1031's Nothin' But Links

test

2011-03-29T00:15:00.002-05:00

Publisher's Weekly Interview with Cory Doctorow

2008-05-29T14:26:00.003-05:00

What was the flash of inspiration for Little Brother?

One thing was the kids I was meeting, who thought of technology increasingly as something that controlled them and not as something that empowered them. That was the complete opposite of how I’d grown up. People in my Dad’s generation grew up thinking of computers as these soulless machines that would regiment them and put them in lines, but in my generation—I got a computer in 1979 and a modem in 1980, and it was like the whole world opened to me. The amount of control and power I had over my world as a nine-year-old was unbelievable. I don’t think there had ever been a nine-year-old before that who could travel across the globe with these things and have conversations and meet interesting people. But now I meet kids today who tell me, “The computer is used to spy on me, the authorities know what I’m doing, marketers know what I’m doing.”

Another inspiration was thinking about how all these techno-thrillers I read depended on technology that was like magic—technology that did something technology really can’t do. As a geek, I thought I’d be able to use technology in the story and not make it totally implausible. I thought, “Can I write a tight, well-paced techno-thriller where everything could actually happen?”

Link

Cronenberg's "Promises"

2007-09-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Salon.com talks with director David Cronenberg about his new film, Eastern Promises.

Through the Looking Glass

2007-09-07T11:22:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post profiles William Gibson:

"It's the oldest and the first mass medium. And it's the one that requires the most training to access. Novels, particularly, require serious cultural training. But it's still the same thing -- I make black marks on a white surface and someone else in another location looks at them and interprets them and sees a spaceship or whatever. It's magic. It's a magical thing. It's very old magic, but it's very thorough. The book is very well worked out, somewhat in the way that the wheel is very well worked out."

(emphasis mine)

Jack Kirby, a Comic Book Genius, Is Finally Remembered

2007-08-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

A New York Times editorial about Jack Kirby.

"We have one flak jacket that all of the correspondents share."

2007-08-26T11:21:00.000-05:00

The Washington Post interviews the Daily Show's Aasif Mandvi.

The A.V. Club interviews William Gibson

2007-08-22T16:29:00.000-05:00

Click me.

The Onion interviews Joss Whedon

2007-08-08T22:03:00.000-05:00

Click me for Whedon-y goodness.

Suicide Girls interview with Matt Fraction

2007-08-08T15:28:00.000-05:00

Click here for the Casanova, Punisher and Iron Fisting action.

Looking back on Phonogram

2007-08-07T10:39:00.000-05:00

Newsarama has a little chat with the writer of one of the best comics I've read this year.

Wow

2007-05-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

Outcry over TV kidney competition

A Dutch TV station says it will go ahead with a programme in which a terminally ill woman selects one of three patients to receive her kidneys.

Judd Apatow

2007-05-27T13:20:00.000-05:00

The New York Times Magazine profiles the writer/director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and the upcoming Knocked Up.

Luc Besson profile

2007-05-20T11:15:00.000-05:00

The New York Times takes a look at the life and films of the director of La Femme Nikita, The Professional and The Fifth Element.

Guy Drinks. Bird Drinks. Guy Thrives. Bird Drinks.

2007-05-13T09:12:00.000-05:00

The New York Times profiles cartoonist Tony Millionaire, whose Drinky Crow debuts as a cartoon on Adult Swim tonight:

This troubled, bibulous little bird is in many ways Mr. Millionaire’s alter ego and also his savior. He came up with the character in the winter of 1993, during an extremely low period in his life. He was living in New York then, and barely scraping by, as he had been since getting out of art school, by making architectural drawings of houses. But that winter his business had dwindled, and as he recalled recently: “My girlfriend said, ‘You’re not going to be able to pay the rent, are you?’ She said it would be better if I moved out, and so I was broke, sleeping on couches, begging food from friends. One night I went to this bar in Brooklyn, Six Twelve in Williamsburg, and on a napkin I started drawing a cartoon about a crow who got drunk and blew his brains out. The bartender said, ‘Every time you draw one of those, I’ll give you a beer,’ so I just kept drawing. He photocopied them, and pretty soon they became a kind of trademark for the bar. The bartender even made a Styrofoam model of Drinky Crow.”

Link

Suicide Girls and Ed Brubaker

2007-05-08T10:15:00.000-05:00

An interview with Ed Brubaker.

Bush Warns of Vetoes Over Abortion Issue

2007-05-04T14:31:00.000-05:00

This is just too good to pass up:

WASHINGTON, May 3 — President Bush told Congressional leaders Thursday that he would veto any legislation that weakened federal policies or laws on abortion.

In a two-page letter sent to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Mr. Bush said his veto threat would apply to any measures that "allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life."

Just one tiny observation: are taxpayer dollars not currently being used for the destruction of human life in Iraq?

Link

Bill Moyers Journal

2007-04-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

Bill Moyers talks with Jon Stewart about the media and Iraq.

The Chosen Frozen

2007-04-29T10:07:00.000-05:00

Michael Chabon's newest novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, comes out this week, and the New York Times has the story.

Bill Moyers Journal

2007-04-28T12:33:00.000-05:00

Watch the video:

Buying the War.

Made me sad to think of the abominable job the American media have done since 9/11. They ought to be ashamed of themselves.

2007 Eisner Nominees accnounced

2007-04-19T11:10:00.000-05:00

Newsarama has the complete list.

Here's an abbreviated list of some of the top categories, with my picks in bold:

Best Continuing Series
All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
Captain America, by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (Marvel)
Daredevil, by Ed Brubaker, Michael Lark, and Stefano Gaudiano (Marvel)
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard (Image)
Young Avengers, by Allan Heinberg, Jim Cheung, and various inkers (Marvel)

Best Limited Series
Batman: Year 100, by Paul Pope (DC)
The Looking Glass Wars: Hatter M, by Frank Beddor, Liz Cavalier, and Ben Templesmith (Desperado/Image)
The Other Side, by Jason Aaron and Cameron Stewart (Vertigo/DC)
Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli (Dark Horse)
Sock Monkey: The Inches Incident, by Tony Millionaire (Dark Horse)

Best New Series
Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Marvel Icon)
East Coast Rising, by Becky Cloonan (Tokyopop)
Gumby, by Bob Burden and Rick Geary (Wildcard)
Jack of Fables, by Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges, Tony Akins, and Andrew Pepoy (Vertigo/DC)
The Lone Ranger, by Brett Matthews and Sergio Cariello (Dynamite)

Best Writer
Ed Brubaker - Captain America, Daredevil (Marvel); Criminal (Marvel Icon)
Bob Burden - Gumby (Wildcard)
Ian Edginton - Scarlet Traces: The Great Game (Dark Horse)
Grant Morrison - All Star Superman, Batman, 52, Seven Soldiers (DC)
Bill Willingham - Fables, Jack of Fables, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Mark Buckingham/Steve Leialoha, Fables (Vertigo/DC)
Tony Harris/Tom Feister, Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC)
Niko Henrichon, Pride of Baghdad (Vertigo/DC)
Michael Lark/Stefano Gaudiano, Daredevil (Marvel)
Sonny Liew, Wonderland (SLG)
Steven McNiven/Dexter Vines, Civil War (Marvel)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
Nicolas De Crecy, Glacial Period (NBM)
Melinda Gebbie, Lost Girls (Top Shelf)
Ben Templesmith, Fell (Image); The Looking Glass Wars: Hatter M (Desperado/Image); Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (IDW)
Jill Thompson, “A Dog and His Boy” in The Dark Horse Book of Monsters; “Love Triangle” in Sexy Chix (Dark Horse); “Fair Division,” in Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)
Brett Weldele, Southland Tales: Prequel Saga (Graphitti); Silent Ghost (Markosia)

