The Devil's Rejects

Rob Zombie clearly loves 70's grindhouse films. And not just their grisly love of violent mayhem and fascination with rage and depravity. He has internalized their visual style, their gritty sense of atmosphere, their washed-out cinematography, their amoral, fatalistic mindset. Everything in Devil's Rejects feels right, feels authentic to the period and the style Zombie's recalling.

Some quick background: In the days before Times Square was a haven of Disney-themed family fun, it used to house a lot of skeezy porno theaters. Some of these 42nd Street theaters, during the week, when they weren't showing porn, would show the 1970's equivalent of direct-to-DVD B-movies...Dirty, shocking, perverse or otherwise "inappropriate" movies made on the cheap. Guys like Harry Novak, Jess Franco and Bob Cresse have since become cult legends, but at the time it was about making a quick dollar churning out disposable, titilating cinematic trash.

Zombie's new film doesn't just recall these movies, it recreates them down to every last exacting detail. (The movie even takes place in 1978).

But what's his purpose? What is revisiting the grindhouse gorefests of the 70's supposed to mean? I suspect, nothing at all. Zombie probably just likes these kinds of movies and wanted to make one of his own. That's fine, I suppose, to create a pastiche of conventions from an all-but-dead style of filmmaking. It's an excuse to get a bunch of old actors together, which is always fun, and the genre is certainly appropriate to Zombie's taste for the perverse. The entire enterprise, though, is a bit hollow.

The original grindhouse films were the way they were for a reason. They were made by amateurs with no time to make a movie and no real financing. They needed to be shocking in order to grab people's attention, and to provide a genuine alternative to Hollywood product. If you wanted to see a film about a beautiful woman dying of a terminal disease, you could go see Love Story. You only went to Times Square to see the sort of fucked up shit Hollywood doesn't put in real movies.



In his debut film, House of 1000 Corpses, Zombie gave us yet another in a long line of bad Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes, stranding a bunch of random idiots in a farmhouse and turning some psychos loose on them. There was some controversy upon the film's original release, more I suspect for its unseemly atmosphere than its actual on-screen violence, but it was nothing that a low-budget horror movie fan hadn't seen before. That entire film, really, was nothing more than a tired retread.

The Devil's Rejects, by moving the action away from the farmhouse and on to the open road, gives Zombie a lot more to work with. More space, more characters, a wider variety of classic exploitation movie scenarios to play around with. More than just a violent horror film, Devil's Rejects is an ode to the "killers on the run" genre, a reunion of B-movie actors of the 70's and 80's and a pretty horrifying revenge film to boot. It's a far more confident and assured film than his debut. In fact, the attention to detail, the confident direction and the wonderful cinematography of Phil Parmet are light years ahead of 1000 Corpses. They are the marks of an interesting filmmaker who may just need a few more films to really figure out what it is he wants to say.

But this movie's content to serve as nostalgia, albeit nostalgia for a certain type of filmgoer who likes really intensely messed up, violent, gruesome, cruel stories about death and depravity.

As the film opens, hard-ass Sheriff Wydell (veteran character actor William Forsythe) has laid seige to the compound of the family of Satanaic nutcases who populated House of 1000 Corpses. Some family members are killed or captured, but a few escape, including insane clown Captain Spaulding (70's B-movie mainstay Sid Haig), his daughter Baby (Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon) and Charlie Manson lookalike Otis (Bill Moseley, a veteran of mainly films with names like Silent Night Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!).

Together, they flee the scene, leaving in their wake a trail of massacred bodies and tormented victims. Nearly everyone they encounter on their travels has some kind of pop culture cachet...There's indie comic Brian Posehn as an oafish roadie, 70's Penthouse Pet Priscilla Barnes as a hostage who is violently and sexually assaulted by the sadistic Otis, Western mainstay Geoffrey Lewis as a country singer, Robert Rodriguez featured player Danny Trejo as a hired gun, the late "tallest man alive" Matthew McGrory (who also appeared in Tim Burton's Big Fish) appears briefly, Dawn of the Dead star Ken Foree as a backwoods pimp and even Halloween vet PJ Soles as a woman who gets carjacked.

It's fun to play Spot That Reference for a while, but by the halfway point it starts to feel like a gimmick. Casting an old-time actor or an infamous face doesn't have to be a stunt, if they are right for the role, but it kind of takes away from the effect when every single part goes to some known personality. That's what sets apart a John Waters camp-fest from a more thoughtful homage.

Zombie, to his credit, understands that it's not the on-screen violence that gives these grindhouse films their power to repulse, horrify, amuse and shock - it's their constant focus on nihilistic cruelty. The Devil's Rejects isn't a fun movie with a few scattered scenes of horror. It's a non-stop celebration of carnage, torture and bloodshed. Its main characters (including Forsythe's maniacal cop) are soulless killing machines. Even their victims aren't really allowed any humanity or life. They are puppets to be manipulated, humiliated and then eviscerated.

I know I'm making the movie sound disgusting and fairly repulsive. You don't know the half of it. As I said before, Zombie has internalized the twisted logic of these movies, and even if his choice of topic isn't exactly innovative, he has come up with some moments of genuinely outrageous, ugly intensity and surprise. I'll spoil one sequence...An unfortunate young woman (Kate Norby) runs out into the middle of a highway, half-insane, wearing a mask made from the peeled-off face of her dead husband, and is hit by a big rig.

Zombie lovingly photographs the aftermath, the most hideous intestine, bone and brain-filled skidmark imaginable. I have seen a number of incredibly violent movies, but this shot elicited a loud, verbal reaction from me. That's saying something.

And I do mean "lovingly." The entire movie has the feeling of a labor of love, the culmination of a lifetime spent watching gross-out, underground cinema. And I don't necessarily want to come down on that. I had a good time being disturbed by Devil's Rejects. But I'm not one of those people inclined to like a filmmaker just because we clearly share the same tastes in films. Quentin Tarantino, in the Kill Bill movies and his other films, has demonstrated an ability to reimagine old forms of cult storytelling for our times. His movies make old forgotten 70's style and music feel essential and contemporary.

Zombie hasn't quite gotten that far. His final shot, in which The Rejects face their law enforcement persuers head-on to the sounds of Lynard Skynard's "Freebird" on the soundtrack, works as a nifty little post-modern moment, as irony. And it's a very well-shot sequence. But it's not exactly Pulp Fiction, colliding the past and the future into a single film and giving it a timeless quality. More an engaging, debased in-joke that hardcore movie nerds will appreciate. Fortunately, I am one of those nerds.

O'Reilly's Adventures Through Time

It's early November, so you know what that means. Bill O'Reilly begins his yearly attempt to convince everyone that there's a conspiracy to wipe out the holiday of Christmas. Every time Bill says something cataclysmically stupid on TV or radio, I keep thinking that he'll be fired or silenced. But, no, he's clinging tenaciously to the airwaves for another merry ol' season of crackpot paranoia and condescending dementia. Here's Bill's favorite website Media Matters:

Fox News host and nationally syndicated radio host Bill O'Reilly claimed that "traditionalist" Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr., like the country's Founding Fathers, does not "want all mention of Christmas stricken from the public arena."

Clearly, you can see why Bill hates Media Matters for America. They repeatedly insist on writing down all the idiotic things he says and putting them online for people to read. These bastards must be stopped! Bill O'Reilly is a broadcaster; he's not in the business of making public statements, obviously!

Also, I'm not sure if you knew this, but Bill has fashioned something of a time travel device, allowing him to interview America's Founding Fathers. He has returned to 2005 with a panoply of insights from Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin and others about all sorts of topics, from strict constructionism to even partial birth abortion!

Here's Bill's actual statements from his Westwood One radio show on November 1st:

O'REILLY: By the way, if Alito is confirmed, that will be a good thing for conservatives. That's the bottom line. Because Alito will take a more traditional view than a [Supreme Court justices Stephen G.] Breyer or a [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. OK? He'll look at things, and he'll say, "You know, the Founding Fathers didn't want partial-birth abortion. The Founding Fathers didn't want all mention of Christmas stricken from the public arena." That's what Alito will do. He's a traditionalist. He's going to rule that way.

How does he do it? How does he manage to generate the 1.21 jigowatts of electricity needed to power his flux capacitor without getting his hands on some weapons-grade Lyberian plutonium? A bolt of lightning?

Well, regardless of the futuristic technology involved, one thing is unavoidably clear...Bill O'Reilly now has domain over the whole of space-time. He's able to glide easily throughout American History, asking the really crucial questions that we, the People of the 21st Century, need answered.

Now, I understand that he has a book coming out full of his adventures through time, but Bill said it was okay for me to give you all a sneak preview of some of the interviews he has conducted. You know, cause we're such close, personal friends. First, here's Bill with one of my favorite Founding Fathers, the Father of our Country, George Washington.

O'REILLY: Mr. Washington, thank you for having the courage to speak with me, unlike that total coward Nathan Hale. He refused to appear.
WASHINGTON: Well, I hardly think Nathan Hale...
O'REILLY: One question, Mr. Washington...Do you like Christmas?
WASHINGTON: Actually, Bill, it may interest you to know that many of us who resented years of tyrannical rule by the British rejected traditional British holidays following the American Revolution. Did you know that, at one time, it was even a crime in the city of Boston to celebrate Christmas?
O'REILLY: Just answer the question, sir...Do you like Jesus?
WASHINGTON: I suppose he wasn't a bad sort of guy, although many of us Founding Fathers are deists, which means we...
O'REILLY: Shut up, Mr. Washington, for a minute...
WASHINGTON: Actually, Bill, it's General Washington, and...
O'REILLY: Don't try to spin me. This is a no-spin zone.
WASHINGTON: What is the spin...
O'REILLY: I will shut off your microphone, okay? I will do it unless you can be civil. Now, answer my question, yes or no. Would you like to murder Christian children in their sleep the night of December 24th?
WASHINGTON: Well, of course not.
O'REILLY: Okay, fair enough, you favor Christmas. I'll give you the last word.
WASHINGTON: What?

