Sen. Specter Defends Terrell Owens

So, now that Congress has solved baseball's steroid problem, and since there isn't anything else going on in the world that demands their attention, maybe they can resolve this whole TO mess.

I don't think I've mentioned my opinion of the TO situation here before, but here it is. Owens is a dick, he has no one to blame but himself for the position that he's in. Having said that, both the league and the Eagles probably could have handled the situation better and maybe the whole mess could have been avoided. Maybe not. But it is sad to me that a guy like TO who plays hard and is one of the best players in the league can't play because he's a dck, but a guy like Leonard Little, who killed someone can play. But then I guess killing someone isn't as disruptive to the team as criticizing the quarterback or fighting with the team ambassador (and what the fuck is a team ambassador, anyway? Doesn't that just mean washed up player who can't quite give it up?). Anyway, regardless of where anyone puts the blame in the whole mess, one thing we really should be able to agree on is that Congress should stay the fuck out of it. But then, I guess investigating the NFL for fucking things up is easier than investigating the President for fucking things up, and our government is all about doing whatever is easiest.

Is Carnivale coming back?

So apparently HBO wants to do a movie to wrap it up, but the producers don't think that would be fair to the story or something. I'm all for seeing as much of Carnivale as possible, whether it's the show or a movie, but here's some advice to HBO. Anyone who will watch this movie would watch the show, so just bring the show back, dumbasses. If you don't think anyone wants to watch it, then why would you want to do a movie? Sometimes I think TV executives just aren't very bright.

People annoy me

I'm always meaning to catalog all the stupid little shit people do that irritates me, but there's just so much of it that I never get around to it, so maybe instead I'll just post these things individually as they come up.

Which leads me to this one. I hate it when people say "Turkey Day" instead of Thanksgiving. Why do people do that? It's annoying. Someone just left for the day and said it, but I was able to restrain myself from rolling my eyes. It's not quite as bad as the people next month who will leave on New Year's Eve saying, "see you next year" but it's still annoying.

Happy Birthday to Me

Feel free to send gifts. I could really use one of these.

Oh, and I've discovered that I can still post, but just can't read or comment from work, although I still don't have much time. So, I've asked my brother (you may have seen his comments around here) to contribute to the blog as well, so there will be more around to read here. He's not as funny as me, but he's the smart one (not that I'm not smart, obviously), and is probably a little more well-rounded (he likes all that Harry Potter crap and a lot of lousy music), but he doesn't know the numbers of people on his favorite football teams, which is ridiculous. Anyway, I suppose he'll post something sooner or later (or maybe he already has, I wouldn't know, since I can't read it), so be sure to welcome him.

No 'holiday' tree for this grower

I'm all for pissing off religous fundamentalists and Bill O'Reilly, but I don't see any reason to rename a Christmas tree a Holiday Tree. A Christmas tree is a symbol of Christmas, not any other holidays, so to rename it just in some pointelss gesture of political correctness is silly. I don't know how anyone would be offended by a Christmas tree. I'm not the slightest bit religous, and it doesn't bother me, we have one every year. The tree is about the decorations, and the presents, and seems to me to be about the most secular symbol of the holiday after Santa Claus. I can understand why people may say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" in order to avoid offending someone (although, I think if you're offended by someone wishing you a Merry Christmas, than you're probably just looking for things to be offended by), but calling a Christmas tree a holiday tree is just silly. Everyone knows it's for Christmas, and I'm not sure why anyone would be offended by that.

Broadcasters piss me off - And players too edition

Has there ever been a broadcaster or player who referenced whichever game they play without preceeding it with "the game of...?" I know they have airtime to fill, but do those three words really add so much that they can never leave them out?

Here I Am

Not that anyone noticed, but I haven't posted anything in a while. Mostly because I have a new position at work and just don't have much time to post, and it appears that they have started blocking blogs anyway, so even if I did have time to post, I couldn't. I still read everyone's occasionally when I have a minute through RSS feeds, but I can't comment.

I would also probably post more from home, but my computer is broken, and now it looks like the assholes are trying to say it is out of warranty, but I'm not sure since I was in the middle of reading the email when Yahoo Mail decided to fuck up. Anyway, if and when I'm able to get my computer fixed, I'll probably post more often, but until then, it will probably be rare, if anyone cares. Maybe this blog will die a slow miserable death, but I hope not. Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know, in case anyone missed me.