Best Cover Artist
John Cassaday - Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); The Escapists (Dark Horse); The Lone Ranger (Dynamite)
Tony Harris - Conan (Dark Horse); Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC)
James Jean - Fables, Jack of Fables, Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (Vertigo/DC)
Dave Johnson - 100 Bullets (Vertigo/DC); Zombie Tales, Cthulu Tales, Black Plague (Boom!)
J. G. Jones - 52 (DC)

Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84

2007-04-11T22:53:00.000-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,” “Cat’s Cradle” and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died last night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.

Link

Comics 'in the blood'

2007-04-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

Big Ben Templesmith interview.

Q & A: Quentin Tarantino

2007-04-06T09:44:00.000-05:00

A Newsweek interview with Tarantino.

Raising Roberto (Again)

2007-03-29T09:10:00.000-05:00

It had been Reyes's choice to join the military, but now it was his mother's lot, with little resources to deal with the repercussions. It wasn't the job she saw for herself in 2002 when her son joined the Army and she went off to pursue, at the age of 41, her own goals: working as a security guard, dating again, and continuing school. "I had expectations for myself," she says. "I was going to go back and study."

Instead, she says, she had no choice but to become her son's full-time caregiver. And it is Roberto who needs schooling now.

He's learning his ABC's.

Link

Omaha's Culture Club

2007-03-26T13:19:00.000-05:00

NPR contributor and Omaha native Kurt Andersen wrote a great article about Omaha and its burgeoning arts scene for Sunday's New York Times Magazine:

It isn’t yet Seattle or Austin, but it’s no longer some kind of Great Plains version of Hartford or Fresno, either. “Alternative” and “independent” aren’t just marketing catchwords in Omaha. The blossoming is real and multifarious. It didn’t happen overnight. And it certainly didn’t happen as a result of any grand master plan by the city establishment. Rather, it has been the improbable result of the hard work of a few local heroes.

...

For young Americans, Omaha is probably best known as the home of a whole bunch of indie rock musicians — members of the Faint, Cursive, the Good Life, Tilly and the Wall, Azure Ray and, most famously, Bright Eyes. They play in one another’s bands, produce one another’s records and nearly all release CDs through the local Saddle Creek label. Robb Nansel dreamed up Saddle Creek as a University of Nebraska business major; it was his thesis project. He grew up in Omaha and attended Creighton Prep, the local Roman Catholic high school. Many Saddle Creek musicians, including Conor Oberst (a k a Bright Eyes), also went to Prep, as it’s called. As did the director Alexander Payne, who has set and filmed three movies here.

Link

So What Do You Do, David Koepp?

2007-03-24T13:03:00.000-05:00

A great interview with screenwriter (and occasional director) David Koepp:

What's the first work-related thing you do before you get to the office?

Probably wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that turns out to be no good in the morning. I think the nature of writing is such that you're always working, or at least always able to be working -- "Hey, look at this piece of origami I found on the street! Maybe I can make a scene out of it!"

So much of writing is a matter of recycling and reinterpreting the tiny little minutiae of your own life, but that's all you've got. Of course, the danger with that is that your life and interests can become so narrow and repetitive, as life tends to push us in the direction of anyway, that your writing gets repetitive. I'm writing something now for a director I've worked with in the past, and the other day he said, "Didn't you use a version of this same line in the last movie?" And I said "Hey, I've only got so many tricks, man." But I'm working on that.

Link

It's All Geek to Me

2007-03-18T09:58:00.000-05:00

Neal Stephenson, author of the seminal sci-fi novel Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, writes about his recent experience with the film, 300, and why its critics have got it all wrong (because they don't speak Geek):

But such criticisms aren’t really worth arguing with, because they are not serious in the first place — and that is their whole point. Many critics dislike “300” so intensely that they refused to do it the honor of criticizing it as if it were a real movie. Critics at a festival in Berlin walked out, and accused its director of being on the Bush payroll.

Thermopylae is a wedge issue!

Lefties can’t abide lionizing a bunch of militaristic slave-owners (even if they did happen to be long-haired supporters of women’s rights). So you might think that righties would love the film. But they’re nervous that Emperor Xerxes of Persia, not the freedom-loving Leonidas, might be George Bush.

Our so-called conservatives, who have cut all ties to their own intellectual moorings, now espouse policies and personalities that would get them laughed out of Periclean Athens. The few conservatives still able to hold up one end of a Socratic dialogue are those in the ostracized libertarian wing — interestingly enough, a group with a disproportionately high representation among fans of speculative fiction.

The less politicized majority, who perhaps would like to draw inspiration from this story without glossing over the crazy and defective aspects of Spartan society, have turned, in droves, to a film from the alternative cultural universe of fantasy and science fiction. Styled and informed by pulp novels, comic books, video games and Asian martial arts flicks, science fiction eats this kind of material up, and expresses it in ways that look impossibly weird to people who aren’t used to it.

Link

Dark energy

2007-03-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

The New York Times Magazine looks at dark energy, the invisible, undetectable force that may in fact hold the universe together.

Darwin's God

2007-03-08T12:12:00.000-06:00

From the March 4 New York Times Magazine: "In the world of evolutionary biology, the question is not whether God exists but why we believe in him. Is belief a helpful adaptation or an evolutionary accident?"

God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. “God exists,” he wrote in black and orange paint, “or if he doesn’t, we’re in trouble.” Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since — why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do.

Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. “Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?” asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. His research interests include cognitive science and evolutionary biology, and sometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will.

If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?

Link

First newspaper dumps Coulter's column

2007-03-06T12:22:00.000-06:00

The Lancaster New Era has halted publication of Ann Coulter's syndicated column, following her crude characterization of presidential candidate John Edwards as a homosexual, at a public appearance on Friday.

Coulter's use of name-calling, sarcasm and overstatement in her columns too often detracts from the arguments she seeks to make. Her writing leads her political opponents to respond with name-calling and vitriol.

The quality of public discussion falls below that which Lancaster County residents expect in the opinion pages of their daily newspaper.

Lancaster County residents of whatever political view - conservative, moderate or liberals - deserve intelligent discussion of issues. Ann Coulter no longer provides that.

Good for them. Who's gonna dump her next?

Link

Merry Fitzmas!

2007-03-06T11:57:00.000-06:00

'Scooter' Libby guilty on four of five counts

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

Libby was convicted of:

obstruction of justice when he intentionally deceived a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame;
making a false statement by intentionally lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert;
perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert;
a second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters.

Jurors cleared him of a second count of making a false statement relating to a conversation he had with Matt Cooper of Time magazine.

Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million. A hearing on a presentencing report is scheduled for June 5.

Link

Zodiac

2007-03-01T09:34:00.000-06:00

The Village Voice reviews and deconstructs David Fincher's new film, while the Washington Post profiles Robert Graysmith (portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal in the film), a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle when the Zodiac killer came calling.

New York Times review

Washington Post review

Newsweek review

Academy Awards

2007-02-25T23:57:00.000-06:00

Congrats to all the nominees and winners, especially Marty Scorsese, who's deserved one of those statues for a long time.

The Razzies!

2007-02-25T12:13:00.000-06:00

Click here for a list of the "winners." To no one's surprise, Basic Instinct 2 led the charge.

Lights, Bogeyman, Action

2007-02-18T09:47:00.000-06:00

The New York Times profiles director Dave Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Panic Room, the upcoming Zodiac).

Ha!

2007-02-13T18:24:00.000-06:00

Kans. ed board OKs evolution-centered science

TOPEKA, Kan. - The Kansas state Board of Education on Tuesday repealed science guidelines questioning evolution that had made the state an object of ridicule.

The new guidelines reflect mainstream scientific views of evolution and represent a political defeat for advocates of "intelligent design," who had helped write the standards that are being jettisoned.

Link

Ed Brubaker interview

2007-02-05T16:45:00.000-06:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Will Eisner documentary

2007-02-05T16:43:00.000-06:00

Looks pretty good.

Body For Sale

2007-01-28T22:46:00.000-06:00

Click here. It's really good.

Gore Film Sparks Parents' Anger

2007-01-25T10:47:00.000-06:00

FEDERAL WAY, Wash., Jan. 24 -- Frosty E. Hardiman is neither impressed nor surprised that "An Inconvenient Truth," the global-warming movie narrated by former vice president Al Gore, received an Oscar nomination this week for best documentary.

"Liberal left is all over Hollywood," he grumbled a few hours after the nomination was announced.

Hardiman, a parent of seven here in the southern suburbs of Seattle, has himself roiled the global-warming waters. It happened early this month when he learned that one of his daughters would be watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in her seventh-grade science class.

"No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming," Hardiman wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board. The 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.

His angry e-mail (along with complaints from a few other parents) stopped the film from being shown to Hardiman's daughter.

Fuckin' morons. People like this shouldn't be allowed to have children.

Link

Sarah Silverman Is My Kind of Cunt

2007-01-25T09:14:00.000-06:00

Sarah Silverman discusses her new show with Michael Musto of the Village Voice:

What does this show have to do with Curb Your Enthusiasm?

Nothing! Somebody wrote that it's "Curb Your Enthusiasm with a girl." That's flattering, because I love Curb Your Enthusiasm, but this show is totally scripted and doesn't take place anywhere near show business. My name on the show is Sarah Silverman, which is probably a mistake because I'm not playing myself. I used it out of laziness. My name should have been Sarah Morgan.

Or Sarah Zbornak. Do you favor the word cunt?

Yes! I really wanted to use it. "Cookie Party" is a pretty song, and the whole thing is supposed to be that it's genuine and sweet and then the last line is, "My sister's such a dick." Dick is a hard word and hard to get a laugh. Originally it was "My sister's such a cunt," but you can't say cunt, even if you say, "I meant it the way they say it in England."

Link

President's Portrayal of 'The Enemy' Often Flawed

2007-01-24T11:46:00.000-06:00

n his State of the Union address last night, President Bush presented an arguably misleading and often flawed description of "the enemy" that the United States faces overseas, lumping together disparate groups with opposing ideologies to suggest that they have a single-minded focus in attacking the United States.

Under Bush's rubric, a country such as Iran -- which enjoys diplomatic representation and billions of dollars in trade with major European countries -- is lumped together with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat," Bush said, referring to the different branches of the Muslim religion.

...

At one point, Bush catalogued what he described as advances in the quest for freedom in the Middle East during 2005 -- such as the departure of Syrian troops from Lebanon and elections in Iraq. Then, Bush asserted, "a thinking enemy watched all of these scenes, adjusted their tactics and in 2006 they struck back." But his description of the actions of "the enemy" tried to tie together a series of diplomatic and military setbacks that had virtually no connection to one another, from an attack on a Sunni mosque in Iraq to the assassination of Maronite Lebanese political figure.

...

In the two of the most liberal and diverse societies in the Middle East -- Lebanon and the Palestinian territories -- events have undercut Bush's argument in the past year. Hezbollah has gained power and strength in Lebanon, partly at the ballot box. Meanwhile, Palestinians ousted the Fatah party -- which wants to pursue peace with Israel -- from the legislature in favor of Hamas, which is committed to Israel's destruction and is considered a terrorist organization by the State Department.

In fact, many of the countries that Bush considers "moderate" -- such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- are autocratic dictatorships rated among the worst of the "not free" nations by the nonpartisan Freedom House. Their Freedom House ratings are virtually indistinguishable from Cuba, Belarus and Burma, which Bush last night listed as nations in desperate need of freedom.

...

On domestic policy, Bush at one point said that "the recovery" has added more than 7.2 million jobs since August 2003. But the net number of jobs created since Bush became president in January 2001, is much lower -- just 3.6 million. The Bush administration's performance is fairly mediocre for the sixth year of a presidency, according to historical statistics maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 18 million jobs were added by the sixth year of Bill Clinton's presidency -- and nearly 10 million were added at this point in Ronald Reagan's presidency.

Bush claimed credit for cutting the budget deficit ahead of schedule and proposed to eliminate it over the next five years. He did not mention that he inherited a huge budget surplus -- $236 billion in 2000 -- compared with a $296 billion deficit in the 2006 fiscal year, largely as a result of Bush's tax cuts and spending increases. Bush claimed that the No Child Left Behind Act has helped students to "perform better at reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap." But states made stronger average annual gains in reading during the decade before the law took effect, education researchers have found, and half a dozen recent studies have shown little progress in narrowing the test-score gap between minority and white students.

Link

Sunshine

2007-01-20T10:44:00.000-06:00

Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later...)'s new film looks wicked cool:

Trailer 1

Trailer 2

Olbermann on the president’s address

2007-01-12T00:08:00.000-06:00

I read this list last night, before the President's speech, and it bears repetition, because its shape and texture are perceptible only in such a context.

Before Mr. Bush was elected, he said nation-building was wrong for America. Now he says it is vital.

He said he would never put U.S. troops under foreign control. Last night he promised to embed them, in Iraqi units.

He told us about WMD. Mobile labs. Secret sources. Aluminum tubes. Yellow-cake.

He has told us the war is necessary because Saddam was a material threat. Because of 9/11. Because of Osama Bin Laden. Al-Qaeda. Terrorism in General. To liberate Iraq. To spread freedom. To spread Democracy. To prevent terrorism by gas price increases. Because this was a guy who tried to kill his Dad.

Because 439 words in to the speech last night, he trotted out 9/11 again.

In advocating and prosecuting this war he passed on a chance to get Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. To get Muqtada Al-Sadr.
To get Bin Laden.

He sent in fewer troops than the Generals told him to.