Fascinating insights...After that, Bill jumped ahead a ways. Here's him speaking with Abraham Lincoln on the eve of his historic Gettysburg Address:

O'REILLY: Mr. Lincoln, thank you for meeting with me.
LINCOLN: Well, you just sort of barged in here. Didn't leave me much choice. I am actually quite busy.
O'REILLY: I appreciate your time.
LINCOLN: I guess I can just write the speech on the train there tomorrow. Hope I can come up with something good.
O'REILLY: Here's my question. Lots of people owned slaves, right? Even Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers, he owned slaves. What's the big deal? Your thoughts.
LINCOLN: But does the Declaration of Independence not say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal?"
O'REILLY: Don't try to spin me, okay? That's the interpretation of useless liberal activist judges and you know it, sir. I won't be spun.
LINCOLN: I don't know why you keep talking about spinning...
O'REILLY: You know, in the Bible, lots of people owned slaves. Are you saying that The Bible is wrong?
LINCOLN: Of course not, but...
O'REILLY: Okay, then, we agree. Slavery is in the Bible, so it's okay. I'll give you the last word.
LINCOLN: This is highly irregular.

Thank goodness it was a real informed journalist of O'Reilly's stature who made this phenomenal discovery, and not some loudmouth jackass. We might have hard a real crisis on our hands. Here's one final Billy O. interview, this time with the 20th Century's most notorious madman, Adolf Hitler.

Yeah, that's right, I'm going there.

O'REILLY: Wow, what a thrill. Here I am, in a bunker deep beneath Berlin with the original Ubermensch, Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
HITLER: Danke, danke.
O'REILLY: Can I just say, I love what you've done with the place. Very homey.
HITLER: Yes, Eva is a whiz vit design. Did you see those lacy doilies unter all the bottles of suicide pills?
O'REILLY: A classy touch.
HITLER: Bill, I asked you down herr because I haff somezing to say to the zee Americans of zee future.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but before we get to that, can I just ask you one thing about America?
HITLER: Vell, I don't know about America in zee future. It's January of 1945.
O'REILLY: Why do you think these liberals hate Christmas so much?
HITLER: Vat are these liberals in America? Vat do they stand for?
O'REILLY: Oh, liberal is just a code word I use all the time for rich Jews who live in big coastal cities and run everything.
HITLER: Juden!
O'REILLY: Yeah, exactly.
HITLER: They hate Christmas because they were sent by the Devil to undermine the good, honest Christians. Zat is why they will try to eliminate Christmas, and Christianity. And it is why we have to eliminate them first!
O'REILLY: Yeah, totally. That's exactly what I've been saying.
HITLER: Bill, this comes right around into what I wanted to tell all the future Americans.
O'REILLY: Oh, yeah, what's that?
HITLER: I vill be back! Right now, in Brazil, brilliant Nazi scientists are developing a plan to clone me unt bring me into zee future! Once again, I vill make an attempt to conquer ze vorld!
O'REILLY: Really? Cause they tried that in a movie once and it didn't work.
HITLER: Really?
O'REILLY: Yeah. Gregory Peck was in it, I think.
HITLER: Schnell! Perhaps I vill just have to have them save my brain.
O'REILLY: Oh, jeez...

It goes on like that for a while. Anyway, you can check out the full transcripts once that book hits shelves.

Hopefully, after that, Bill will tell us about the mind-control device he has likewise developed, that allows him to view the contents of Samuel Alito's brain, including how the man will vote in any sort of hypothetical case that may one day arise.

I Guess That's Why They Call it the Glues

A guy is suing Home Depot because someone glued him to a toilet seat. That's awesome.

Home Depot was sued by a shopper who claims he got stuck to a restroom toilet seat because a prankster had smeared it with glue.

Bob Dougherty, 57, accused employees of ignoring his cries for help for about 15 minutes because they thought he was kidding.

It's already unpleasant enough to make a doody in a public restroom. There's always gross smells, and wadded-up little wet pieces of toilet paper strewn about in an unsavory fashion. And those paper toilet seat coverings are so thin and flimsy! They're not even 1-ply. That's, like, .25-ply. I want 3-ply toilet seat coverings, goddammit. There's asses touching that seat all day - we demand protection.

So this poor guy is already dealing with all of this, and then on top of that, he finds himself planted to the seat with glue. And then on top of that, everyone in the store ignores him.

A store employee who heard him calling for help informed the head clerk by radio, but the head clerk "believed it to be a hoax," the lawsuit said.

Man, that is great. Because you know that line, "Believed it to be a hoax," means that all the Home Depot employees were laughing at this guy while he's glued to a toilet in the back. That's got to be a trifle bit humiliating. I think, rather than go through such an ordeal, I'd probably just content myself to just live out the rest of my years on a toilet in the bathroom of a Home Depot.

The lawsuit said store officials called for an ambulance after about 15 minutes. Paramedics unbolted the toilet seat, and as they wheeled the "frightened and humiliated" Dougherty out of the store, he passed out.

This is seriously the most pathetic story I've ever heard. It starts out, and it's about a middle-aged guy getting stuck on the can, which is always funny. But by the end, you really start to feel for this guy, Dougherty. I mean, it doesn't sound like the entire incident was that big a deal, and it would make a kickass blog post if it happened to me, but he sounds genuinely traumatized by the event.

Which is why I can't understand suing the company. I mean, I guess he'll get some kind of cash settlement, and everyone's greedy, but it just menas he has to recount this entire trauma in front of a national audience. I mean, I would never even know about Bob Dougherty of Boulder, Colorado getting his ass stuck to a toilet seat if there wasn't this Associated Press article about the entire affair. Now and forever, the rest of his life, he'll be the guy who got glued to a toilet seat. How dignified.

"This is not Home Depot's fault," he said. "But I am blaming them for letting me hang in there and just ignoring me."

Bob, as someone who has worked retail for years, let me assure you...The Home Depot emplyoees were not ignoring you. They were having a cheap laugh at your expense. In fact, if my instincts are correct, one of those very employees is most likely your initial seat-gluer.

Party Down!

Of all the whackjobs on all the Internets, Bill Frist M.D. may by the wackiest. The guy is nuttier than the old ratty T-shirt under Pee Wee Herman's bed. (Give it a minute...There you go...)

He's the chairman of the Volunteer Political Action Committee, which goes by the charming and not-at-all-menacing-sounding acronym VOLPAC. Seriously, that sounds like the name of a Sith Lord, not a forward-thinking political organization. Fristie, do something about that.

Anyway, this entire website is stark raving insane. Frist does this thing where he pretends that nothing goes on in the Senate other than Democrats antagonizing Republicans. Seriously, to hear him tell it, the entire Capitol Building is exactly like a high school in a John Hughes film. The ruggedly handsome and ceaselessly macho jocks like Harry Reid (played by Emilio Estivez and Judd Nelson) run everything, while the nerdy but well-meaning heroes like Frist and Tom DeLay are your Anthony Michael Halls.

One need look no further than Frist's own column following Harry Reid's heroic and historic "closed session" of the Senate to discuss the intelligence leading up to the Iraq War. Frist whines about Reid making any decision without his prior approval.

Leave it to the Democrats to find old ways to sink to new lows ... Today ... for the first time in more than 25 years ... Harry Reid - backed by a loyal following of obstructionist Democrats - invoked an obscure rule under which the Senate chamber can be ordered into closed session.

Okay, first off, the rule isn't that obscure. Recent closed sessions of the Senate included discussions of chemical weapons and the Clinton impeachment hearings. And the Democrats are attempting to condcut an investigation about the intelligence that lead America into a long and costly war. The Republicans are the ones who are obstructing said investigation, not the other way around.

But the real point here is that Frist is supposed to be a professional politician, and here he is whining on his blog about having to discuss what Democrats want for one day without being able to grandstand for TV cameras. What an embarrassing excuse for leadership.

It was an affront to the Senate; it was an affront to the American people; and it was an affront to the principles of democracy. This political stunt, in truth ... reinforced the difference between US and THEM.

To accuse Democrats of reinforcing the current divide in American politics is the exact definition of projection. Frist rebukes others for things he does every day. The last 5 years of Republican rule is nothing more than the clever use of wedge issues like gay marriage to divide Americans by geography and religion. That's it.

Look ... it's no secret that Washington has been tense lately over numerous political issues, but this can be healthy. To debate is democratic ... a sign of progress ... a means to a resolution.

Maybe I'm wrong about Dr. Bill. Maybe all he wants is factually-based, well-reasoned debate. Why, just look at the poll on the front page of the VOLPAC website:

Why do you think Democrats shut down the Senate yesterday?

• Party of No Ideas
• Party of No Principles
• Party of No Hope
• All of the Above

Oh, jeez, this is hard...

Let's see..."Party of No Hope" doesn't make any sense...So it can't be C or D. I mean, what does that mean? The party has no hope of winning elections, or their platform is based around a lack of hope?

