Apparently “Catwoman” was never distributed to Peshawar

Posted on by


What’s the biggest clue that the "new" Bin Laden tape might not be so new?
Seems to think he’s dealing with a president capable of assessing threats

979 		  50.5%
 
It’s on Betamax

641 		  33.1%
 
Background religious fanatics still doing the Macarena

259 		  13.4%
 
Refers to Halle Berry as a "serious actress"

58 		  3%
 

Now that author James Frey has been flogged in the public square for dishonesty, where will he wind up next?

New poll at left.

And yes, I realize these have been Polls Of The Month for a while.  I hope you’ll forgive me when the book comes out this fall.  It’s pretty decent.  I’m excited as heck about it, actually.

But the third draft is on deadline.  Back to the word mill…

Happy Australia Day!

Posted on by

National holiday, something of a Down Under equivalent to July 4th.

Funny thing… I’ve been back in L.A. for almost two weeks, but I’m still mentally in Sydney.  I’m still reading the SMH and ABC, and at the moment I’ve got Nine‘s coverage of the ODI match between Oz and Sri Lanka on the TV while working.

I’m just not quite home yet.

The headlines are just brimming with juice, of course — Alito, DeLay,
Abramoff, lies over FISA, lies over Katrina, lies over Medicare D — so
I’ll get there eventually.

Still, during the break after Sri Lanka batted, there was a glimpse of a ceremony on the
field for a few hundred immigrants just receiving Australian
citizenship.  I suspect those are probably a few hundred very happy
people.

Between leaving half my brain in Oz and book frenzy, don’t expect a ton here for a few more days.

The question that has no answer

Posted on by

From today’s press gaggle, via First Draft, which gaggle-watches better than anybody:

Q The law says he has to seek a court warrant.

MR. McCLELLAN: — it is labeled an international call —

Q Why doesn’t he seek a warrant? What’s the big problem?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, actually, we’ve walked through this repeatedly over the last few days. It’s important for the American people to understand what the facts are. There is a lot of misinformation about —

Q Why can’t you seek a warrant?

MR. McCLELLAN: — this program. And we do use the FISA tool, as well. That’s an important tool, as well. But we have briefed members of Congress more than a dozen times on this. We continue to brief members of Congress in an appropriate manner. This is a highly classified program and it is a vital program to our nation’s security. The 9/11 Commission criticized us for not connecting the dots —

Q Is it vital to go through legal steps?

MR. McCLELLAN: This is helping us to connect the dots in a very targeted and focused way.

Q Why can’t he seek a warrant?

MR. McCLELLAN: It is about detecting and preventing attacks. FISA was created for a different time period. General Hayden walked through that yesterday; the Attorney General talked about it more. This is about moving with speed and agility, not some long-term period of time. It’s about detecting —

Q You can get one retroactively.

MR. McCLELLAN: — it’s about detecting and preventing attacks. And we are a nation at war, and the courts have upheld the President’s authority to engage in surveillance. Surveillance is critical to prevailing in the war on terrorism.

Q He doesn’t have a blank check.

MR. McCLELLAN: And we talked with members of Congress about whether or not there needed to be legislation that reflects what the President’s authority already is, and the congressional leaders felt that by doing so it could compromise this program. This is a vital program and it’s important that we don’t show the enemy our play book. And talking about it —

Q Getting warrants doesn’t show the enemy a play book.

MR. McCLELLAN: Okay. Next question. 

Hand-picked? What makes you think Bush’s audiences are hand-picked?

Posted on by

From today’s LAT, in an article headlined Unscripted Moment Over "Brokeback":

The audience applauded, even though it was not clear what Bush meant.

That’s the sort of thing you do for a baby making its first words, not the President of the United States.

Then again, things are pretty far gone if the Chimpalissimo even having one unscripted public moment is itself a headline.

UPDATE: Ten minutes later, still enjoying it.  Man, what a revealing sentence, about pretty much everything in the last few years.

The audience applauded, even though it was not clear what Bush meant.

If I were a teenager forming a band, that would be my band’s new name.  I think that’ll have to be the site’s new slogan when I get time.  Maybe some T-shirts, too.  Man.

I won’t have time for the next week or so — book frenzy, third draft, has arrived — so things will be a little thin here again for a bit.  But

The audience applauded, even though it was not clear what Bush meant.

is gonna make me smile every time I think about it for a good while.

Election day (for about 8% of you) is here! Get out and vote!

Posted on by

Colin reminds me that our neighbours to the north are holding national elections today.  It says something about how self-obsessed the U.S. media is that any of us needs reminding.

Your major options
include the Liberals, the New Democrats, the Conservatives, the Greens,
et pour ceux de vous qui veulent cesser ce non-sens entier du Canada, le Bloc Quebecois.

Your less-likely options
include the Libertarians, the Western Block party, the Communists, the
Canadian Action Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Marijuana
Party, the Progressive Canadians, the Marxist-Leninists, the First
Peoples National Party, and the Animal Alliance Environment Voters
Party of Canada.

If you’re not quite sure why the Animal
Alliance Environment people might think the Greens don’t quite get the
point, the CBC has prepared a handy Cheat Sheet.  Fun highlights:

  • The Bloc Quebecois wants to field their own sporting teams at international events.
  • The Conservative leader has been making a fresh big announcement every morning.  So much for Rovian staying on message.
  • The Greens have everybody a little confused.  So they’re definitely Greens.
  • The Liberal slogan is "Choose Your Canada."  I’ll take that big one in the middle, please.
  • The
    New Democrats will probably only get about 20 percent of the vote. 
    Which means they’ll actually be the ones holding the balance of power
    in the House of Commons.

If you’re not quite sure how this last bit is possible, check out this cool examination of different voting systems, including the Nobel prize-winning realization that even without Diebold, no voting system can ever actually work completely, which leads to this nifty example
of how equally-valid voting systems might play out the same election
among four candidates with four logical yet different
results.

Fun, watching a relatively healthy democracy, so different and yet familiar.  Me, I’m hoping the Marijuana Party and the Christian Heritage people wind up in 50-50 control, if only for the entertainment value.

Sometimes I think Vancouver wouldn’t be a bad place to wind up…