Rice, in Iraq, Says Strategy Against Rebels Is Working

And of course she is right. Unfortunately, in order to be right, she had to apply the new Republican-approved, Kansas redefinition principle to the word 'working', which basically says that if you want something bad enough, or believe in it hard enough, then it becomes true.

Alito denies conflict in '02 Vanguard case

Hmmm, so Alito, who is set to become a Supreme Court Justice, pretty clearly lied to Congress, albeit about something pretty minor, and no one really seems to care very much, except for people who are looking for reasons to oppose him. But Rafael Palmeiro most likely lied to Congress, and they have to start a ridiculous perjury investigation that common sense would tell anyone couldn't go anywhere, even if it was Congress' business in the first place, which it isn't. Hey, dickheads, maybe he wouldn't have lied to you if you hadn't been holding hearings on it in the first place (not that that makes it ok, just that we could have avoided the whole useless circus). What exactly did those hearings accomplish, again? Get your fucking priorities straight (and I love baseball). Assholes.

Senate Approves Limiting Rights of U.S. Detainees

Disgusting. How completely Un-American does it seem to detain people without even having to explain why? I guess if people are allowed to challenge their detentions, we might find out that they're not all terrorists, and then maybe we would lose the stomach to support torturing them. This is also a convenient way for the Senators who actually were smart enough to vote against torture to still go along with their pro-torture party and administration by keeping it hidden. Assholes.

Bush to take on critics of his case for Iraq war

President Bush will respond Friday to accusations that his administration manipulated intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to justify the war, a senior administration official said.

In other words, he's going to ask people to believe what he tells them instead of what the evidence tells them. Why not? It's worked for him before, even got him re-elected. Takes a lot of balls, though. Asshole.

Frist concerned more about leaks than secret prisons

Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is "not concerned about what goes on" behind the prison walls.

Wow, it's hard for me to believe that there are people in positions of such great power in our country that are so mind-numbingly stupid as to not be able to recognize that the threat to national security they are worried about because of this leak would not be an issue if there had never been anything to leak in the first place. And if there was nothing wrong going on in these places, there would be no reason for them to be secret in the first place. Perhaps if Frist did concern himself about what goes on behind the prison walls, he could help clean it up, and thereby not only eliminate whatever threat their existence caused, but also create some goodwill about the whole issue for a change. Getting in such an uproar over the secret getting out, and not being concerned at all about what is going on in the first place just leads people to believe that there is something you want to keep hidden, even if there is actually nothing wrong going on at these places. Assholes.

Broadcasters Piss Me Off - Marv Albert Edition

I...can't...stand...listening...to...this...sexual...deviant. He pauses for months between every word, especially when saying someone's name. I swear he said Michael once back in 1998, and still hasn't gotten around to saying Jordan yet. Then he says little annoying things that don't mean anything like "...with the step." Him being exposed as a freak was the perfect oppurtunity to rid the world of these annoying things, but of course in sports (and apparently even sports broadcasting), there are never any consequences to your actions. Maybe NBC should give OJ his job back.

Also, there's another annoying thing Marv Albert does that is not exclusive to him. Whenever talking about the time on the game clock vs. the shot clock, or the height of one player vs. another, or the play clock and the game clock, broadcasters always use the word differential. "There's a two second differential between the shot clock and the game clock." What's wrong with the word difference? It says exactly the same thing, and doesn't make you sound like an annoying douchebag who thinks he's in a Calculus class.

Wednesday TV - Invasion Sucks

So, with all the hype around Invasion before it started, I was hoping it would be another pretty good show to watch, but after missing the last episode, and apparently missing absolutely nothing of value to the plot, then watching that peice of crap episode last night, I'm about ready to give up on it. I was disappointed right off the bat with all the characters being part of this big extended family, and all being pretty lame as well, but now after watching the show for several weeks, I realize the characters aren't the only thing lacking on this show. The writers do realize there are aliens on this show, don't they? Maybe they could focus less on the dynamics of these annoying people and their fucked up family situation, and more on what the fuck is going on with the aliens. Why do we have plots about how teens handle divorce, and infected monkeys, or car accidents (more than once) when there are these aliens swimming around? Also, the main character who is supposed to look like a nice, reasonable, smart guy keeps dismissing all his brother-in-law's creepy theories, which in any normal case, would be the right thing to do, but after seeing what he's seen so far on this show, he should be a bit more open minded about what's going on. The fact that he isn't just makes him look stupid. Then last night, in that lousy episode, the woman gets in an accident, is stuck by her seatbelt, so can't reach the radio to call for help, then when she does get out, apparently, she completley forgets the radio and wanders off instead, unbelievable and just all around stupid. Then, they have stupid little annoying things like the kid going out to put gas in the generator (gas from where exactly? It's been two weeks, if they have no power, how are they getting gas for all this running around and generator breakfast making they do?), but he pours the gas from one gas can into another before pouring it into the generator (why?), not to mention that he only pours for about a second, which wouldn't have given him much gas. This wouldn't have bothered me much normally, but I'm already so annoyed with this show that I notice these things. I don't know if I'll watch this show anymore. The only reason I still am at this point is because I hate to give up on a show too early.

