We're kicking ass!

From the Land Down Under:

GEORGE Bush is a man who likes a short sentence. Which is not to say the President of the United States reduces ideas to bite-sized chunks. Or maybe it is.

Either way, during the course of his first 24 hours in Sydney, there were plenty of efficient exclamations. Like the exchange on the tarmac as Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile inquired how things were going in Iraq. "We're kicking ass," he declared. In a similarly thrifty oratory bent yesterday, he telegraphed his lunch order — "I'm a meat guy". Then he buttered up his host — "I admire your courage" — and insisted he was not playing a double game by hinting at moves to start cutting US troop numbers in Iraq: "Whatever you do, don't call me cute."

Driving for Freedom

via Think Progress:

For a mere $37 Oklahomans can fight the war on terror from the comfort of their SUV, while those too poor to afford the SUV, or even the $37, are off fighting for them. Of course, all those SUVs are one of the reasons we're in this mess, but the irony would escape anyone who would actually buy one of those things. I'd be surprised, but I learned a long time ago that we live in a post-ironic age.

Grrrrr

Tonight on Sci-Fi: Dog Versus Monkey

Who will win?

This looks like it will be fun

From the press release:

"In the late 1920's and early 1930's, the Depression gripped the Nation. It was a time when songs were tools for living. A whole community would turn out to mourn the loss of a member and to sow their songs like seeds. This collection is a wild garden grown from those seeds." - Tom Waits, from the Introduction

Songs of death, destruction and disaster, recorded by black and white performers from the dawn of American roots recording are here, assembled together for the first time. Whether they document world-shattering events like the sinking of the Titanic or memorialize long forgotten local murders or catastrophes, these 70 recordings - over 30 never before reissued - are audio messages in a bottle reflecting a lost world where age old ballads rubbed up against songs inspired by the day's headlines.

Release Date: September 25th, 2007

Bergman loses chess game

Today's New York Times:

Ingmar Bergman, Famed Director, Dies at 89

Ingmar Bergman, the "poet with the camera" who is considered one of the greatest directors in motion picture history, died today on the small island of Fårö where he lived on the Baltic coast of Sweden, Astrid Soderbergh Widding, president of The Ingmar Bergman Foundation, said. Bergman was 89.

Why you shouldn't trust furries

From Warren Ellis:

They always worry me when they pass wherever I'm signing. They never bring books -- I guess I don't appeal to that crowd. But I still get a little shudder. An actress acquaintance of mine once got shot by a costumed fan. He was a mass of fur, a human-sized Tribble from Star Trek. He asked the actress to pose for a photo with him, which she duly did. And as she put an arm around his hairy bulk, an air pistol nosed out of his side, and fired a pellet into her ribs. Turned her black with bruising all up her side. Obviously, an actual gun would have killed her instantly. The guy apparently leapt back and yelled "you've been morphed!" before he was brought down. So I always have armed security to hand at converntion signings. And I give the furries a wide berth.