"Vote Democratic in 2006. We Support the Abandonment of All Hope for America. Our Main Proposal to Move America Forward is the Dissemination of a Poisoned Cocktail That Will Mercifully Exterminate All Human Life Over the Next 5 Years."

So, it's down to "no principles" or "no ideas." Well, I guess there would have to be at least some principle for which the Democrats stand. Even if that principle is just "Screw You, Senate Republicans." So I'm going to vote for "The Party of No Ideas." But, please, don't take my word for it. Make up your own mind; choose which of that diverse bevy of options makes the most sense to you.

I Am the Stupidest Man Alive

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, he's pretty stupid. He thinks that authorities should be allowed to strip search 10 year old girls for drugs, even if the warrant they have been issued says nothing about searching any occupants of the house other than the adult male suspect.

And our President? We all know he's stupid.

And a lot of the customers we get at the store are intensely stupid. The other day, I had a woman come in and ask me if there was a movie called Space Odyssey. And then when I said there was, 2001: A Space Odyssey, she shot me a confused look, as if this was the strangest and most obscure fact anyone had ever laid on her. Also, today, we had a crazy man come in and tell us that he, personally, had faxed George Bush proof that there were no WMD's way back in 2003.

But none of these people are as stupid as me. I have just thrown the most important document in my life into a dumpster.

Alert readers may recall that yesterday, my roommates and I engaged in an unsurpassed fit of cleaning. Regrettably, included in the massive trash-collection effort was a single brown envelope, put aside by me to mail my parents, that included, among other important items, my copy of the contract I signed with a literary management agency.

Now, on one level, this is not the world's largest deal. They still have a copy of the contract, which they can copy for me I suppose. And it's not like they were planning on screwing me over anyway. But still...this makes me look like a complete assclown.

And I have that intensely frustrating feeling of wanting to turn back time a few hours, so you can prevent a bad thing from happening. I can actually picture myself placing that envelope down the other day on a speaker in the front room, and thinking "This may not be the best place for this item...it could get thrown away..." but then ignoring this thought and going about my business.

Superman never has these sorts of problems. If he throws away an important paper, he can just reverse the rotation of the Earth and turn back time, and put the paper safely away in a filing cabinet. It might mess with the space-time continuum and pervert the whole of human history...but he wouldn't lose that essential contract. Plus, he's Superman. Fuck the space-time continuum, he can only be hurt by Kryptonite.

Unfortunately, I have larger problems. Mainly, my parents, who are going to be completely infuriated and irritated by this shocking turn of events. This is one of those things I'm still going to hear about 30 years from now, when I visit them in the Hom...I mean, in the lavish mansion I'm planning to purchase for them!

"Son, would you hold on to my purse for me while I use the ladies' room...But, actually hold on to it, don't just throw it away like you did that management countract back in your mid-20's."

But perhaps the largest problem will be dealing with the management company. Do I just ask them to make me another copy of the contract for safe-keeping? Doesn't that make me look like a World Class Asshat? I'm trying to convince these people to help me start a writing career...I don't want to come off like Corky from "Life Goes On."

In a way, though, Corky and I aren't so different. If people really wanted me to safely move documents and contracts from one point to another, they should really pin them to my overalls and tell me to walk straight home. It might be a bit undignified, but at least shit would wind up in the right place, and not under about a dozen oozing trash bags in my driveway.

The UCP and Other Tales of Horror

The following will be the scariest story you hear from this Halloween...If you are pregnant, have a heart condition or are upset by stories featuring massive clumps of dust and strewn debris, please go read another post.

Today, my roommates and I cleaned our living room. If I had to choose one word to describe the experience, that word would be "harrowing."

First, some background. My roommate Chris is moving back to North Carolina. We're sorry to see him go, but he's simply had enough of life on the lowest rung of Los Angeles. I can't say I blame him. In fact, he's not the first Los Angeles refugee I've known. My brother Jonathan has wisely retreated back into the comforting bosom of Orange County, a more comfortable and safe community, where the worst thing that ever happens is some maniac wearing a cape running around killing families at random. That's still a lot better than trying to get on the 405 from 3 to 8 pm, let me tell you...

So, he's out. And our good friend Vineet was planning to move into Chris' room, but in a stunning last-minute reversal, is now refusing to live with Nathan and myself. What could have prompted this decision?

Well, to be honest, the apartment is a little bit messy. Well, okay, the apartment is a little bit messy in the way travel in Baghdad is a little bit unsafe. Nathan, Chris and myself are...I don't want to say "degenerates," but let's say "gentlemen who value their leisure time more than being able to actually see their carpet."

In my more optimistic moments, I like to think of us as somehow above cleaning. We are men of ideas, we spend our days problem-solving, pondering the nature of life, and so forth. But, in reality, I spend my days blogging and watching trashy 70's Italian movies and they spend their days playing online poker and watching reality shows. I'm not sure if this qualifies as living the life of the mind.

Perhaps we are just slobs. I mean, I certainly am. I'm not sure I own a shirt without some sort of sauce-related stain on the front, and I'll go more days in a row without shaving than Mohammad Atta.

So, now that Vineet will not be moving in, we'll need to actually convince some stranger to spend their hard-earned money to move into this apartment with us. This is not an easy prospect. I feel like, in order to sell someone on moving in to this dank filth-encrusted shithole, an apartment without a single instance of insect infestation because the bugs all have found more comfortable, cleaner environs, I would have to employ sales tactics like the ones in Glengarry Glen Ross.

GET THEM TO SIGN ON THE LINE WHICH IS DOTTED!

In anticipation of this glorious event, Nathan and Chris and I decided to give the apartment the old once-over. Clean it up a bit for the benefit of prospective tenants. Yikes. Tom Savini on his best day has not described gruesome imagery such as I found underneath our couches.

There are a few problems here to be discussed. I believe our largest single cleaning dysfunction is a failure to dust...ever. You don't think of dusting as being a particularly big deal, but no one tells you that if you leave dust undisturbed for too long, it becomes quite simply a part of your apartment. After a while, it simply refuses to leave. You can wipe shit down for hours, come back and in two minutes, it's caked with dust and grime once again.

This seems to violate some basic law of physics. But the fact is that we spent several hours throwing out trash, wiping down every surface in the room and vacuuming, and the room doesn't really look significantly cleaner. I mean, there's visibly less stuff in there. We threw out at least six big trash bags full of stuff. Here is a list of, I believe, all the unique items found during the cleaning frenzy:

Old newspapers, magazines, Victoria's Secret catalogs, opened and unopened mail, an unopened Starburst candy, cigarette packs, food wrappers, used-up lighters, soda cans, toothpicks, pennies and dimes, scrunchies, make-up (at one time, a girlfriend lived here), pens, movie and concert tickets, wire hangers, books, DVD's, CD's, folders, spoons, chewed gum, socks, little electronic toys that play 20 questions, broken PlayStation controllers, bottle caps, undershirts, jackets, underwear (why?), empty coffee cups, checkbooks, a passport, a USB cable, wads of cotton, old ashtrays, a piece of glass broken off of the entertainment unit, a copy of the PC Game "ChessMaster 8000," several broken plates, poker chips, a dried-up nearly-unrecognizable pepperocini, paper clips twisted for use as pipe cleaners, unusable broken speakers, AV cables, speaker wire, ear muffs (in California?), a pillow with a T-shirt serving as its pillowcase, a large metal tray, rolling papers, an old cell phone, brads, twist-ties, a Swiss Army Knife, sandwich bags, a law school application essay and about 100,000 take-out menus.

Once all the trash was taken out, and the dusting was done as well as it could be, we looked around and realized that the room was just ugly and dirty, that we were basically dirtbags, and that no on in their right mind was going to give us actual money to live in this place.

We also realized that it would be up to Chris to clean the bathroom he and I share (it's his turn), as well as his, quite franky disgusting, room before we show the apartment to anyone. I'd say the chance of these activites actually occuring in the next 48 hours are slim to nil. He's got to do something about that room. It looks like Meatwad's Room on "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." He's the only person I know to have little broken-up bits of styrofoam spread all over the floor of their bedroom. How does that not drive you crazy? Stepping on little bits of styrofoam peanut all day?

Anyway, the UCP...That's the Unclaimed Clothes Pile. During our cleaning, we found an entire wardrobe full of clothing. Some of it was comprised of long-lost roommate items. I found a jacket of mine, Chris a sweatshirt, and so forth. But much of the pile's contents are unknown to us. A few undershirts. A gross green blanket. Some kind of odd quilt thing. Some of this stuff has been behind the couch or under the entertainment center for so long, I can honestly say I've never seen it before. It predates me here. I'm actually quite new to the apartment, in geologic time.

We feel kind of guilty just chucking the UCP contents that aren't ours. What if it belongs to a friend who has stayed here before, and who will want their filthy green blanket back some day? (If you think this is impossible, it's only because you don't know my friends.) And isn't there someone less fortunate who could use this stuff? (Although you'd have to be really unfortunate to want to sleep under this blanket. I'd probably rather sleep under some fiberglass insulation.)

We'll probably end up throwing it away. We really ought to throw away (or burn) everything in this apartment, burn the whole building down really, and start fresh somewhere else. But we have, combined, about enough money for one night's stay in West LA's cheapest motel, so a little Fall Cleaning will have to suffice.

Songs That Once Spooked Me: A Halloween List

Last night, I watched a horror movie double-feature in honor of perhaps my favorite holiday, Halloween. It's not a huge contest for Lons' Favorite Holiday, just so you know. I hate all the Jew holidays, because they are all, every single one, depressing. Even the happy ones are only happy because something really depressing didn't happen.

