Just Dubya Being Dubya

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Carol Lam, the former United States attorney for San Diego, is smart and tireless and was very good at her job. Her investigation of Representative Randy Cunningham resulted in a guilty plea for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors and a sentence of more than eight years. Two weeks ago, she indicted Kyle Dustin Foggo, the former No. 3 official in the C.I.A. The defense-contracting scandal she pursued so vigorously could yet drag in other politicians.

In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired.

-- Adam Cohen for The New York Times

This has to do with the recent news/scandal of Bush firing an unprecedented number of U.S. attorneys for what looks like purely political reasons. We are so used to this that I was going to just scroll over it, but decided that it is worth being clear why this Administration has been so bad for Americans, or at least for the non-born again, non-Republican Americans.

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Just Dubya Being Dubya

♠
Carol Lam, the former United States attorney for San Diego, is smart and tireless and was very good at her job. Her investigation of Representative Randy Cunningham resulted in a guilty plea for taking more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors and a sentence of more than eight years. Two weeks ago, she indicted Kyle Dustin Foggo, the former No. 3 official in the C.I.A. The defense-contracting scandal she pursued so vigorously could yet drag in other politicians.

In many Justice Departments, her record would have won her awards, and perhaps a promotion to a top post in Washington. In the Bush Justice Department, it got her fired.

-- Adam Cohen for The New York Times

This has to do with the recent news/scandal of Bush firing an unprecedented number of U.S. attorneys for what looks like purely political reasons. We are so used to this that I was going to just scroll over it, but decided that it is worth being clear why this Administration has been so bad for Americans, or at least for the non-born again, non-Republican Americans.

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Islamists Spreading and Sharing the Terror

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PATTANI, Thailand, Feb. 22 — Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years with almost daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings.

-- Seth Mydans for The New York Times

I didn't know about this. It looks like the Islamists are now taking on the Buddhists. They really do seem to be a cancer on civilization.

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Islamists Spreading and Sharing the Terror

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PATTANI, Thailand, Feb. 22 — Some are already calling it war, a brutal Muslim separatist insurgency in southern Thailand that has taken as many as 2,000 lives in three years with almost daily bombings, drive-by shootings, arson and beheadings.

-- Seth Mydans for The New York Times

I didn't know about this. It looks like the Islamists are now taking on the Buddhists. They really do seem to be a cancer on civilization.

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Iran's Bid to Join in Star Wars

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Meanwhile...

TEHRAN, Feb. 25 — Iran announced Sunday that it had launched a research rocket that attained a suborbital altitude, a test that appeared to move it closer toward its aim of putting its own satellites into space.

... A test rocket capable of reaching greater altitudes would have had significant meaning not only for Iran’s effort to put satellites into orbit, but also for developing a transcontinental ballistic missile, making it a topic of keen interest to other countries.

What the world needs now is love, more sweet love!

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Iran's Bid to Join in Star Wars

♠
Meanwhile...

TEHRAN, Feb. 25 — Iran announced Sunday that it had launched a research rocket that attained a suborbital altitude, a test that appeared to move it closer toward its aim of putting its own satellites into space.

... A test rocket capable of reaching greater altitudes would have had significant meaning not only for Iran’s effort to put satellites into orbit, but also for developing a transcontinental ballistic missile, making it a topic of keen interest to other countries.

What the world needs now is love, more sweet love!

xXx

Computer Games: The Next Frontier

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The Europeans are doing some interesting things in the realms of virtual reality. (Maybe that's easier for them.) They have been experimenting with combining computer games with theaters, which does sound like a promising idea, to bring computer games onto a grander scale.

The result is a hybrid movie theater with all the digital fire and fury of a video game: fog, black light, flashing green lasers, high-definition digital projectors, vibrating seats, game pads and dozens of 17-inch screens attached to individual chairs. And naturally, there’s buttered popcorn.

... “Forget the pathetic speakers of a PC or television!” screams an ad for the theater, which opened in December and is offering cut-rate tickets at 3 euros, or about $3.95. “Come feel the sound that puts you at the center of the action.”

But it looks like they are still in the primitive stages of developing the idea. People still play on computer screens at their seats with the big movie screen and sound system serving more as a background, which seems very limited.

Still, it is closer to the type of virtual-world play that we see on shows such as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with their Holodeck. The possibilities do tease the imagination. Maybe the Japanese, if not the Americans, will be able to develop the concept better.

(Source: Doreen Carvajal for The New York Times)

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Computer Games: The Next Frontier

♠
The Europeans are doing some interesting things in the realms of virtual reality. (Maybe that's easier for them.) They have been experimenting with combining computer games with theaters, which does sound like a promising idea, to bring computer games onto a grander scale.

The result is a hybrid movie theater with all the digital fire and fury of a video game: fog, black light, flashing green lasers, high-definition digital projectors, vibrating seats, game pads and dozens of 17-inch screens attached to individual chairs. And naturally, there’s buttered popcorn.

... “Forget the pathetic speakers of a PC or television!” screams an ad for the theater, which opened in December and is offering cut-rate tickets at 3 euros, or about $3.95. “Come feel the sound that puts you at the center of the action.”

But it looks like they are still in the primitive stages of developing the idea. People still play on computer screens at their seats with the big movie screen and sound system serving more as a background, which seems very limited.

Still, it is closer to the type of virtual-world play that we see on shows such as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with their Holodeck. The possibilities do tease the imagination. Maybe the Japanese, if not the Americans, will be able to develop the concept better.

(Source: Doreen Carvajal for The New York Times)

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The Back Yard

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Monk took Bo out back for the first time this year. Those winter rains got us into the habit of forgetting about it, with so much of the back yard being just dirt.

He watered the front this morning, and he decided to give the back a try. At least its dry.