LOST, of course was much better, not a lot really happened on this episode until right at the end. With all the pre-show hype around killing someone off, I give them credit for not just getting rid of one of the new people, which is what shows normally do in these cases. And the way they did it opened up a lot of doors for plot development and conflict going forward. Next week looks pretty good as we get to see what happened to the tail section from the beginning.

Speaking of pre-show hype, Martha Stewart's Apprentice made it look like that idiot Jim was going to do something outrageous this week, but it turned out to be a big smoke screen, which is annoying because it was about his most normal week so far. If you're going to use those kinds of teaser promos, you really need to deliver or it just pisses people off. This one is nowhere near as good as the original. Speaking of that one, Randal is apparently married to the cousin of a friend of mine here at work, so I'm rooting for him to win. He's doing pretty well anyway.

Priest Holmes' Career May Be Over

So, my fantasy team that has TO and Holmes on it is looking much worse these days. Even worse since a couple of weeks ago, someone desperately wanted to trade me for TO, and was going to give me a mediocre WR and a decent RB in the deal. Oh well, at least it's not a league for money.

Reading

I finished The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (review), and it was pretty much what I remembered from reading it as a kid. It did read like a kid's book and was pretty short, and that may have bothered me if I didn't have such great memories of reading it as a kid. But since I did, it didn't matter much to me. I'll now move on to the next book in the series, Prince Caspian. Again, if you're reading these books for the first time, make sure to read them in the order they were published, not the ridiculous chronological order they're being marketed in currently.

So what's everyone else reading? Not that I expect much response, since I just did one of these a couple of days ago.

Democrats in US rack up victories

Good, maybe people aren't as stupid as they've seemed over the last few years. Not that Democrats have been particularly inpressive lately, but it should be pretty clear to everyone that letting Republicans control everything doesn't work worth a fuck.

Frist, Hastert call for congressional leak probe

I almost thought that maybe these guys might actually be doing something right for once. But then I see that it's not about the Plame leak. No, they're mad because someone made it harder to torture people, waaaah. So, if this was classified information, then I support trying to find out who leaked it since I'm against classified information being leaked to the press. It's nice to know that Congress is with me on this, although I'm a bit puzzled since I didn't hear these assholes calling for any investigations in the last leak of classified information. But Nancy Pelosi is all over that hypcritical stance, so I'll leave it alone.

"If Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Frist are finally ready to join Democrats' demands for an investigation of possible abuses of classified information, they must direct the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to investigate all aspects of that issue," said Pelosi.

Somehow, I don't think they'll take her up on that.

This was my favorite part:

"If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks,"

Yes, idiots it's the disclosure that hurts, not the fact that we torture people in the first place. Way to get to the root of the problem. Assholes.

Horse Stabbed At Gas Station

Only in Jacksonville can they make even the victim look like a freak. I guess I should be happy that the horse wasn't stabbed with a sword, or at least not as far as I know. Ahhh, I can just feel the civic pride swelling up inside me.

Reading

So, I just finished reading Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling (review). Having read other books by him in the past, I was prepared to be unimpressed, as I'd liked his ideas, but never cared much for the story he builds around them. Going in with those low expectations, this wasn't too bad. Again, he took the story in a way that I thought was less interesting than what I had expected, but he doesn't do to badly with it. The worst part was that he seemed to be reaching for a world where his geeky fantasy interests would become valuable skills, and you can almost see him jacking off as he writes it, fantasizing about becoming King in a world thrown back into the dark ages. Anyway, the story was ok, and if you liked other stuff he's written, you might like this too. The most interesting thing about the story, to me, wasn't even mentioned in the book, but was something I read in one of the reviews, so I don't know if it is true or not, but it said that the world in this book is the world left behind when Nantucket disappears in Island in the Sea of Time. This looks to be the beginning of a series, so if that is the case, I assume it will be revealed at some point.