He ordered the Iraqi army disbanded and the Iraqi government "De-Baathified."

He short-changed Iraqi training. He neglected to plan for widespread looting. He did not anticipate sectarian violence.

He sent in troops without life-saving equipment. Gave jobs to foreign contractors, and not Iraqis. He staffed U.S. positions there, based on partisanship, not professionalism.

He and his government told us "America had prevailed", "Mission Accomplished", the resistance was in its "last throes".

He has insisted more troops were not necessary. He has now insisted more troops are necessary.

He has insisted it's up to the generals, and then removed some of the generals who said more troops would not be necessary.

He has trumpeted the turning points: The fall of Baghdad; the death of Uday and Qusay; the capture of Saddam; A provisional government; a charter; a constitution; the trial of Saddam; elections; purple fingers; another government; the death of Saddam.

He has assured us: we would be greeted as liberators with flowers; as they stood up, we would stand down. We would stay the course; we were never about "stay the course." We would never have to go door-to-door in Baghdad. And last night, that to gain Iraqis' trust, we would go door-to-door in Baghdad.

He told us the enemy was Al-Qaeda, foreign fighters, terrorists, Baathists, and now Iran and Syria.

The war would pay for itself. It would cost 1.7 billion dollars. 100 billion. 400 billion. Half a trillion. Last night's speech alone cost another six billion.

And after all of that, now it is his credibility versus that of generals, diplomats, allies, Democrats, Republicans, the Iraq Study Group, past presidents, voters last November, and the majority of the American people.

Oh, and one more to add, tonight: Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

Mr. Bush, this is madness.

You have lost the military.

You have lost the Congress to the Democrats.

You have lost most of the Iraqis.

You have lost many of the Republicans.

You have lost our Allies.

You are losing the credibility, not just of your Presidency, but more importantly of the office itself.

And most imperatively, you are guaranteeing that more American troops will be losing their lives, and more families their loved ones. You are guaranteeing it!

This becomes your legacy, sir: How many of those you addressed last night as your "fellow citizens" you just sent to their deaths?

And for what, Mr. Bush?

So the next President has to pull the survivors out of Iraq instead of you?

(Full transcript and video in Link)

New Tank Girl comic!!!

2007-01-08T19:39:00.000-06:00

So says Ashley Wood:

In may IDW publishing will be putting a new Tank Girl series written by original creator Alan Martin and illustrated by me. Tank Girl is a major part of my wanting to be a comic book artist, so Im super happy to be doing this with Alan.

Sacrifice - Olbermann

2007-01-03T11:25:00.000-06:00

Then there is the argument that to take any steps towards reducing troop numbers would show weakness to the enemy in Iraq, or to the terrorists around the world.

This simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already showed weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists.

We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed, for no good reason.

We have now shown them that we will continue to do so.

We have shown them our stupidity.

Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq — and now about "sacrifice" — is at variance with your people's, to the point of delusion.

Your most respected generals see no value in a "surge" — they could not possibly see it in this madness of "sacrifice."

The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.

Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.

And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying "best two out of three… best three out of five… Hundredth one counts."

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and more over, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!

Video in Link

Brian Wood, DMZ in NY Times

2006-12-31T11:00:00.000-06:00

IF residents of Manhattan often feel at odds with the rest of the country, the comic book series DMZ magnifies that anxiety with its radical premise. In the world imagined by the writer Brian Wood and the artist Riccardo Burchielli, Manhattan is the demilitarized zone in a second American civil war. Neither the traditional United States government nor the Free States, composed of anti-establishment militias, has been able to claim the island. The result is a borough of shattered buildings, marauding gangs, random shootings and stubborn residents who refuse to abandon their homes.

What inspired Mr. Wood, 34, to create such a grim scenario? “Just living here,” he said during a recent interview near his Brooklyn home, where he lives with his wife, Meredith Gary, and their 9-week-old daughter, Audrey. “That makes it sound like I hate the city, but I really don’t.”

Link

Casanova #1

2006-12-26T10:49:00.000-06:00

Newsarama has the complete first issue of Matt Fraction and Gabriel Ba's awesome new(ish) Image series, Casanova, available for your reading pleasure.

50 Greatest Cartoons

2006-12-25T10:57:00.000-06:00

As voted on by the animation industry in 1994, here are links to the 50 greatest cartoons.

Soul 'Godfather' James Brown dies

2006-12-25T10:12:00.000-06:00

ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured "Godfather of Soul," whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.

Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.

Copsidas said Brown's family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.

Link

It was a dark and snowy night

2006-12-23T18:27:00.000-06:00

Chip Zdarsky gives us The Santa Claus Story.

The dawn of time

2006-12-21T00:13:00.000-06:00

Thirteen billion years in the making:

It is, scientists said yesterday, the glow from the first things to form in the universe, more than 13 billion years ago. Snapped by NASA's Spitzer space telescope, the bizarre objects must have existed within a few hundred million years of the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

Link

Criminal #1 free!

2006-12-21T00:05:00.000-06:00

Read the first issue of Ed Brubaker's gripping new crime drama right here.

Issue #2 should still be available at your local comic shops and #3 just came out this week.

Stephen King talks Dark Tower comic book

2006-12-19T09:32:00.000-06:00

What persuaded King, 59, to take the leap into comic-book fantasy? "The time was right because the right people appeared," King says in an e-mail interview. "And since there will probably never be a Dark Tower/Gunslinger movie, this is the next closest thing. And it's a hauntingly pretty thing, as it turns out."

Link

The God Delusion

2006-12-18T23:18:00.000-06:00

Nova - The Elegant Universe

2006-12-18T23:16:00.000-06:00

Part 1:

Part 2:

Yogi Bear's co-creator dies at 95

2006-12-18T18:24:00.000-06:00

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team that produced such beloved cartoon characters as Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, died Monday, a Warner Bros. spokesman said. He was 95.

Barbera died of natural causes at his home with his wife, Sheila, at his side, Warner Bros. spokesman Gary Miereanu said.

With his longtime partner, Bill Hanna, Barbera first found success creating the highly successful Tom and Jerry cartoons.

The antics of the battling cat and mouse went on to win seven Academy Awards, more than any other series with the same characters.

The partners, who had first teamed up while working at MGM in the 1930s, then went on to a whole new realm of success in the 1950s and '60s with a witty series of animated TV comedies, including "The Flintstones," "The Jetsons," "Yogi Bear," "Scooby-Doo" and "Huckleberry Hound and Friends."

Link

New 300 trailer

2006-12-07T22:10:00.000-06:00

This movie will be awesome.

Click here.

Steven Spielberg & the Next Crusade

2006-12-03T10:11:00.000-06:00

The Washington Post interviews Steven Spielberg:

Q: Did it take a long time to mature? Is that a fair question? When others might have moved on, you were still making dinosaur movies...

A: I think that's true. I think I grew up making movies. When I was 25 years old, I was really 18. I've always felt younger than my actual age, maybe by a decade -- or more. So, I wouldn't even consider when I was making "Close Encounters" to even read a book like "Kramer vs. Kramer." It was not within my reach to even imagine directing a picture like "Kramer vs. Kramer" [the 1979 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep], though I was the person handing Robert Benton his Academy Award for Best Director. It was a great honor, but I remember thinking, as I passed the Oscar to him, I'll never make a movie as mature as "Kramer vs. Kramer" because I'm not mature enough.