Take Purim. This is the Jew equivalent of Easter, a Springtime celebration of renewal. Christians celebrate the resurrection of their Lord around this time of the year, and Jews celebrate the fact that once upon a time there was a really really evil guy named Haman who wanted to kill them all...but then he didn't! And now we eat three-cornered cookies called Hamentaschen (meaning Haman's Hat) that look nothing like a hat. Oh, and we wave around this bizarre fruit called lulov and egrog or some such nonsense inside a thatched hut we've constructed the day before.

Seriously. This is as ritualistic, primitive and ludicrous as lax American Judaism gets.

That's a stupid holiday. Halloween doesn't even have to work so hard to kick Purim's ass. It doesn't hurt, as well, that it's the patron holiday of horror movies. As someone who enjoys a nice gory horror movie year-round, I welcome a day set aside throughout the country for others to join me in watching splatterfests, grindhouse features, slasher films and giallos.

So, anyway, long story long, last night I watched the classic George C. Scott haunted house movie The Changeling and John Carpenter's original Halloween. I fell asleep about 3/4 of the way through that second film (don't worry...I've seen it before...), and woke up as the end credits were playing.

There's something rather unsettling about waking up in a darkened room at 3 in the morning to the sounds of John Carpenter's eerie synth theme to Halloween. (Trust me, even if you don't think you know it, you know it from 100,000,000 horror movie previews). It reminded me of being a little boy.

You see, when I was a kid, I would listen to the radio as I fell asleep. I guess I was a nervous, exictable sort, even when I was young, because I used to find getting a good, solid night's rest quite difficult. I would actually lie in bed at night and worry about whether or not I'd be able to fall asleep. Weird, no? But what do you actually do about that situation? The more you think about it, force yourself not to worry, the more you are, in fact, worrying.

Frequently, my solution to this dilemma would be to wake my parents up for no reason. Eventually, they devised a different plan - by listening to the radio, I could distract myself long enough to doze off. It kind of worked most of the time, except that, for whatever reason, certain songs would creep me out, there, alone, in the dark in the middle of the night when it seemed like the whole world was asleep.

Much of it has to do with how weird popular music was during this time period (roughly 1984-1988). Nowadays, I'd probably just hear Gwen Stefani declare that she was not, in fact, no hollaback girl, whatever the fuck that means. But back in '87, you were far more likely to hear some weird, Dio-esque power ballad about love in the time of the Vikings as you were 50 Cent inviting you to the candy shop.

So, after perhaps the longest and sloppiest introduction in Crushed By Inertia History, I present the songs that freaked me out as a young child listening to Top 40 radio late at night. You know, in honor of Halloween (it's all there in the first paragraph...)

Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes

Something about the timbre of Jon Anderson's voice, or the weird freak-out synth part after he yells "Heeeeeeeeaaaaarrrrrrrrrttt!!!" used to genuinely rattle my young mind. Once or twice, I did have to get out of bed and turn off the radio when this song came on. I still don't like it, but it's hard to imagine what bothered me so much about it at 8 years old. I think maybe I was taking the lyrics to literally, imaging a man who actually owned someone's heart. Say, keeping it inside a heart-shaped box.

Thriller by Michael Jackson

I really liked this song. Still do. But when it was late at night and I was trying to go to sleep, the Vincent Price bit at the end used to bug me intensely. The song would come on, and I'd decide I was going to finally grow up and be a man and listen to the whole song without getting out of bed to turn it off, but then VP would come on informing me that darkness had fallen across the land, and that the midnight hour was close at hand. (I think this used to double unnerve me because quite often the midnight hour would be close at hand, which really drove the notion of zombie/werewolf violence home).

King of Pain by The Police

It was the very very beginning of this song that freaked me out. "There's a little black spot on the sun today...It's the same old thing as yesterday..." Why is that concept scary? What did it even mean? I have no idea. Even today, with Sting at his most nasal and the band totally quiet and then building to a crescendo behind him, that part's a little strange. During the day, I could listen to this song no problem, but I would turn off the radio the second I knew it was coming on.
Mexican Radio by Wall of Voodoo

There is absolutely nothing scary about this song. 9 year old me was kind of a pussy.

Invisible Touch by Genesis

Am I going to be really embarrassed by this list tomorrow? Maybe you all should pretend you haven't read this. Anyway, this is clearly a case of a metaphor going over my young head. See, Phil Collins says "She seems to have an invisible touch/She reaches in and comes out holding your heart/She seems to have an invisible touch/She takes control and slowly tears you apart."

He means she's a cold-blooded woman who has left him, and he's heartsick. I thought he was discussing some female version of Mola Ram actually reaching into men's stomachs to remove vital organs. Which I now realize would be a far cooler song. Also, this was the same album as "Land of Confusion," which spawned that hideous, bizarre Reagan-puppet-head music video, which TOTALLY used to give me nightmares.

Little China Girl by David Bowie

I really like this song now, but as a kid, I hated the part where David Bowie goes "shhhhhhhhh." Oh, David, just you shut your mouth.

At This Moment by Billy Vera and the Beaters

Okay, maybe this song didn't so much spook me as annoy me, but I used to dread hearing it more than any other song that would ever come on the radio. Maybe that's just because it used to come on the radio so goddamn much. And it's a terrible song! Did you know, in 1986, it was at the top of the Billboard charts for a while? The top! A #1 song.

You may not remember "At This Moment." It features Billy, a white guy soul crooner, singing a bunch of verses that begin "What did you think I would do at this moment" Except he doesn't say "do at this moment." He says "dooooooooooooo at this mo-meeeeeeennnnnt." At one point, he wails something like, "If you'd stay, I'd subtract 20 years from my life..."

As a young person with no conception of romantic love, this concept was very strange to me. He'd actually be willing to die 20 years earlier if this woman would stay with him? Forever, or just for a little while? Now, I realize it's just that kind of sentiment balladeers throw into love songs all the time.

There is a genuinely haunting, eerie quality to the song, aside from the fact that it just isn't very good.

Somebody's Watching Me by Rockwell

This is a tremendous song. Did you know that Rockwell is actually Kenneth Gordy, Motown founder Berry Gordy's son, and that the backing vocals on this track are done by Michael and Jermaine Jackson? Anyway, I still really like it. Classic 80's R&B.

I used to hate it because it reminded me of a scary story I had read in a random book once that had always stuck with me, stood out as particularly terrifying. I don't even remember the book. But it had this story about a little boy who heard a voice talking to him at night. And his parents would come in and look all around the room and show him that there was nothing there, and then leave. Eventually, after they did this a few times, the boy relaxed, safe in the knowledge that no one was in the room with him.

"Thank goodness," says the boy. "There's nobody here but me."

"AND ME!" responds a deep voice from his closet.

That's how the story ends. It touched a nerve in me. The idea that your senses and rationality could deceive you. That there's a man or a monster in the closet and the parents didn't see him, even with the lights on. Basically, it's that fear that the rational order of the universe is imperfect or uncertain, that everything we accept could disappear, or be proved wrong.

Anyway, it used to really bug me. I would look around the room and see no one was there, and then lie down and think about what might be right behind my head, out of my field of vision. And here was this catchy pop song about that very concept!

Darth is Going Down

OHMYGODTHISISSOFUCKINGGOOD!

I'm not gay, but I'm developing something of a man-crush on Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Check this out from today's Drudge Report.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned.

But the high stakes move could result in an executive privilege showdown between the White House and Fitzgerald, a top government source said Sunday.

"If Mr. Fitzgerald is going to demand a public recounting of conversations between the vice president, or even the president, and his staff, on matters he, himself, has acknowledged are 'classified,' executive privilege will obviously be invoked."

Is anyone else hoping for a Few Good Men-esque showdown in which Fitzie catches the Dickster in a web of lies, leading to a frothing-at-the-mouth, angry rant by the soon-to-be-ex-Vice President?

"The Middle East has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You, Special Counselor Fitzgerald? You Lieutenant Jew-Boy? You want me torturing those detainees. You need me torturing those detainees!"

I see Danny DeVito in his Penguin make-up from Batman Returns as Cheney and, I don't know, Chris Cooper for Fitz? Peter Sarsgaard? Robert Downey Jr.? I'm open to suggestions...

Fitzgerald has made it clear to lawyers involved in the case that he prefers Cheney appear as a witness in open court.

"Mr. Fitzgerald is starting from the position that this should not be done on remote or videotape," the well-placed source said. Fitzgerald and Libby's attorney Joseph Tate discussed possible plea options before the indictment was issued last week, TIME magazine reports in new editions. But the deal was scotched because the prosecutor insisted that Libby do some "serious" jail time.

The three greatest words in the English language...Serious Jail Time. I hope they lock that scumbag Scooter up in Abu Gharib. Let's see how he likes being held under ice water until he nearly develops hypothermia (tested via anal thermometer, of course) while loud music blares and giggling soldiers coat him with imitation menstruel blood. I'm thinking he's going to be into it.

Now, I know what you're thinking...There goes Lons again, calling every Republican a scumbag and wishing for them all to be tortured and killed in various, horror-film-inspired ways. But, no, like all the other right-wingers discussed here on CBI, Libby earns the term "scumbag" all on his own.

Here's the Center for American Progress:

It was Libby - along with Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and a handful of other top aides at the Pentagon and White House - who convinced the president that the U.S. should go to war in Iraq. It was Libby who pushed Cheney to publicly argue that Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda and 9/11.