Anyway, having looked at the library for something else interesting to read next, and not finding anything, I decided instead to re-read The Chroncles of Narnia, in anticipation of the movie coming out. I read these several times as a kid, and thought they were great. I managed to mostly miss all the religous stuff woven into them back then, except in The Last Battle, where it's impossible to overlook, but I hope that doesn't take away from the great stories I remember. I'll be starting with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe even though some idiot somewhere decided to start marketing these books in chronological order, making this book the second in the series. I can't imagine reading them in that order. One of my most vivid memories reading these the first time was finding out five books later, where the lampost came from. Who makes stupid decisions like that, anyway? That would be like watching Star Wars in chronological order, bleh! Anyone else bothered by this?

Anyway, what's everyone reading? Any recommendations? Anything to stay away from? And no Harry Potter, freaks!

Cruise passengers describe horror of pirate attack

Pirates??? Seriously??? What the fuck? Isn't it 2005? First everyone has swords, now ships are getting attacked by pirates. I blame Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Cheney Fights for Detainee Policy

This is disgusting. Why don't people demand that this administration very clearly tell us why it's ok to toture people? Because that's what they want to do, and it's very clear. If they say they aren't in favor of torture, then there is no reason to oppose standards of treatment. If they just don't like the standards being proposed, then they could recommend something better, but they don't because they don't want standards, they want to be able to do whatever they want to do. It's barbaric. And if you're thinking that these people deserve it because they would do worse to us, and because they are just terrorists anyway, I would say to remember that since we are somehow allowed to hold people without trial, charges, or even without telling anyone that they're being held, then it is possible that they're not all terrorists, and that some are completely innocent of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, no matter what they may do, we are supposed to be the good guys, and I will never support lowering our standards just because the other guy may be worse.

The right wing smear machine has done a good job of making it seem like anyone against torture is supporting terrorists, and that we're not really talking about torture anyway, but humiliation and discomfort, but any objective look at the evidence shows that that just isn't the case. So, if these people are so in favor of torture, we need to demand that they openly take that position, and tell us why they think it's ok.

Fiery riots spread beyond Paris

Eight straight nights of rioting? What the hell is wrong with French people? I always thought riots died out after a few hours. Anyway, if it's mostly Muslims upset about being discriminated against, at least maybe we've found a reason for conservatives to like the French again.

Bush backs human rights; protesters call him 'fascist'

I'm glad to hear Bush is in favor of human rights. So I guess all that torture stuff is just a big misunderstanding, then. Or more likely, he's in favor of telling other people how to handle human rights, which of course we now have no business doing thanks to him. Asshole.

Senate Democrats force closed-door session

Livid Republicans decried the Democrats' move as nothing more than "a stunt."

Who gives a fuck if it is a stunt? The point is, you idiots aren't doing your jobs. Support the war or not, but there's no question that we were misled, at best, going into it, and that it is not going well, and that we don't have any plan. So what the fuck is wrong with talking about these things? It's sad when they talk more about this on Boston Legal than they do in Congress. If it takes a stunt to get you morons talking about the war, then I'm all for it. Assholes.

In the Trenches of the War on Meth

There's a War on Meth? I had no idea. Seems like a bad idea to me, though. One thing that we really don't seem to do well in this country is fight wars on things. The War on Drugs, The War on Poverty, The War on Terror, all pretty ridiculous failures. I propose we start declaring war on good things. Like, The War on Freedom, The War on Democracy, The War on Education, The War on Healthcare. That way, they can all fail spectacularly, only in these cases, we'll all be better off for it.

Judge Alito well liked in his neighborhood and where he works

Who gives a fuck? A lot of people like me, too, but I'm not qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. I don't care if his neighbors and coworkers all universally think he's an asshole, as long as he can actually do the job correctly.

Spousal Notification

I get a little irritated every time there's any talk about the Supreme Court, all we ever here about is abortion, abortion, abortion. As important an issue as I think this is, I think we all do ourselves a disservice by focusing on one issue to the exclusion of everything else. Since I assume that the vast majority of cases that the Supreme Court is involved in have absolutely nothing to do with abortion. I say I assume, because I wouldn't know, since there's hardly ever any mention of what the Supreme Court actually does do in the news. Anyway, having said that, a lot of the early stuff I hear about Alito is about his position on some spousal notification law.