A lot of tall weeds need pulling. Monk has been content to wait until the lawn-mowing season begins, which should be soon, though the grass still looks stagnantly short and like it is not healthy enough to grow tall again.

Yet, Monk got a good feeling about it, thinking that there is still enough to use, so long as it is dry. Though, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, what lawn is there needs watering, to try to keep it there.

xXx

The Back Yard

♠
Monk took Bo out back for the first time this year. Those winter rains got us into the habit of forgetting about it, with so much of the back yard being just dirt.

He watered the front this morning, and he decided to give the back a try. At least its dry.

A lot of tall weeds need pulling. Monk has been content to wait until the lawn-mowing season begins, which should be soon, though the grass still looks stagnantly short and like it is not healthy enough to grow tall again.

Yet, Monk got a good feeling about it, thinking that there is still enough to use, so long as it is dry. Though, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, what lawn is there needs watering, to try to keep it there.

xXx

The Hostel for All Your Anti-American Fun

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At ohnotheydidnt, they announced that "Hostel 2" is coming out. The discussion revolved around how it was just tits and gore, and it is does carry Quentin Tarantino's endorsement. The feminist-minded condemnation only made me more curious (and they really hate thin women there). I went to Amazon to find out about the first "Hostel."

Judging by the reviews on that page, the flick is about some Americans who go on a pleasure trip to Europe and wind up in hell (and I don't mean France):

To sum it up, the two guys are pretty much meat heads. They are only interested in having sex, doing drugs and, errr...well, having sex. It's basically because of the trio's sex-starved minds that leads them straight to Slovakia, where someone mentions you can pretty much "TAKE" whatever woman you want and do "WHATEVER YOU WANT TO THEM" when you get them.

How many young, red-blooded American men are not going to be drawn by that?!

On top of being a Tits & Ass fest, this is a gore film. These wild Slovak babes sell Americans to another sort of pleasure resort where people pay to be able to torture and murder them. As one of the reviewers describe it:

Lots of extreme gore and brutality ensue in what I would consider to be one of the most DISGUSTING films I have ever seen. I am NOT a connoisseur of horror or gore, but this movie really made me flinch and feel sick. I couldn't help but feel dirty after I finished watching this movie! There are scenes where fingers are chopped off with excruciatingly gory results, achiles tendons are sliced open and left gaping to the viewers mortified sight, eye balls are pulled out and left hanging on a screaming victims head only to be snipped off with a scissor (the snipped off eye ball oozing cream colored puss was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen), a guy is gagged with one of those S&M type ball-gag devices and he continually vomits and chokes on it, Throats are slit, body parts are chopped...hell, there is even a scene where a gang of what appears to be kids under the ages of 10 stomp in and crush two "bad guys" heads.

The main reason why I am blogging this movie is this note by the Amazon.com review:

The sardonic joke, of course, is that Americans are worth the most in this brothel of blood because everyone else in the world wants to take revenge upon them.

I thought this was noteworthy. I had never heard of this movie. I suspect Texas does not allow them, or at least not this far down south in Texas, even without the anti-American element. More disappointing is that it does not even make the premium cable channels these days. I am not that interested in seeing the movie, but I would not mind catching it on Cinemax some night, if they could forgo being so bland and safe in their offerings.

-----

Sources

1. Oh No They Didn't!

2. Amazon.com

xXx

The Hostel for All Your Anti-American Fun

♠
At ohnotheydidnt, they announced that "Hostel 2" is coming out. The discussion revolved around how it was just tits and gore, and it is does carry Quentin Tarantino's endorsement. The feminist-minded condemnation only made me more curious (and they really hate thin women there). I went to Amazon to find out about the first "Hostel."

Judging by the reviews on that page, the flick is about some Americans who go on a pleasure trip to Europe and wind up in hell (and I don't mean France):

To sum it up, the two guys are pretty much meat heads. They are only interested in having sex, doing drugs and, errr...well, having sex. It's basically because of the trio's sex-starved minds that leads them straight to Slovakia, where someone mentions you can pretty much "TAKE" whatever woman you want and do "WHATEVER YOU WANT TO THEM" when you get them.

How many young, red-blooded American men are not going to be drawn by that?!

On top of being a Tits & Ass fest, this is a gore film. These wild Slovak babes sell Americans to another sort of pleasure resort where people pay to be able to torture and murder them. As one of the reviewers describe it:

Lots of extreme gore and brutality ensue in what I would consider to be one of the most DISGUSTING films I have ever seen. I am NOT a connoisseur of horror or gore, but this movie really made me flinch and feel sick. I couldn't help but feel dirty after I finished watching this movie! There are scenes where fingers are chopped off with excruciatingly gory results, achiles tendons are sliced open and left gaping to the viewers mortified sight, eye balls are pulled out and left hanging on a screaming victims head only to be snipped off with a scissor (the snipped off eye ball oozing cream colored puss was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen), a guy is gagged with one of those S&M type ball-gag devices and he continually vomits and chokes on it, Throats are slit, body parts are chopped...hell, there is even a scene where a gang of what appears to be kids under the ages of 10 stomp in and crush two "bad guys" heads.

The main reason why I am blogging this movie is this note by the Amazon.com review:

The sardonic joke, of course, is that Americans are worth the most in this brothel of blood because everyone else in the world wants to take revenge upon them.

I thought this was noteworthy. I had never heard of this movie. I suspect Texas does not allow them, or at least not this far down south in Texas, even without the anti-American element. More disappointing is that it does not even make the premium cable channels these days. I am not that interested in seeing the movie, but I would not mind catching it on Cinemax some night, if they could forgo being so bland and safe in their offerings.

-----

Sources

1. Oh No They Didn't!

2. Amazon.com

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