Link

Open-Source Spying

2006-12-03T09:59:00.000-06:00

Clive Thompson takes a look at the past, present and future of American intelligence agencies: will blogs and wikis finally encourage and sustain inter-agency cooperation? (New York Times - registration required)

Like Hitler and Brezhnev, Bush is in denial

2006-12-02T14:04:00.000-06:00

More than half a million deaths, an army trapped in the largest military debacle since Vietnam, a Middle East policy already buried in the sands of Mesopotamia - and still George W Bush is in denial. How does he do it? How does he persuade himself - as he apparently did in Amman yesterday - that the United States will stay in Iraq "until the job is complete"? The "job" - Washington's project to reshape the Middle East in its own and Israel's image - is long dead, its very neoconservative originators disavowing their hopeless political aims and blaming Bush, along with the Iraqis of course, for their disaster.

History's "deniers" are many - and all subject to the same folly: faced with overwhelming evidence of catastrophe, they take refuge in fantasy, dismissing evidence of collapse as a symptom of some short-term setback, clinging to the idea that as long as their generals promise victory - or because they have themselves so often promised victory - that fate will be kind. George W Bush - or Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara for that matter - need not feel alone. The Middle East has produced these fantasists by the bucketful over past decades.

Link

Interview with Darren Aronofsky

2006-12-02T09:58:00.000-06:00

It's amazing how people look at The Fountain as this very complicated picture, even though it's ultimately about something very basic — the importance of appreciating the limited time we have in this life. Is it difficult trying to maintain the very simple idea at the core of this story when you've built up so much complexity and so many metaphysical ideas around it?

I think that initial simple idea is not enough for a picture. I felt that it was a very earnest idea, and I dealt with it by making the film more of a puzzle. Part of the pleasure that I want people to have while watching The Fountain is the same feeling you have when you work out a puzzle: it slowly clicks into place. Like a mystery, but in this case the mystery is how the entire structure of the film holds together. I thought that would be a different experience for moviegoers. On the one hand, they can get the emotional love story that's at the core of the film. At the same time, they can experience this meta level on which the film also works, where its structure becomes part of its story.

Link

HBO hears word, brings 'Preacher' to small screen

2006-11-29T20:41:00.000-06:00

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - HBO has seen the light and is bringing "Preacher" to the small screen.

The pay cable network is developing a one-hour series based on the popular Vertigo comics series.

"Preacher," which ran from 1995-2000, told the story of a down-and-out Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a supernatural entity conceived by the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon. Given immense powers, the preacher teamed with an old girlfriend and a hard-drinking Irish vampire and set out on a journey across America to find God -- who apparently had abandoned his duties in heaven -- and hold him accountable for his negligence.

This is awesome news. Preacher is one of the best stories of the last 20 years. Not best comic books or best graphic novels, but simply best stories. Period.

Just one problem...

Mark Steven Johnson, the writer-director behind comic adaptations "Daredevil" and the upcoming "Ghost Rider," is writing the pilot...

Daredevil kinda sucked. And Ghost Rider looks like garbage. But with Garth Ennis (the writer) and Steve Dillon (the artist) executive producing this thing, maybe it'll turn out pretty good.

Link

Director Robert Altman dies

2006-11-21T11:01:00.000-06:00

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Robert Altman, the caustic and irreverent satirist behind "M-A-S-H," "Nashville" and "The Player" who made a career out of bucking Hollywood management and story conventions, died at a Los Angeles Hospital, his Sandcastle 5 Productions Company said Tuesday. He was 81.

The director died Monday night, Joshua Astrachan, a producer at Altman's Sandcastle 5 Productions in New York City, told The Associated Press.

The cause of death wasn't disclosed. A news release was expected later in the day, Astrachan said.

A five-time Academy Award nominee for best director, most recently for 2001's "Gosford Park," he finally won a lifetime achievement Oscar in 2006.

"No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have," Altman said while accepting the award. "I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. My love for filmmaking has given me an entree to the world and to the human condition."

Altman had one of the most distinctive styles among modern filmmakers. He often employed huge ensemble casts, encouraged improvisation and overlapping dialogue and filmed scenes in long tracking shots that would flit from character to character.

Link

There Is No God

2006-11-16T12:52:00.000-06:00

Penn Jillette's "This I Believe," from NPR:

I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

And let us say, RAmen.

Audio in Link

America's Anchors

2006-11-13T19:11:00.000-06:00

Maureen Dowd interviews Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for Rolling Stone.

New Spider-Man 3 trailer

2006-11-09T21:24:00.000-06:00

Fuckin' awesome.

Nancy Pelosi's First One Hundred Hours

2006-11-09T11:01:00.000-06:00

...in the first hundred hours of a Democratic Congress: We will restore civility, integrity, and fiscal responsibility to the House of Representatives. We will start by cleaning up Congress, breaking the link between lobbyists and legislation and commit to pay-as-you-go, no new deficit spending.

We will make our nation safer and we will begin by implementing the recommendations of the independent, bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

We will make our economy fairer, and we will begin by raising the minimum wage. We will not pass a pay raise for Congress until there is an increase in the minimum wage.

We will make health care more affordable for all Americans, and we will begin by fixing the Medicare prescription drug program, putting seniors first by negotiating lower drug prices. We will also promote stem cell research to offer real hope to the millions of American families who suffer from devastating diseases.

We will broaden college opportunity, and we will begin by cutting interest rates for student loans in half.

We will energize America by achieving energy independence, and we will begin by rolling back the multi-billion dollar subsidies for Big Oil.

We will guarantee a dignified retirement, and we will begin by fighting any attempt to privatize Social Security.

Link

109 Reasons To Dump The 109th Congress

2006-11-06T22:57:00.000-06:00

Click here.

The Difference Two Years Made

2006-11-05T19:08:00.000-06:00

From the New York Times editorial page:

On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican Congressional candidates for the first time in our memory. Although Times editorials tend to agree with Democrats on national policy, we have proudly and consistently endorsed a long line of moderate Republicans, particularly for the House. Our only political loyalty is to making the two-party system as vital and responsible as possible.

That is why things are different this year.

To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush’s tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Republican leaders, particularly in the House, have developed toxic symptoms of an overconfident majority that has been too long in power. They methodically shut the opposition — and even the more moderate members of their own party — out of any role in the legislative process. Their only mission seems to be self-perpetuation.

The current Republican majority managed to achieve that burned-out, brain-dead status in record time, and with a shocking disregard for the most minimal ethical standards. It was bad enough that a party that used to believe in fiscal austerity blew billions on pork-barrel projects. It is worse that many of the most expensive boondoggles were not even directed at their constituents, but at lobbyists who financed their campaigns and high-end lifestyles.

That was already the situation in 2004, and even then this page endorsed Republicans who had shown a high commitment to ethics reform and a willingness to buck their party on important issues like the environment, civil liberties and women’s rights.