Now, I don't really know the particulars to know exactly what his position on it means, or anything, but what interests me is how something like this even comes up. First of all, let me say that if my wife was going to have an abortion, I'd really like to know about it, however, I'd like her to tell me about it without the government forcing her to. And if she would hide that from me in the first place, then we have more problems than a notification would help.

But anyway, what good do people think this will do? First of all, how do you know if the woman is even married? Even crazy religous extremists would have to admit that it is possible to get pregnant without being married. So, now we would have doctors prying into something that is none of their business. Also, why would a spouse be entitled to notification but a boyfriend wouldn't? If it's important for the father to know what is going on (and I think it is, in an ideal situation, unfortunately, by the time someone wants an abortion, they're likely not in an ideal situation), then it's important whether or not he is married to the mother. And if the woman is married, who is to say that the baby is the husband's? That might be a reason why the woman would want an abortion in the first place. So, in that case, you either notify a man who isn't the father (which would seem to miss the point of the law in the first place, and seems to infrige incredibly on the privacy of the woman), or if you don't notify him when he isn't the father, then you just create a big loophole, making the law moot, when the woman can just say the baby isn't her husbands.

Anyway, shit like this is why I'm pro-choice. I don't like abortion, I wish it wasn't so common, but stupid laws like this just don't work in reality, because you can never take every situation into account and still be left with a law that does anything meaningful. It's better to leave these decisions up to the people who have to live with them and who have all the information to make the decision. It's just amazing to me that the biggest issue for the "small government" types is one that puts government right in the middle of an incredibly personal decision.

Did I miss anything?

Ok, so I really didn't plan to be gone so long. I took some vacation days because we were supposed to go out of town for my son's birthday. We didn't end up going anywhere, but I still took the time off. I expected to post from home, but my computer is broken and I didn't feel like using any of the other ones. So anyway, sorry if anyone missed me. And thanks to Fixer for being the one person to actually notice I was gone.

Anyway, apparently some things happened while I was gone, so let's go over as much as I can remember. First, most importantly, It appears I passed 20,000 hits. Normally this would be a pretty nice milestone, but since October was my slowest month in quite some time, I'm not happy about it, and I blame all of you for not visiting enough, since it clearly isn't my fault.

Also, it was my son's third birthday, which meant the first one that he really got excited about, so that was a lot of fun. We took him to the zoo in his little skeleton Halloween costume, which was very cute, after we got him over being scared of it long enough to get it on him. Then he went trick or treating last night for the first time he could actually get interested in it, even though he kept asking where Halloween was, so he didn't completely get the concept, but he did understand that people would give him candy, so he had fun.

Let's see the White Sox won the first World Series in a long time that I had no interest in. I think I might have watched a total of 10 pitches, and that was just by accident. Anyway, congratulations Chicago.

The Cowboys head into their off week with a victory, but nothing to celebrate since they should have beaten Arizona pretty much as bad as they did. Big test in two weeks when they have a rematch against Philly on Monday Night. The Eagles look bad, and they're probably a little pissed about it, so it could be a good game. At least they blew up the Vet, so it won't be played in that shithole.

Let's see, I think there may have been some political news while I was gone also. Oh, that's right...indictment. Well, I probably don't have much to say about it that hasn't already been said, but only in this BizarroWorld we live in would people let this administration that was supposed to restore integrity to the White House celebrate the fact that only one of their staff was indicted. Congratulations, assholes.

Oh, and the smoke screen to push the indictment story off the fron page was of course the "withdrawal" of Harriet Miers, and the nomination of that fucknut, Scalia Jr. or whatever the hell is name is. Well, I'd like to say that I'm happy that someone as ridiculously unqualified as Miers won't be on the Supreme Court, and despite the objections of the crazy religous right, I don't think she would have been any less fucknutty than the new guy, but I don't think they really had any intention of putting her on the court anyway. They just wanted some big story to cover for their scandal. Again, congratulations assholes. Oh, and good job being able to say with a straight face how important it is for the new guy to get a vote after your crazy wingnut supporters ran off the last one without even getting to the hearings.

I'm sure some other stuff happened, but I was on vacation, so I wasn't paying any attention to it.