Libby's the Guy behind The Guy behind The Guy, you know? This whole Iraq thing was just some wacky idea cooked up by him and a few other neo-cons, possibly after smoking a massive blunt laced with methamphetamines, formaldehyde and fabric softener.

It was also Libby who prodded former Secretary of State Colin Powell to include specious reports about an alleged meeting between 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence official in Powell's February 2003 speech to the United Nations. Libby and his staff reportedly badgered Powell's speechwriters for weeks, culminating in a meeting where Libby presented information in a manner that, according to those who were there, was aggressive and over the top.

Neato!

And here's the most important part of the article...About a paper written by Libby while working in the Department of Defense under the first and only sane President Bush.

The paper - highly praised by neocons at the time - called for the United States to build up its military capabilities to the point where no other country could ever rival them. Cheney, who was then secretary of defense, liked the document so much that he ordered parts of the usually secret plan declassified and made them public. This Planning Guidance document went a long way toward endearing Libby to Cheney.

That's what you need to know. That's where this guy is coming from. Endless militarism, fascistic levels of governmental control, disinformation campaigns. He's a scumbag. I hope he goes to jail for a long time, and I hope he takes his former boss with him. Actually, no, I don't want Dick to die in jail. I want him to die in some really humiliating way, like having a coronary on the shitter before a formal dinner at the White House. Or at the end of a brief address held at a convention or large event, so he can fall off the stage and directly into the orchestra pit, possibly weding his head inside a large brass instrument. Dying in jail is too good for him.

Behind the Orange Curtain

I spent my formative years in Irvine, deep in the heart of now-famous "O.C." We used to refer to Central Orange County as "The Bubble." Its the last stand of Southern California's "white flight," a prosperous suburban community located exactly midway between the Los Angeles and San Diego Metropolian Areas. If you go any further away from L.A. than Irvine, you start getting closer to San Diego.

It's all based around this fraudulent sense of security and control. Greenbelts are everywhere so kids don't have to cross busy intersections. Many streets have electronic gates that require passcodes for entrance. There's even bogus fake concrete walls bordering the freeways once you get to Irvine, warning all passersby that they are not welcome, to just keep moving on down the road until they get to some city that welcomes transients, losers and scum. Maybe San Clemente.

It's the Orange Curtain effect. But that's all it is; an effect. An illusion used to sell people expensive homes, to sell office space in corporate parks, and to sell movie tickets, haute cuisine and whatever shit they sell in Hot Topic at the Irvine Spectrum.

In fact, a surprising amount of shocking, bizarre and wacko crimes happen to go down in Orange County. More than you'd maybe expect.

When I was still in high school, the entire Country went bankrupt when the (all Republican) Board of Supervisors lost $1.7 billion in taxpayer money on the stock market.

Did you know that in 1999, Huntington Beach had to close down because of the massive level of fecal material found in the water there?

In 1992, also when I was in high school, an honor roll student at nearby Foothill High in Tustin, 17 year old Stuart Tay, was brutally murdered by his classmates for no good rason.

I think I've even blogged before about the remarkable story of Dr. Larry Ford, the Mormon Orange County pharmaceutical executive who killed himself after a botched attempt to murder his partner. It later came out that he had worked for the CIA, possibly in the development of biological weapons. Many hazardous materials were found on his property after his death.

In 2003, a schizophrenic named Joseph Parker showed up at the Albertson's at which he once worked and killed two people, wounding three others. He was shot and killed by police.

And today, we can add another horrifying story of insanity, rage and terror. A 19 year old, wearing a cape, went on a kill-crazy rampage in Aliso Viejo today, murdering a father and daughter before killing himself.

Now this is very strange. Events like the murders at Columbine High School are extremely tragic, but also isolated incidents. If we continually heard about teenagers in Littleton, Colorado going on murdering sprees, we'd start to wonder what was going on there. Moreover, if Littleton, Colorado were an area known for massive governmental corruption, if the local parks and recreation areas were coated with feces, and if people sometimes killed themselves and left their houses filled with botulism and toxic spores, we would probably declare some kind of government emergency.

But Orange County gets "The O.C.," a TV show glamorizing the beautiful, perfect lifestyle of all who dwell within, suffering only from bland interpersonal disagreements about who is really in love with who.

America's Funnyman

Went to Hollywood Blvd.'s semi-historical venue The Knitting Factory last night to check out one of my favorite working comedians, the legendary Neil Hamburger. For those of you unfamiliar with Hamburger's act, he's among the last of a dying breed. A gag man. A comedian who is as much about the strength of his material as he is any sort of on-stage "schtick" or "persona." I'll give you one example...Here's a classic Neil Hamburger one-liner:

-Why did Julia Roberts rub shit all over her vagina?
-Because she was horny.



Folks, it just goes on like that. For an hour. Absolutely amazing stuff. I thought my friend Steve was going to have an anyeurism, he was laughing so hard.

Okay, okay, one more classic Niel Hambuger joke...

-Why did Britney Spears have a caesarian section?
-Because, like her husband Kevin Federlane [sp], she wanted to avoid labor.

Booyakasha!

Hamburger's poised right on the brink of stardom. He's been on the Jimmy Kimmel show a few times, he recently returned from a Standing Room Only tour of Malaysia (memorialized in the new documentary, Left for Dead in Malaysia). I'd suggest heading out to see him before he starts playing sold-out stadiums. Or check out one of his albums, "50 States, 50 Laughs" or "America's Funnyman" or even "Raw Hamburger."

The opening act was soul-punk-swing combo The Abe Lincoln Story. At least, they call themselves soul-punk-swing. It's more like Orange County third-wave ska than anything else. They reminded me of bands like Reel Big Fish or The Aquabats, except they're all about 10-15 years older and even more ironic.

They opened with kind of a funny, goofy song called "Rock Paper Scissors," and I was kind of enjoying them. At the very least, they had a lot of energy, and a lot of musicians on stage playing everything from keyboards to saxophone to trumpet.

But once they kept playing, and it became clear that all the songs are the same kind of horn-inflected, self-aware silly observational ditties - one is called "I Don't Need a Bag," and spends 5 minutes railing against clerks at convenience stores who give you little things like gum and mints in a big plastic bag. You get the idea. A little of it goes a long way.

The show was in the Alter-Knit Lounge, a little room set off from the actual main venue. It's tiny, but it does have its own bar. Amazingly, Neil Hamburger didn't manage to sell out the closet-like room, but it was about half-full. I'm sure next time through town, Neil will manage to upgrade to, at the very least, The Wiltern.

You Can't Have Shame in Your Game

Rapper The Game has been arrested for, get this, causing a scene in a mall and refusing to remove a Halloween mask. Seriously.

How will he ever live this down? That's the most pussified charge against a rapper I've ever heard. Doesn't The Game have a reputation to defend? You can't rap about being arrested for, as The Game puts it, "signing an autograph for a little girl."

"I got arrested for signing autographs," the 25-year-old rapper told WFMY-TV after he was released on $500 bail. "Signing a little girl's autograph got me arrested."

I would think, at the last moment, he's pull a gun and shoot a mall cop, just so the resulting news story would read better. "Rapper The Game, after brandishing a firearm in a mall and refusing to remove a Halloween mask, shot six mall security guards and one little girl, in line for the entertainer's autograph."

Now that would make a kickass just-released-from-jail track.

But police said The Game, real name Jayceon Taylor, and a group of companions behaved disruptively and swearing Friday at Four Seasons Town Centre. He was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. At one point, police said, his companions were sprayed with pepper spray when they surrounded officers in a threatening manner.

These are tough guys, man. They were sprayed with pepper spray and the incident kept right on going. They continued their threatening, disorderly behavior in a MALL AFTER being hit with pepper spray. WHAT? YOU GOT A PROBLEM WIT DAT?

The Game said officers overreacted.

"They thought I was Rodney King, man. It was a case of mistaken identity," he told WFMY. "It's unfair, man. Their behavior's unfair."

Oh, he sounds charming. I shall have to pick up his next album when it, um, drops.

And just in case you or your child would like to emulate The Game this Halloween, now you can with the Instant Rapper collection:



Extra special big thanks to my friends over at Random Aggression for the terrific photo.

It also comes with a loaded Glock, in case some trick-ass fool tries to steal your motherfuckin' candy and you have to bust a cap up in there.

Libby Fought the Law and the Law Won

Well, okay, the law actually hasn't won anything yet. An indictment is more an announcement - "Hey, guy, I intend to prosecute you" - than anything else. And so far the guy has only been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Serious crimes, particularly when they concern top government officials who are obstructing a federal prosectuor's investigation. Not quite as serious as Tom DeLay's Tony Soprano-esque racketeering charge. But, hey, you take what you can get.

I'm just delighted this weekend by all the denial and hand-wringing by conservative pundits. These guys have had it too good for too long...They have no idea how to deal with having their backs against the ropes, with having to actually explain themselves to a country that no longer quite fancies their exquisite blend of gay-bashing, Jesus-loving, Bush-worshipping, torture-celebrating and civil rights-hating balderdash.

Take Andrew Sullivan, a guy who was fiercely in favor of the war and of President Bush until it stopped going well, at which time he turned on the President but continued supporting the war. It seems fair enough to me. In 2003, he was gullible. In 2004, he figured shit out. No harm, no foul.