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans’ attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the Congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president’s ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don’t need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

An administration convinced of its own perpetual rightness and a partisan Congress determined to deflect all criticism of the chief executive has been the recipe for what we live with today.

Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Mr. Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.

After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen. On the eve of the election, and without even a pretense at debate in the House, Congress granted the White House permission to hold hundreds of noncitizens in jail forever, without due process, even though many of them were clearly sent there in error.

In the Senate, the path for this bill was cleared by a handful of Republicans who used their personal prestige and reputation for moderation to paper over the fact that the bill violates the Constitution in fundamental ways. Having acquiesced in the president’s campaign to dilute their own authority, lawmakers used this bill to further Mr. Bush’s goal of stripping the powers of the only remaining independent branch, the judiciary.

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the Congressional majority’s insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Mr. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

Olbermann's Special Comment

2006-11-02T09:40:00.000-06:00

Thanks, Keith:

A brief reminder, Mr. Bush: You are not the United States of America.

You are merely a politician whose entire legacy will have been a willingness to make anything political — to have, in this case, refused to acknowledge that the insult wasn't about the troops, and that the insult was not even truly about you either — that the insult, in fact, is you.

So now John Kerry has apologized to the troops; apologized for the Republicans' deliberate distortions.

Thus the President will now begin the apologies he owes our troops, right?

This President must apologize to the troops — for having suggested, six weeks ago, that the chaos in Iraq, the death and the carnage, the slaughtered Iraqi civilians and the dead American service personnel, will, to history, quote "look like just a comma."

This President must apologize to the troops — because the intelligence he claims led us into Iraq proved to be undeniably and irredeemably wrong.

This President must apologize to the troops — for having laughed about the failure of that intelligence, at a banquet, while our troops were in harm's way.

This President must apologize to the troops — because the streets of Iraq were not strewn with flowers and its residents did not greet them as liberators.

This President must apologize to the troops — because his administration ran out of "plan" after barely two months.

This President must apologize to the troops — for getting 2,815 of them killed.

This President must apologize to the troops — for getting this country into a war without a clue.

And Mr. Bush owes us an apology… for this destructive and omnivorous presidency.

(Video in Link)

BENDIS! interviews Brubaker

2006-11-01T15:59:00.000-06:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Ed Brubaker:

"It's always fun to sell drugs and whores."

Best. Quote. Ever.

BRUBAKER:...but for Criminal, this is the first time since Lowlife that I've done something and every step of the way I was overseeing it and looking at it and writing all of the text pages. With Criminal, every single step of it, I was involved. It really just feels like your baby. By the time we shipped it off to the printer I was like, "I don't even care if we make a dime on it. I just want to have copies of it." I worked on it for a long time.

...

BENDIS: Let me ask you this, though: Will you ever draw again or will you only draw to facilitate writing?

BRUBAKER: I think that I’m more of a writer. I think that I started out as an artist and then I started writing just to give myself things to draw. When I was in my early 20s, I started writing things for other people, like when I wrote Accidental Death for [Eric] Shanower and some other stuff for Dark Horse. I started realizing that it was much easier for me and much more rewarding, in a way, to write a story. And there were tons of stories that I had in my head that I wanted to write that I could never imagine even being able to draw. For me, drawing was always more fun when you were done - especially if you did a halfway decent job with it. To actually sit down and draw was always a labor. Even as a kid, I just really wanted to do comics – I was never one of those people who only drew. I didn't have a sketchbook or ever use coloring books or anything like that. My whole life, all I ever did was draw comics, even when I was three or four years old. When I sat down to draw I would make boxes on a page and tell a story. So I think that for me it was always much more about storytelling. I still do some, though.

This is weird to say, but every now and then I will just sit down and sketch out a cover idea or something like that, and I think that maybe, at some point when I'm older and have more time and hopefully have paid off some debt, I'll think about drawing something again. But the kind of stuff I like to draw is so much simpler than the stuff that I did draw. I would like to develop a really simple art style and use that, but coming up with a really simple style is much harder than coming up with a really detailed one. With Charles Schultz or Dr. Seuss or any of those artists with these really simple styles, there is so much that goes into it. It's so much harder to draw that way and make it look right because of the economy of the line.

Link

Iraqi Demands Pullback; U.S. Lifts Baghdad Cordon

2006-11-01T10:18:00.000-06:00

BAGHDAD, Oct. 31 — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints from the streets of Baghdad on Tuesday, in what appeared to be his latest and boldest gambit in an increasingly tense struggle for more independence from his American protectors.

Mr. Maliki’s public declaration seemed at first to catch American commanders off guard. But by nightfall, American troops had abandoned all the positions in eastern and central Baghdad that they had set up last week with Iraqi forces as part of a search for a missing American soldier. The checkpoints had snarled traffic and disrupted daily life and commerce throughout the eastern part of the city.

So...we just abandoned an American soldier and left him to die?

Link

"The Saints Are Coming"

2006-10-29T10:19:00.000-06:00

Worst. Congress. Ever.

2006-10-26T16:42:00.000-05:00

Rolling Stone's blistering report on the crime and corruption that have been the hallmarks of this, the 109th Congress of the United States:

These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula -- a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.

To be sure, Congress has always been a kind of muddy ideological cemetery, a place where good ideas go to die in a maelstrom of bureaucratic hedging and rank favor-trading. Its whole history is one long love letter to sleaze, idiocy and pigheaded, glacial conservatism. That Congress exists mainly to misspend our money and snore its way through even the direst political crises is something we Americans understand instinctively. "There is no native criminal class except Congress," Mark Twain said -- a joke that still provokes a laugh of recognition a hundred years later.

But the 109th Congress is no mild departure from the norm, no slight deviation in an already-underwhelming history. No, this is nothing less than a historic shift in how our democracy is run. The Republicans who control this Congress are revolutionaries, and they have brought their revolutionary vision for the House and Senate quite unpleasantly to fruition. In the past six years they have castrated the political minority, abdicated their oversight responsibilities mandated by the Constitution, enacted a conscious policy of massive borrowing and unrestrained spending, and installed a host of semipermanent mechanisms for transferring legislative power to commercial interests. They aimed far lower than any other Congress has ever aimed, and they nailed their target.

Link

WaPo profiles Garry Trudeau

2006-10-23T17:45:00.000-05:00

Revealing more about himself than he ever has, Garry Trudeau gives us tantalizing clues about what's behind his venerable comic strip's recent burst of genius, and pain.

Iraq - The Real Story

2006-10-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

Sean Smith, the Guardian's award-winning war photographer, spent nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq. Watch his haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country.

Link

I have no idea

2006-10-21T00:09:00.000-05:00

Just watch and behold the awesomeness. You'll thank me later.

100 years of comics history

2006-10-20T15:14:00.000-05:00

Oct. 19, 2006 - Cartoonists, the writing is on the wall. Step into the Jewish Museum in New York City, which is currently cohosting the wonderful “Masters of American Comics” exhibit, and read it for yourself: "'Masters of American Comics' endeavors to establish a canon of fourteen of the most influential artists working in the medium throughout the 20th century."

Link

Fraggle Rock movie!?!?

