Month: July 2007

I am preparing for the grand finale by re-reading Book 6, and the last 100 pages of Book 5. At the end of Book 5 (Order of the Phoenix), Dumbledore reveals why he left Harry with those awful Dursleys. It was love, something Voldermort doesn’t appreciate. Aunt Petunia, however unwillingly took him in, and because she is the same blood of Harry and his mother, that made the house a safe haven.

Okay, fine. So you can’t get at Harry while he calls it home. Maybe you can do something about that. Nothing says you can’t enchant the Dursleys. With them under your control, how hard could it be to get Harry to renounce his home? Drive him to move out, or go back to Hogwarts. Then you ambush him on the road. Not terribly hard when you’re the Dark Lord. Don’t try to kill him, but get your Death Eater pals to capture him.

Even that is over-complicated. Just get the police to arrest him, and have them bring him right to your place instead of a normal cell.

Then you just throw him in a nice quiet cell with no means of escape or communication and wait for him to starve to death. You don’t have to worry about the scar or the prophecy or anything like that since you’re not actually attacking him. As long as you’ve covered your tracks well enough, he just dies.

Honestly, how hard is this stuff?

Consider:

* Saudi Arabians did 9/11. The majority of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
* Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia.
* The majority of the money for terrorism comes from Saudi Arabia.
* Saudi Arabia made a tacit deal with Osama and the like, essentially saying we won’t do anything to stop you as long as you don’t attack us. Nice.

But wait, that’s not all!
* If you believe in the oil aspect of all this Middle East fun, there’s the small fact that have most of the oil.
* They have an incredibly unequal society, in terms of wealth. The rich really do have it all.
* They have an incredibly unequal society, in terms of rights. Absolute dictatorship. You can make a strong case that Iraq was a liberal democracy compared to them.

I constantly come across little news bits like this (empasis mine):

Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

Why did we talk about Iraq in the first place? Why are we talking about Iran now? If you want to stop terrorism and get the oil at take out a dictatorship, head for ol’ Saudi Arabia.

The environment is actually doing better than it has for 30,000 years or so. A very convincing non-conventional view. (It looks harder to read than it actually is.)

The kind of picture that makes you a bit sick.

The writer is annoyed with bioethics liberals, even though he’s one of them. Direct and honest.

An oral history of the Simpsons

A fascinating 1 minute film of a supermodel being made.

Just plain addicting.

10 Things I hate about Star Trek

Maybe I don’t watch as much TV as I thought…

Evolution of the Alphabet (well-done animation)

A wonderful look at life. (Illustrated by the South Park guys)

Inspired by the deluded ravings in the comments of my last post, I present a list of the most embarrassing songs currently residing on my playlist (out of 1,948 songs). They fall mostly into wuss artists, pure 80s music, and music that makes me feel far too emotional. (Some of these I’m not the least bit embarrassed about, but my readers might think I should be.)

Barbara Streisand – The Music of the Night
Berlin – Take my Breath Away
Billy Joel – She’s Always a Woman
Bob Seger – We’ve got Tonight. Who needs tomorrow!?
Chicago – Colour my World. Wish we’d had this for our wedding song.
Def Leppard – Bringin’ on the Hearbreak. Can’t you see?
Hall & Oates – I have four songs, and I like them all. Fooey on you.
Huey Lewis & the News – Do You Believe in Love?
John Denver
Journey – Send Her my Love and Separate Ways. (Stone in Love doesn’t count as embarrassing, that mother rocks.)
Linda Rondstadt – You’re no Good. When our band did it, I realized what a great tune it really is, pre-Van Halen.
Loverboy – Workin’ for the Weekend
Mazzy Star – Fade into You (Apparently embarrassing. Fuck all y’all.)
Michael Jackson (& Paul McCartney) – The Girl is Mine. I’m a lover, not a fighter. I’m not embarrassed about Billy Jean or Wanna be Startin’ Somethin’
The Motels – Only the Lonely
Natalie Imbruglia – Torn
Pat Benatar – Shadows of the Night
Paula Abdul – Rush Rush. This is the one I get called out on. I love this song, play it six times in a row, sing along to every word, and I don’t care.
Styx – All of Paradise Theater. Every last stinkin’ song.
The Eagles – One of these Nights. I hate every Eagles song except this one, which is odd since it has wuss written all over it.