So why is he still defending the President and his bullshit cabal or cronies and whackjob advisors? He published this piffle TODAY:

Some context is important here.

NOTE: Any time you see a guy attempting to give Plamegate some "context," it means he's going to blow smoke up your ass about how it's no big deal. This is a lie. Ignore it.

I have yet to be even nearly convinced that Plamegate reveals some massive conspiracy to deceive the public in advance about the rationale for the Iraq war.

Okay, Andrew, then allow me to explain it to you...Valerie Plame's name was leaked in order to smear Joe Wilson, her husband. He had just stated to the national media that one of the main reasons our government went to war with Iraq, the notion they were buying uranium from Niger, was untrue. To make it look like his trip was nothing more than nepotism and to discredit his eventual findings. Also, I think it has the added intentional consequence of emasculating him, of presenting him as a weak man beholden to a more powerful wife. (It's the same game right-wingers used to play with Bil Clinton, portraying him as a wuss deferring constantly to some shrill harpy).

How is that not an attempt to deceive the public about the rationale for war? OF COURSE IT IS! A guy came back and made a true statement, that Iraq wasn't buying yellowcake uranium, that inf act Iraq didn't have any WMD's at all. We now know 100% that this is true. And these leakers decided to actively discredit the man, to defend their lie. That's textbook definition of deception.

Notice that Andrew says in advance. That's the crux of his whole argument.

It looks far more likely to me that in 2002, Cheney and Libby were intent on insuring that the CIA was not complacent, and that they weren't blindsided by Saddam's WMD program this time the way they were in 1990. I'm grateful for their aggressive attempt to make sure they didn't ignore threats to this country in the aftermath of 9/11. And they'd now be crucified if a Saddam-made bio weapon had gone off in the U.S. on their watch.

Try to wrap your mind around this one (I know it's hard)...Andrew's saying that he's thankful Dick Cheney and Libby put pressure on the CIA, to make sure they weren't "complacent." But that's not what they were doing. It's not like Cheney called the CIA every once in a while to check up on them, make sure they were doing a solid job. He set up his own intelligence office, he monitored their every activity, he used inside contacts to work against agents pursuing alternate theories on Iraq that didn't satisfy his lust for war. That's what the entire intelligence community has been saying for 2 years now! Why is Andrew going to continue to deny deny deny to protect this government? As a gay guy who claims to have voted for Kerry, what does he stand to gain?

Also, he does that thing where he pretends Saddam had access to some kind of weapon. "What if Saddam blew up Los Angeles? You'd all be really pissed if the president hadn't done anything!"

But Saddam had no big weapons! We know that's true! It would be like saying ,"George Bush had no choice but to strangle those third-graders with his bare hands...What if one of them had grown up and raped your wife? Wouldn't you be angry that the president hadn't killed that rapist when he was still a kid?"

What seems more likely to me is that in the aftermath of the war, when their claims largely evaporated, they found it hard to deal with the humiliation. So they over-reached in trying to smear their critics, in the Wilson case, almost certainly violating the law. That's serious, and it may be a sub-conspiracy.

Who cares when they lied? They didn't need to leak information about Joe Wilson before the war began...No one knew who the fuck he was. But what this story indicates is the MO of the White House, suppressing any intelligence information that didn't support their case for war, fighting anyone who disagreed with their aggressive, cowboy tactics and, finally, entering into a war on evidence they knew was questionable.

But regardless of any of that, it's still a crime to leak governmental information in order to smear someone who's telling the truth in the New York Times. Right? Does it matter if it happened in 2001, 2002 or 2003?

(I have to say I find it entirely credible - though we have no evidence as yet - that Cheney was fully aware of the illegal leak and encouraged it.) But criminality and conspiracy in reaction to post-invasion humiliation is not the same thing as criminality and conspiracy before the war. The anti-war left's attempt to conflate the two has, as yet, little substance. That's worth keeping in mind.

Are you fucking kidding me, Andrew? Surely you know better than this. Surely you know that the law is the law regardless of your motives in violating it. "Oh, they only leaked that CIA agent's name and then lied about it because they were embarrassed! Come on, you guys, it's kind of adorable, actually."

Even his last sentence is wrong. Nothing about his post is worth keeping in mind.

And that's not even getting into Bob Woodward on Larry King yesterday. I didn't watch the show myself, as Larry King's suspenders and voice kind of creep me out, but thankfully RJ Escow at Huffington Post has blogged it out for me.

First of all this began not as somebody launching a smear campaign ... I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started as a kind of gossip, as chatter and that somebody learned (Plame) had worked at the CIA and helped him get this job ...

So, let me run this one by you, Bobby...Do Washington politicos, journalists, CIA agents and high-ranking administrative officials tool around DC all day gossiping about people working undercover? Is that the make-up of typical DC chatter. Because, if so, that's a big story. You should probably write something about how compromised our entire intelligence system has been by gossip and chatter.

But I'm guessing it's just complete and utter bullshit. That's Woodward's reporting style these days - make strange statements that are so vague, it's impossible to even discuss them at length.

There's a lot of innocent actions in all of this but ... this is a junkyard dog prosecutor ...

Special Prosecuter Fitzgerald strikes me as a wholly upright, honest and professional kind of guy. Almost an Elliott Ness figure. The exact opposite of a right-wing scumbag like, say, Kenneth Starr (bearing in mind that Fitzgerald was a Republican appointee). I can't think of a less accurate way to describe him than as a "junkyard dog." I mean, he doesn't wear a big steel chain around his neck, and I've never once seen him hanging out with Hulk Hogan.

Some people kind of had convenient memories before the grand jury. “Technically” they might be able to be charged with perjury. But I don't see an underlying crime here.

Bob Woodward is one of the two reporters responsible for the Watergate investigation. He's fucking Robert Redford in All the President's Men for Christ's sake. Can you imagine Redford in that movie spouting this tripe? "I mean, yeah, perjury's technically against the law, but it's a small, unimportant crime. I mean, come on, people, the president and his crew seem like a bunch of nice guys, right? Let's just leave 'em alone."

(Wilson) came back (from Niger) and reported and Michael (Isikoff, a co-panelist) and others who have read the Senate Intelligence Committee on this know his report was very ambiguous.

If it was such an ambiguous report, if no one took it seriously and it didn't have an impact on our efforts in Iraq, why the elongated effort to smear the guy? Why did any of this happen? Oh, right, it didn't...There was no leak...Just some innocent gossip...I forgot, Bob, sorry.

Also, the fact that we now know that what Wilson claimed was true, and that Iraq was nowhere capable of constructing WMD's and had no direct interest in buying Niger's yellowcake uranium, how can he still argue the report was ambiguous? I believe the word you're searching for, Bob, is "true."

They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that Joe Wilson's wife was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger of any kind and there was just some embarrassment.

And this, we know now via Eschaton, is a total lie. There was no damage assessment done at the CIA over how they'd be affected by the Valerie Plame unmasking. At least, according to today's Washington Post:

The CIA has not conducted a formal damage assessment, as is routinely done in cases of espionage and after any legal proceedings have been exhausted.

Oops, Bob, you did even worst than Scooter Libby. Your lie about a possible government leak of information was exposed less than 24 hours later. Try to work on that next time you're out bullshitting the American people on behalf of your buddies in high places.

The Return of the Curse of the Creature's Ghost

Okay, it's almost Halloween, so that means it's time for long lists of cool scary movies to watch on Halloween night. Even though, near as I can tell, most people spend Halloween throwing together random, half-assed costumes and getting together in some poor fool's house for an extended night spent ingesting various types of alcohol and candy corn. But just in case you want to rent some movies, it's always nice to have suggestions.

Over at the quite frequently hilarious and far more aesthetically pleasing blog Dude Man Phat, Justin has collected the favorite scary movies of a variety of well-spoken bloggers from across the Net (including yours truly). Everyone's picks are pretty terrific, particularly The Changeling! I'd expect Netflix's copies are already reserved for Oct. 31st, but just in case...try to nab that one. Creepy, little-known haunted house flick with George C. Scott! I chose Texas Chainsaw Massacre, mainly because of that incredible final shot with Leatherface ferociously swinging the chainsaw around.

I'll write some more reviews of some cool horror stuff in the next few days, particularly as horror will make up the bulk of my viewing diet between now and All Hallow's Eve. But for now, here's an older post in which I recounted some of my favorite horror films. Any one of these films would make a fine Halloween rental.

The Mothers of Invention

Okay, new Crushed by Inertia poll for you all to ignore. What's the single worst invention of all time? I have some nominees of my own...

(1) THE LEAF BLOWER

Anyone living in a Southern California suburb knows the horror of the leaf-blower. It's a machine that moves leaves and dirt from one area to another by blowing everything in sight in every random direction. And it does so with only the amount of noise pollution and fumes you'd get from operating any standard jet engine. Brilliant!

Did you know the leaf blower was invented in Japan in the 70's, but only took off in Southern California years later as an alternative to using a garden hose? Way to go, Japan! Behind tentacle porn and electronic pets, this is your finest work yet!

(2) THE SPEED BUMP

"Hey, I've got a great idea for slowing down traffic on residential streets! Let's just put random hills in the asphalt and send speeding cars recklessly flying into the air, only to then slam down with force on to the ground below. That'll show 'em!"

I suppose that if every driver on the road knew how to properly drive over a speed bump, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But I always get stuck behind some old fart who wants to actually bring the car to a complete stop before going over the slight obstacle. Driving down one street can take roughly as long as a Passover Seder.

