibilities of the peace movement are far too weighty to be squandered in sputtering and ultimately politically irrelevant feel-good acts of blocking traffic or ripping down fences at military bases. As war breaks out, the peace movement must engage even more deeply, not marginalize itself. It must exert what influence it can muster to limit and constrain the exercise of American military power and to do all possible to prevent this conflict from becoming a prelude to endless war. But even more immediately, it’s the peace movement that must actually hold the Bush administration to its promises of liberating Iraq. The peace movement should take an active role in debating and trying to shape the post-Saddam outcome by fighting, first of all, for a thorough roll-up of the Ba’ath regime, for indictment and prosecution of Hussein and his gang, for the fullest democracy possible, respect for the Shi'a and Kurds, for a postwar government that respects human rights. That formula includes an authentic U.S. and international commitment to fund reconstruction and development. And let’s not forget the Bush-Blair promise to finally get serious about the Palestinians."