2006-10-20T14:30:00.000-05:00

Finally moving ahead after years of online rumors, the Jim Henson Co. has taken the first step toward turning '80s HBO kids show "Fraggle Rock" into a feature.

Indie production and puppetmaking company has tapped Ahmet Zappa to write a treatment for a pic starring the peace-loving underground denizens.

Film is expected to follow characters from the skein on an adventure in "outer space," aka the world of humans.

Link

Olbermann on the "Death of Habeas Corpus"

2006-10-18T21:41:00.000-05:00

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has said it is unacceptable to compare anything this country has ever done, to anything the terrorists have ever done.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who has insisted again that "the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values" and who has said it with a straight face while the pictures from Abu Ghraib Prison and the stories of Waterboarding figuratively fade in and out, around him.

We have handed a blank check drawn against our freedom to a man who may now, if he so decides, declare not merely any non-American citizens "Unlawful Enemy Combatants" and ship them somewhere — anywhere — but may now, if he so decides, declare you an "Unlawful Enemy Combatant" and ship you somewhere - anywhere.

(Full transcript and video in Link)

What country do we live in again?

2006-10-17T20:06:00.000-05:00

From Edward Gomez at the SF Gate:

George W. Bush got what he wanted, ostensibly as a tool in his unfocused "war on terror": By signing into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006, Bush has made it legal for the C.I.A. to continue operating torture facilities in undisclosed, foreign countries, and for the writ of habeas corpus to be suspended for individuals who are designated "enemy combatants" against the U.S. (Designated by whom? That question remains unanswered.) The law also "establishes military tribunals that would allow some use of evidence obtained by coercion [that is, torture], but would give defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them." (Reuters)

The provisions of Bush's new torture law mean that Americans have lost the key, constitutional right on which Anglo-American criminal law (and criminal-law procedures in true democracies in general) is founded; that's the basic right of an individual to know why he or she is being apprehended and detained. Now, technically, as in Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia, anyone labeled an "enemy combatant" - again, by whom; by Bush? - can be whisked away and never heard from again. That kind of authority, in the hands of corrupt or untruthful politicians, may or may not be an effective tool in some kind of "war on terror," but it certainly can be a useful tool when it comes to silencing their opponents.

Link

Huge interview with Neil Gaiman

2006-10-16T23:09:00.000-05:00

Given that we’re living in a universe in which religions and mythologies and semi-imaginary things, depending on where you’re standing, the level of imaginariness…. There are definitely people who look at the entirety of what’s going on the world today as a couple of people fighting over whose imaginary friend likes them better. And then you’ve got people who say, “No, no, this isn’t an imaginary friend, he’s actually the real thing. But that guy over there, he’s an imaginary friend.” And it’s huge and it’s responsible for an enormous amount of worry and difficulty and it’s why I’m not allowed to travel with eight ounces of shampoo. I’m allowed four ounces. I’m going to have to pour away half of my shampoo before I can put it in my quart bag and put it in my carryon. Which is really bizarre.

Link

A Special Comment About Lying

2006-10-06T19:08:00.000-05:00

We have, of course, survived all manner of political hackery, of every shape, size and party. We will have to suffer it, for as long as the Republic stands.

But the premise of a president who comes across as a compulsive liar is nothing less than terrifying.

A president who since 9/11 will not listen, is not listening — and thanks to Bob Woodward’s most recent account — evidently has never listened.

A president who since 9/11 so hates or fears other Americans that he accuses them of advocating deliberate inaction in the face of the enemy.

A president who since 9/11 has savaged the very freedoms he claims to be protecting from attack — attack by terrorists, or by Democrats, or by both — it is now impossible to find a consistent thread of logic as to who Mr. Bush believes the enemy is.

But if we know one thing for certain about Mr. Bush, it is this: This president — in his bullying of the Senate last month and in his slandering of the Democrats this month — has shown us that he believes whoever the enemies are, they are hiding themselves inside a dangerous cloak called the Constitution of the United States of America.

Link

Dick 'Scarface' Cheney speech

2006-10-03T22:25:00.001-05:00

Stan Lee and friends

2006-10-03T22:13:00.000-05:00

A recording of Stan Lee and the rest of the famed Marvel bullpen, including Wally Wood and Jack "the King" Kirby.

The Right to Remain Violent: Brubaker Talks Criminal

2006-10-03T21:47:00.000-05:00

Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are hoping crime does pay because their new creator owned series "Criminal" from Marvel's Icon imprint hits stores this Wednesday. The new ongoing series follows a large cast of interconnected characters and the various felonious acts they often engage in. CBR News spoke with writer Ed Brubaker about the crime series "Criminal" came about when Brubaker and Phillips, who had previously collaborated on the Wildstorm series "Sleeper," were searching for another project to work on. "I wanted it to be a truly creator owned comic and hopefully something that like 'Sleeper' would spawn a franchise of trade paperbacks," Brubaker told CBR News. "I started looking through some of my notebooks and I found all these outlines for crime stories I'd written. There was a time about four years ago when I was trying to sell a series of graphic novels to a foreign publisher. I had a bunch of notes from that and I looked at those and thought, 'Is there some way I can do a crime comic as a creator owned thing that uses all these ideas and is like an umbrella title with a cast full of characters that I can populate these stories with and explore the themes that I have been fascinated with for years?'

Link

Interview with comic book writer Brian Wood

2006-10-03T14:30:00.000-05:00

PWCW: Despite a relatively short time in the comics industry, you've amassed a wealth of releases and for the most part you have been able to do it with your own characters and creations. Has this all been according to plan or is it just a lucky turn of events?

BW: All according to plan. The company-owned projects I have done are the ones no one remembers, so I feel that I've gotten to where I am via my own creations. I've deliberately chosen that path, opting to publish indie books for little or no money in the hopes that someday it would pay off in a meaningful way. It took a pretty long time, but with projects like DMZ, Local and Supermarket, that payoff is happening. 2005 was a defining year for me in that respect.

As early as 2001 I was getting serious offers to write company-owned books, superheroes, and I've always maintained that if it was the right book, if it appealed to me in a creative way, I would probably do it. I've made a few tough choices in the past, turning down some pretty big name properties, but I'm happy I did. I wouldn't have wanted anything to have somehow prevented me from getting around to Demo or DMZ or [the upcoming] Northlanders.

I feel blessed because I can say with complete honesty that my career right now is exactly the way I want it to be.

Link

SubGenius rant: why normals are hideous

2006-10-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

Who is it that gets together in mobs and hunts down, tortures and kills people who are different from them? Who is it that teaches modesty, courtesy, and generositv but lives in depravity, rudeness, and greed? Who is it that can gather together the time, energy and money to murder millions and destroy cities for the sake of a flag, deity, or economic system? Not weirdoes, not kooks or cranks or nuts. It's the "Normal" people who do those things.

It's the "Normal" people who believe there's only one "real world" and it's the one THEY'RE living in. It's the "Normal" people who kill each other over differences in that reality, and if someone can't trick themselves into ignoring the millions of inconsistencies or can't gloss over the gaping flaws in that reality-construct, or can't even pretend convincingly that they believe that flimsy and self-contradictory world is ALL TRUE, rather than have their own illusory stability undermined or accept that other ways of thinking and seeing might be valid, the "Normal" people imprison those "mentally ill," and experimentally destroy their personalities by use of drugs, electroconvulsion, and brain surgery.