(3) THE PLASTIC COFFEE CUP LID

What worthless, incompetant asshole designed these things? You know what I'm talking about? That little plastic leaky hole-filled worthless lid they put on top of your coffee at Starbucks and Coffee Bean? If you want to take it off to put sweetener or milk in your drink, it takes forever, and there's a 90% chance you're getting hot coffee dribbling somewhere on your person.

And the hole to sip the drink from is far too small. And the lids are always somewhat insecure, so coffee still manages to get through and drip all over you while you walk back to your car. You either get a few drops of coffee in your mouth at a time, or you expect a few drops of coffee and get a deluge, because the bottom part of the lid isn't firmly affixed to the cup. Worthless!

[See also "Fast Food Soft Drink Cup Lids"]

(4) FLOURESCENT LIGHTING

Is this bullshit cheaper or something? Someone please explain. Every office building in the world has these flourescent light tubes. They always go out, or start to flicker, or one bulb goes out but the rest remain on, so you get an eerie half-lit effect. Not to mention that they give everything a drab, washed-out look, and make everyone alive look extremely unflattering. Plus there's that ghastly hum. When you're working in an office 40-some hours a week, you start to get used to the hum, and then you stop working there and you realize that, for several years of your life, you lived with numbing white noise filling your brain at all times...

(5) CELL PHONE HEADSETS

Are you one of those guys that walks around all day with a lit-up electronic cell phone ear piece on your head all day, even when you're not actually engaged in a conversation? Guess what...You look like an asshole. We're all making fun of you as soon as you leave the room. Unless you're an operator for Time-Life or 1-800-DENTIST, you have no business wearing a headset, okay, pal?

(6) THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Worst. Department. Ever.

(7) THE LAUGH TRACK

The single worst idea in television history. If you don't have a live audience, or if you have a live audience that isn't laughing, we don't want to hear some mechanical bullshit laughter. I know the thing kind of works - that the simple-minded can be convinced they're watching a program of quality if imaginary people seem to enjoy it - but that's no excuse to actually use it.

Eliminating canned laughter is a way for a show to instantly feel more fresh (like, say, "Arrested Development" or "Curb Your Enthusiasm.")

(8) ADWARE AND SPYWARE

Normally, I'm not one to resent hackers. I figure, if you're smart enough to defraud a multi-national corporation using only your home computer, you probably deserve anything you can get. But I really hate this whole idea of invading my computer and fucking it up for no good reason. It just makes no sense.

If the idea was to put subtle advertising secretly on my computer that might actually get me to spend some money, hey, fine, I'm all for that. But to install advertising software that just shuts down my machine, making it unable to process even basic tasks, then that's a pointless act of sabotage. Maybe that's the whole point. Either way, it sucks balls.

And, yeah, I know sometimes they're stealing personal information from my computer. But there's nothing of value on my hard drive to 1337 h4x0rz that I can think of, unless they're really into Japanese tentacle porn.

Yeah, that's right, I brought tentacle porn all the way back around. Cause I have sweet blogging skills.

Leave your suggestions in the comments below. That is, if anyone actually reads this blog any more. I'm getting less hits a day than Nancy Reagan's bong. (Cause she hates drugs...remember with the "Just Say No"...oh, forget it...)

I Want This Bumper Sticker

Many thanks to Tom Tomorrow, from whom I've shamelessly lifted this image:

It's a Holiday for a Hanging

Forget Plamegate. Forget Katrina. Forget Iraq. The #1 news story of 2005 is this item from the Associated Press. The headline:

Suicide Mistaken for Halloween Decoration

This is among the saddest/most hilarious articles I have ever read in my entire life.

FREDERICA, Del. - The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said.

The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said.

Okay, first question...Could this possibly be deliberate? I mean, how often to people hang themselves from trees on a public street? She must have thought that someone might try to stop her if she hung herself in public...unless she did it right before Halloween when people hang fake corpses from trees!

If this is intentional, it's officially the coolest suicide ever. Not that I'm encouraging you impressionable young children out there to try suicide. But if you do feel that your life is worthless and want to end it all, please try to do so in a funny or ironic way that will provide those of us you leave behind with a chuckle or two at work.

Thanks.

The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles.
State police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham and neighbors said people noticed the body at breakfast time Wednesday but dismissed it as a holiday prank. Authorities were called to the scene more than three hours later.

Who eventually figured out it wasn't a decoration? That must have been some scene, huh?

"Hey, wait you guys...This dummy is amazing! It looks really real! And what's that smell? I think this stuffed dummy has crapped its pants...Oh, wait a minute..."

"They thought it was a Halloween decoration," Fay Glanden, wife of Mayor William Glanden, told The (Wilmington) News Journal.

"It looked like something somebody would have rigged up," she said.

Well, Fay, it was something somebody rigged up. Just not how you think...

Sulu...Out!

Actor George Takei, best-known for playing Sulu on the original series of "Star Trek," came out of the closet to something called Frontiers Magazine. It was a bold move, announcing to the world what every person who knows who "George Takei" is already knew, that he is a homosexual.

Seriously, Takei wasn't out of the closet? He's a very feminine guy. I mean, frankly, I don't care if he's straight or gay or only gets aroused by chandeliers or whatever. I just always assumed the guy was gay, and that everyone knows he was gay.

And then I read this post in Pandagon, and it turns out Takei's been openly living with a man, Brad Altman, for 18 years.

The current social and political climate also motivated Takei's disclosure, he said...The 68-year-old actor said he considers himself as "having been out for quite some time." Takei and his partner, Brad Altman, have been together for 18 years.

So, how is this news, exactly?

"Gay Actor Remains Gay."

ALERT THE MEDIA!

I can't really tell, but there seems to be something vaguely weird about a magazine writing an entire article about a gay guy, just for being gay, and then that article gets picked up by the Associated Press. There's a whole bunch of gay guys, including gay actors (probably disproportionately, as a matter of fact). Who cares that this particular one prefers men to women?

You ever hear that prank call with Takei they play on Howard Stern? Someone pretending to be Ricardo Montalban, Takei's co-star in the sci-fi classic Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, calls Takei basically to shoot the shit, and really has him going there for a minute. Finally, after he figures out that it's a prank, he says "I don't think you're Ricardo Montalban..." It's a classic moment in prank call-dom that has absolutely nothing to do with this article. I just think it's hilariously funny, and it makes me laugh every single time it's played.

[I should note that Takei himself strikes me as an intelligent, interesting kind of guy, despite being kind of a pop culture joke and speaking in a heightened, silly manner. He keeps up a pretty cool blog, as a matter of fact, here. And, just as a side-note, it's pretty amazing to me that he lived in an internment camp from ages 4 to 8. Weird that there are still so many living people who went through such a humiliating, unforgivable experience, and yet they have managed to put it behind them and succeed in the very country that imprisoned them.]

Harakiri Is Totally In This Season

According to USA Today, there has been a sudden resurgence of interest in samurai movies. That's pretty cool, but hard to believe. If more people wanted to read about samurai films, wouldn't my blog get more than 50 hits a day? I review those fuckers all the time!

Also, I just have a hard time believing that most Americans would get into classic samurai movies. Maybe stuff like Kill Bill, movies that integrate aspects of samurai films into recognizable, modern contexts, will become even more popular. Swordplay in movies definitely seems to be making a comeback. I mean, cinematic legend Joss Whedon thought to include them in Serenity, so you know they're hot right now.

But the old-school samurai films I've been enjoyed a lot lately, thanks to the American Cinematheque's awesome Japanese Outlaw Masters series (not discussed in the article for no good reason) and Laser Blazer's impressive collection of Japanese films for rental, are probably too deliberately paced and tied to Japanese culture for mass audiences here in the States.

I don't want to sound like a snot or anything, and I'd love to be proven wrong on this point, but we are talking about a nation that collectively has embraced The Rock, Paul Walker and Zach Braff as film stars. We're talking about a crop of young people who consider Paris Hilton to be the voice for their generation. Asking them to open their minds to the subtle nuances of Inagaki's Samurai trilogy may be aiming a bit high. The average American lacks the attention span to enjoy the Back to the Future trilogy.

Really, the whole article is an excuse to plug Criterion's admittedly awesome quartet of 60's samurai films on DVD. I wanted to review some for you all this week, particularly Hideo Gosha's Sword of the Beast and the famed Samurai Rebellion, starring Toshiro Mifune. But I haven't gotten a chance to rent them yet. Look for a review in the coming weeks.

Is There a Penalty For Early Withdrawl?

This morning, CNN revealed that Bush will withdraw the nomination of Harriett Miers to the Supreme Court. It was a move that was pretty much inevitable. Many notable Senators on both sides of the aisle had openly opposed the nomination, she was clearly ill-prepared for the grueling confirmation process, conservatives hated her because she didn't love fetuses quite enough and might not be extremely hostile to gay people. I mean, they knew she didn't like gay people, but in the modern Republican Party, mere distaste is not enough. You have to really loathe the gays, with a hatred and disdain typically reserved for pederasts, necrophiliacs and liberals living on the coast who occasionally enjoy a nice latte.

Bush's presidency really does seem to be imploding all around him, doesn't it? You know what's weird? We've got a good long while left to go with this thing. Next President isn't elected until 2008, people. He's already starting to sound like he's on his way out the door.

"Alright, folks, good luck with the whole Iraq thing. Freedom on the march and all that. Sorry about that Harriett lady, and all them dang ol' storms. Man, that was weird, huh? Okay, my time's almost up here, please remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Okay, you guys have been great, my name's W."