This is a standard dialog box you get in Windows:

I am copying almost 2,000 .mp3 files. About 1,400 of them already exist in the destination folder. Some of them aren’t in the copying source, so I can’t just block delete. Yes to all means clogging up the computer for a couple hours.

Notice one choice missing there? Where is “No to all”!?

I clicked “No” 1,400 times.

Joy. My finger feels like it did the first month I had Minesweeper.

Menino for President! (Funny if you’re from Boston)

Karate Monkey! Not a joke, a real monkey doing karate!

25 Reasons Why I am No Longer a Christian. Written by an obviously extremely bright person. Well reasoned and sourced. I particularly liked #4 and #12. Many of the arguments apply to other religions as well.

Rate your blog (or website) like the movies do. Muttroxia is rated a family-friendly G! I really thought the Al Gore post would move me up…

The prettiest girl in Warsaw. Another comic graphic novel thingie. It’s short.

Police brutality backfires. Cops attack man on soccer field, and disgusted fans and players retaliate, beating the police.

Take a trip through the time machine. A 1982 article where the writer uses a computer for the first time. 48K of memory, and you get this “It is faster to type this way than with a normal typewriter, because you don’t need to stop at the end of the line for a carriage return (the computer automatically “wraps” the words onto the next line when you reach the right-hand margin), and you never come to the end of the page, because the material on the screen keeps sliding up to make room for each new line.”

For no real reason, Alec Baldwin’s career making speech in Glengarry Glen Ross.

The Worlds Tallest man meets World’s Shortest Man, oddly enough both from Inner Mongolia.

I can’t help but think of Seinfeld.

The thoughts that come to you while wandering the streets of Provincetown. Let’s say Al Gore decides that he wants to buy a little something special for Tipper. For him and Tipper really, add a little spice to things after the beard thing ended. A vibrator, a sling, maybe some bondage gear. How does he actually go about doing it?

He can’t just walk in, everyone knows who he is. He can’t use a credit card, everyone knows his name. Does he send an aide out to get the stuff? “Hey Eric, you’ve been here a few months now… you want to move up, right? Here’s a list of some things we need. Discretion is of the — don’t make a face Eric, just do it. Goddamnit, just do it, OK!?”

Or maybe the ol’, “Frank, I’m planning a joke party for Bill, I need you to get supplies. I was thinking of a blow up doll, or maybe one of those ramp wedge things… use your best judgement, just get a lot of it. Use cash, I’ll reimburse you. Um, I guess you should get a cake and stuff while you’re out, whatever…”

In the car today, my four-year old started singing random thoughts that enter his head. He was seriously freestyling, his lyrics could have gone right onto a rock and roll album.

Baby, baby! Baby, baby baby!
I don’t care about that, I don’t care about that
O no, o no (“say it mama! Say o no o no!” “O no, o no!” “Good work mama!”)
I don’t like dogs. And cats are bad!
I don’t care about that, I don’t care. Yet!

(At this point, he broke off to tell Mrs. Muttrox not to drum because he was already drumming. She looked at me with a dropped jaw and said, “Have I just been kicked out of the band!?”)

There’s LIGHTINING UP AHEAD!!! (shrieked)
O no, I don’t care.
I won’t do it… I don’t like that car. Cars are bad!
I don’t care and I won’t care!!!!

YET!!!

So Bush commuted Libby’s prison sentence. What a surprise.

Libby isn’t the worst of the Bushies, not by a long shot. By their scale of corruption and incompetence, he’s just a relatively minor team player, just someone who’s good at implementing other peoples plans. Which is what he did. Cheney or Rove or both wanted Wilson smeared, and he helped do it. And he protected his bosses when the law came around. Cheney or Rove or both are free from trouble now because Libby subverted justice. Libby deserves his sentence. Others deserve more, but thanks to Libby, they get off free and easy.

So what does this say about Bush? A man who never pardoned one person in Texas, never showed the least curiousity about any case, accepting Gonzales’ word for every single case, laughed at the widows, has no problem locking up any citizen of the country with no legal recourse at all, has subverted virtually every legal protection in the Constitution, has never served time for any of his own known crimes, never thought his daughters should be punished for theirs, never pardoned or commuted the sentences of anyone during his years as president — but this, for this he will be glad to step in personally. After all, this is one of his own!

Actions speak louder than words, and these actions shout out what a miserable corrupt syncophantic petty meanhearted little selfish man George Bush is.