Link

An Olbermann Special Comment

2006-09-25T23:16:00.000-05:00

President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the warning signs — some of them, 17 years old — before Pearl Harbor.

President Hoover was correctly blamed for — if not the Great Depression itself — then the disastrous economic steps he took in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash.

Even President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for the Civil War — though talk of Southern secession had begun as early as 1832.

But not this President.

To hear him bleat and whine and bully at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had been President on September 11th, 2001 — or the nearly eight months that preceded it.

That hardly reflects the honesty nor manliness we expect of the Executive.

But if his own fitness to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed, until a grown-up takes the job three Januarys from now.

Except for this:

After five years of skirting even the most inarguable of facts — that he was President on 9/11 and he must bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr. Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the responsibility, entirely Mr. Clinton’s.

Of course he is not honest enough to do that directly.

As with all the other nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since James Buchanan, he is having it done for him, by proxy.

Thus, the sandbag effort by Fox News, Friday afternoon.

Consider the timing: The very same weekend the National Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war to be the fraudulent failure it is — not a check on terror, but fertilizer for it!

The kind of proof of incompetence, for which the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a diversion, in a scapegoat.

(Full text and video in link.)

The Cloisters: Possibilities in a Renewed Relationship with Art

2006-09-22T19:52:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my cousin.

Frank Miller's 300

2006-09-21T21:51:00.000-05:00

Kickass trailer for the upcoming adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel.

Chavez Address to the United Nations

2006-09-20T23:56:00.000-05:00

Say what you will about his politics, but ol' Hugo really cracks me up:

"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."

Link

The amazing fossil of 'Lucy's little sister'

2006-09-20T14:59:00.000-05:00

The stunningly complete skeleton of a three-year-old girl who lived 3.3 million years ago has been uncovered in Ethiopia. The child belongs to the species Australopithecus afarensis like the famous "Lucy", who was discovered in 1974. The young age of the so-called Dikika child promises new insights into the growth of early humans.

The new find is the most complete and important skeleton of an immature Pliocene hominin ever found, says Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, who worked on the Lucy discovery. "The gist of the current paper is, 'Eureka, we have it'," he says.

Link

Mr. Universe

2006-09-18T11:24:00.000-05:00

Ron Moore, creator and head writer of the new Battlestar Galactica (best show on TV), and former writer and producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, opines about what Star Trek means to him:

Kirk, for me, embodied an American idea: His mission was to explore the final frontier, not to conquer it. He was moral without moralizing. Week after week, he confronted the specters of intolerance and injustice, and week after week found a way to defeat them without ever becoming them. Jim Kirk may have beat up his share of bad guys, but you could never imagine him torturing them.

A favorite quote: “We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.” Kirk clearly understood humanity’s many flaws, yet never lost faith in our ability to rise above the muck and reach for the stars.

Olbermann discusses Five Years Later

2006-09-11T21:03:00.000-05:00

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics.

It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation’s wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President — and those around him — did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused; as appeasers; as those who, in the Vice President’s words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated Al-Qaeda as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11, is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase, is "impeachable offense."

(Video and complete transcript in Link)

9/11/06

2006-09-11T09:53:00.000-05:00

From The New York Times:

But the call never came. Without ever having asked to be exempt from the demands of this new post-9/11 war, we were cut out. Everything would be paid for with the blood of other people’s children, and with money earned by the next generation. Our role appeared to be confined to waiting in longer lines at the airport. President Bush, searching the other day for an example of post-9/11 sacrifice, pointed out that everybody pays taxes.

That pinched view of our responsibility as citizens got us tax cuts we didn’t need and an invasion that never would have occurred if every voter’s sons and daughters were eligible for the draft. With no call to work together on some effort greater than ourselves, we were free to relapse into a self- centeredness that became a second national tragedy. We have spent the last few years fighting each other with more avidity than we fight the enemy.

When we measure the possibilities created by 9/11 against what we have actually accomplished, it is clear that we have found one way after another to compound the tragedy. Homeland security is half-finished, the development at ground zero barely begun. The war against terror we meant to fight in Afghanistan is at best stuck in neutral, with the Taliban resurgent and the best economic news involving a bumper crop of opium. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11 when it was invaded, is now a breeding ground for a new generation of terrorists.

Link

Bin Laden Trail 'Stone Cold'

2006-09-10T10:47:00.000-05:00

Intelligence officials think that bin Laden is hiding in the northern reaches of the autonomous tribal region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. This calculation is based largely on a lack of activity elsewhere and on other intelligence, including a videotape, obtained exclusively by the CIA and not previously reported, that shows bin Laden walking on a trail toward Pakistan at the end of the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001, when U.S. forces came close but failed to capture him.

...

That was December 2001. Only two months later, Bush decided to pull out most of the special operations troops and their CIA counterparts in the paramilitary division that were leading the hunt for bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for war in Iraq, said Flynt L. Leverett, then an expert on the Middle East at the National Security Council.

"I was appalled when I learned about it," said Leverett, who has become an outspoken critic of the administration's counterterrorism policy. "I don't know of anyone who thought it was a good idea. It's very likely that bin Laden would be dead or in American custody if we hadn't done that."

Link

A Nation Sick And Tired of Fairy Tales

2006-09-09T10:58:00.000-05:00

It's the Age of Generalities, a six-year long docudrama where fact is an obscenity that must be blotted out and covered up. Fact. The F-word. Such a repulsive four-letter word in this era, isn't it? But more importantly, fact is a dangerous intruder into our fantasyland, bringing with it such boogeymen as Consequence and Accountability.

Forget fact, and let's keep on selling fiction--safe and single-dimensioned--to the American ~~citizen~~ consumer.

We protest The Path to 9-11 not just to reject the bastardization of that dark day, but to emphasize that this tactic of selling fiction as fact is profane and immoral, whether it's done by the President of the United States or the President of ABC or Disney.

Link

Seeking straight A's, parents push for pills

2006-09-07T14:44:00.000-05:00

Fuckin' idiots:

Parents want their kids to excel in school, and they've heard about the illegal use of stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall for "academic doping." Hoping to obtain the drugs legally, they pressure pediatricians for them. Some even request the drugs after openly admitting they don't believe their child has ADHD.

“I spoke with [some] colleagues the other day and they mentioned three cases recently where parents blatantly asked for the medication so that their children would perform better in school, yet there were no other indications that the child had ADHD,” says Dr. Nick Yates, a pediatrician and director of medical ethics for Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, N.Y.

“I’m very concerned that there’s a fair amount — and we don’t know how much — [of ADHD drugs] being prescribed and used for off-label purposes," says Yates.

Do you think kids in India and Japan are being forced to take mind-altering meds by their parents? Is that why they're so much smarter than American kids? Yeah, probably not.

This is fuckin' disgusting, what these parents are doing. People like this shouldn't be allowed to have kids. Be a better fucking parent! Don't let the TV and computer babysit your child, then maybe they'll do better in school.

Link