I'm genuinely becoming concerned for his mental stability. I mean, there were those tabloid reports about how he was back to drinking, all of his good buddies are either being indicted or rejected from the high offices in which he's placing them, he and his brother keep forgetting to help people following huge storms...Even the soccer moms and NASCAR dads are getting sick of his lame, recycled bullshit. That is, if those people even exist. Also, if recent poll numbers are to be believed, nearly every black person in America wants to kick his ass. It's not looking good.

Then there's this article by Sidney Blumenthal, casting Bush as a kind of Shakespearean tragic figure, albeit more of a Falstaffian nature than, say, Hamlet. Bush, who resents the father who has bailed him out over and over again during his life, will now once again rely on the Old Republican establishment to bail out his presidency.

But bringing in the elders, even if they could be summoned, would be psychologically devastating to Bush, a humiliating admission that his long history of recklessness and failure, from the Texas Air National Guard to Harken Energy, with rescue only through the intervention of his father and his father's friends, has reached its culmination.

Ouch. I hope Oliver Stone doesn't do too much drunk driving, because I want him healthy enough to make the George Bush movie in 20-some-odd years. Man, that's going to be good. "Matthew McConaughey is...Bush, coming Spring 2029 to a small LCD flip-up screen attached to an mp3 player/DVD/PS12/Blackberry/cell phone unit attached to you."

Think about it. Wooderson is going to be perfect to play Bush in 2029! Someone get him contractually obliged to do this right now!

The one annoying thing about this whole situation is how happy it makes conservatives. They're all jumping around and gloating and getting excited, as if this is some kind of victory. You guys like this President, remember? That's why you keep voting for him and calling those of us who hate him traitorous insolent dogs, right? Because if you don't like him, and we don't like him...why is he still president? Let's just get him out of there ASAP and move on with our lives, shall we? I mean, you guys all indicted Clinton for rubbing one out on the office intern. And yet we just have to live with 3 more years of this goon?

I mean, now that he's been exposed as a blundering rube who suggests his close friends every time a big important job opens up, how come you're still content? Why are you now confident he'll nominate someone you like? I think it's extremely likely that his old housekeeper is on deck. Or perhaps his tennis instructor.

"Tab is a really solid dude who totally improved my backhand. And I know tennis is kind of fruity, but he's also into baseball. And I like baseball. I mean, what's more American than baseball, am I right? That's why I'm appointing Tab (or Tabby Cat, as I like to call him) the new director of NASA. Wait...What's NASA do again?"

Don't believe me? Check out some of the bright, shiny optimism the National Review has become famous for:

You know what the relief is this morning? A return to the feeling that this president gets the big things right. There was a detour, but I’m confident we’re going to have good news shortly on SCOTUS, because this president tends to get the big things right. That’s the confidence so many of us have always had in him. And we may have been worried about our assessment for a few weeks there, but there's a renewed confidence this morning.

Awesome. Man, that is awesome. You have got to love the logic. The President clearly makes a lot of stupid mistakes. Conservative pundit Kathryn Jean Lopez can't actually deny that. So instead, she creates this bizarre fantasy of a man who makes mistakes, but then corrects them, and his corrected mistake is therefore even better than any original solution could have been! See, he fucks up constantly, but he gets the big things right.

What big things are those exactly? Ending the Iraq War? Boosting the stagnant economy? Solving the growing problem of outsourcing? Combating cyclical poverty? Disaster relief? The growing environmental crisis? The Department of Homeland Security? Stemming massive government corruption? Or wasteful pork? Investigating egregious corporate greed and abuse of the public trust? Fixing Social Security? Simplifying the tax code? A mission to Mars? Gas prices? Steroid abuse in professional sports?

Tell me, K. Lo, which exactly of these big things has the president "gotten right"? Give me one single big thing. I can't even believe we're even discussing this.

And the ridiculously misplaced faith of the conservatives doesn't end with the removal of Harriett Miers from public life. There's hope all around the right wing about the continued success of the entire embattled Bush presidency. Check out this unfathomable editorial from the Washington Post, praising Bush's fine work in the Middle East and urging all of us to get the hell off of his back.

This is from the very first paragraph:

The sacrifice of American lives, and the debilitating injuries suffered by thousands of others, have devastated families and wounded the nation. That the totals are relatively small compared with those of previous U.S. wars, or the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died, does not change that.

Yeah, it doesn't change the fact that the loss of these 2,000 lives have devastated families. But you bring it up anyway. They couldn't just say "We are saddened by the loss of 2,000 American lives in Iraq." That's not a political judgement at all. You're just acknowledging that many Americans, and many many more Iraqis, have died in this conflict. But, no, that would be too classy. Instead, it's, "Yeah, 2,000 lives is sad, but that's really no big deal, man. I mean, way more people died in some other wars, you know?"

Bastards. I can't believe I live in a world where people think this way. "What? Only 2,000 people died so far? So what? 23,000 Americans died in Antietam, pussy! You want to quit now?"

What does matter is what has come from those sacrifices. The most brutal and dangerous dictator in the modern history of the Middle East was deposed, and last week he was put on trial before an Iraqi court. Millions of Iraqis he oppressed continue to be grateful for their liberation; unlike most Americans, they still believe that the invasion was worth the cost.

I just have one question for the Washington Post editorial board...

Can I buy some pot from you?

Cause, seriously, they must be sparking some crazy blunts up in there. This statement has absolutely no connection with reality. Millions of Iraqis are grateful for the American presence in Iraq, believing the invasion is worth the cost? MILLIONS? I mean, yes, sure, there are certainly Iraqis who continue to support the American military occupation of their country. Many of them are invested in Westernizing Iraq for financial reasons, or theorize that, in the American-backed post-Saddam government, they will have some degree of influence or power.

But it seems to me, and anyone with a functioning brain, eyes and ears, that this occupation is not going well. We're several years on and the situation doesn't seem to be improving. In fact, it's getting worse. Iraq seems poised on the brink of all-out Civil War. (I'd say, more accurately, that they have been involved in a kind of Civil War since 2003).

Also, was Saddam really the most brutal and dangerous dictator in the modern history of the Middle East? I don't really know for sure...But I still, years and years later, have not seen solid evidence for this much-stated contention. He was a bad guy, for sure. A horrible man. An evil dictator. But there are a lot of those. Some of those kinds of men are our allies, friends of our government.

And don't we, as a nation, now subscribe to the idea that detaining people without due process of law, torturing them severely for information and even killing them in the process, is okay? What's to differentiate the cruel dictator who initially operated Abu Gharib prison and the administration in charge of that prison today? It's getting murkier and murkier all the time, I'm sorry to say.

But, no, it's easier to just say "He was an evil horrible man and George Bush stopped him!" I mean, they only have so much column space every day. You've got to simplify the message sometimes, in order to better catapult the propaganda.

That the war remains broadly unpopular among Americans, and is routinely and glibly described as a catastrophe by administration critics, shows that these achievements are cloaked by the continuing bloodshed.

Oh, I'm sorry, Washington Post. Was I being glib just now? Because I thought it was glib to say something like, "2,000 deaths is bad, but we've suffered worse before. Bring it on, Al Qaeda scum!" Maybe we just have different definitions of glib.

There are no easy solutions to these problems, nor is there a quick way to end American losses. In fact, one of the greatest dangers of Iraq is that domestic disenchantment with the mission will lead to a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops, a step that would greatly increase the carnage and hand a major victory to this country's foremost enemy, the Islamic extremist movement headed by al Qaeda. Mr. Bush could have avoided much of that disillusionment had he been more honest with the country from the beginning about the likely costs of the war.

See, they criticize the President here, but in a very measured way. They don't really say anything about the man's actions, his handling of the war. They just object to the manner with which he sold Americans on his plans. That's it. "He should have been more honest with teh country from the beginning." Otherwise, though, everything's good!

It kind of seems like they knew they couldn't write this entire piece without criticizing something about the President, lest they come off as completely removed from the real world. So they do the next best thing - pick apart the least important aspect of his planning for war, his marketing of the war, and continue backing his miserably failed effort 100%.

He did say on Tuesday that "this war will require more sacrifice, more time and more resolve." As U.S. servicemen continue to give their lives, the president must explain more clearly and more honestly why that is so -- and why it is necessary.

Oh, please, WaPo. This is insane and stupid. More explanations? That's what you think we need? We need him to get up there and blather some more at us about freedom and smoking them out of their holes? He gives the same goddamn idiot speech every fucking day, and it doesn't do one shred of good.

I appreciate the sentiment. In the past, Presidents were more honest with Americans about the need for sacrifice in the face of a crisis. They used to go on TV or the radio and tell people, in as straight-forward a manner as possible, what America was facing and what they could do to help. Bush refuses to ask anything from people, refuses to honestly evaluate the difficulty of a given policy. He's a coward. He wants to just do what he wants, and worry about the consequences later (if then). And he hates being criticized. So it's easier to just lie all the time and refuse to accept any feedback.

So, yeah, the point is well-taken. But it's such a meek point to make right now. We're facing numerous major crises in this country right now, some I've mentioned above and some I haven't gotten around to. There's so many more important things that need to be done at the highest levels than giving more speeches defending failed policies. Let's fucking problem-solve for once.

I'm just sick of this. At long last, has the right-wing no decency? Can we just admit that the last 5 years have been a total wash and move on? Why continue to stand up for this scumbag? Can anyone tell me? What's the deal?