Salvation in Jeopardy

I'll admit it. I laughed out loud when I read this.

God moves on from Creed, Pillages Korn

First he took away Mase. Then Scott whoever (Creed guy). Now God has given a higher calling to Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch (what a nickname), who announced that he too is leaving his band to follow God. Before God gets a bad rap as some sort of band-busting Divine Yoko Ono, it should be remembered that he is perfect and mighty. And Creed and Korn had kind of run their course. There's actually a great roster forming of guys who left their band when they found God. Maybe they should collaborate.

Fake Designer Clothes for the Homeless

I love this. How great would it be if our homeless got to cast off their plastic trash bags and carry around their stuff in fake Prada bags?

Hope Springs Eternal

This article is mostly about Laura Bush firing the White House chef (riveting, I know), but also talks about her sky-high approval ratings and her more comfortable, assertive manner as she starts a second and final four year run as First Lady. Faaaaar more important, it includes this encouraging jewel:

The first lady has become more candid with the news media. In a recent interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," she said her daughter Jenna's reported new companion "is not a serious boyfriend." She later joked with a group of magazine reporters that perhaps she was being "a little too candid," according to the Hotline, the National Journal's daily political report.

Soft Drink Death

Well your mom always thought the unnatural color and caffeine level made it pure evil, but she never thought it could be fatal. Now we know the truth: Mountain Dew can kill.

Not Like The Dinosaurs...Yet

A giant asteroid is going to juuuuust miss the earth in 2029. I just think this article is really cool.

Athlete Pleads Guilty?

It's crushing for me that Michigan has now lost it's best two players to an injury and a criminal charge, but it makes me proud of the program for the way they handled Daniel Horton. Tommy Amaker suspended him when he was charged with an act of domestic violence. Not after the results of the trial; before. Even better, Horton admitted doing wrong and pleaded guilty. His word against hers (he being the popular, recognizable person around town, whose innocence is in the public interest) and he pleaded guilty. A novel idea. He must not have had expert legal counsel. How refreshing...

Too good to be true; too funny to be sad

Michael Jackson's defense team may call Kobe Bryant to the stand as a character witness. Ha.

Apalling, but FUNNY

Every now and then, The Smoking Gun turns out a gem. Such is the case with this unearthing of the wedding registry of seminal teacher/statutory rapist, Mary LeTourneau. I can't decide which is funnier; the picture or the sub-title.

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

Believe Jose?

Perpetual crank and cynic Skip Bayless watched steriod snitch Jose Canseco's feature interview on 60 minutes and decided--to his utter surprise--that he believes him. I watched too, and so do I. Should we be surprised that the media darlings threatened by his steroid allegations have issued bland lawyer-drafted denials and smeared Canseco personally? Are we supposed to be convinced? Anyone who's looked at before and after pictures of McGwire, Juan Gonzalez, and Jason Giambi can tell there's something afoot beyond ordinary strength training. Something hormonal. I've never like Jose, but I almost like his reaction to being blacklisted by baseball over something so many others took part in--he'll just take down the whole duplicitous machine with him. A brilliantly vengeful and destructive last gasp from the strongman. Maybe he's been reading up on Samson?

Remaining 2/3 of Axis of Evil Get Surly

Well, in the past week both North Korea and Iran have given us the big nuclear finger. The Koreans say they're no longer participating in bi-lateral talks and instead will add to their arsenal of nuclear weapons. (oh yeah. I guess implicit in that announcement is the fact that we already have nuclear weapons. sorry! forgot to mention that during the talks...) Well thanks for the heads-up, Mr. Jong Il. Iran, meanwhile, said their perfectly happy with their nuclear reactor, have no intentions of breaking up, and warned Team America not to "play with fire." I thought toppling the first Evil country we mentioned was supposed to prevent us from listening to trash talk from the remaining two. Apparently Iraq didn't trigger the fear and respect of rogue states the way we thought it would...

Fried Green Arteries

CNN Health states the obvious--it's tough to fight obesity in the South. Consider the artillery being launched by the enemy, including the crowd-favorite "Hamdog" at Mulligan's bar in Decatur, Georgia:

a hot dog wrapped by a beef patty that's deep fried, covered with chili, cheese and onions and served on a hoagie bun. Oh yeah, it's also topped with a fried egg and two fistfuls of fries.

Arguably even more disgusting is Mulligan's popular "Luther Burger," a "bacon-cheeseburger served on a Krispy Kreme doughnut bun." Oh. My. You're at risk for diabetes just thinking about biting that thing. If the Luther Burger can't flatline your heart monitor, nothing will.

Friedman on Iraq

My political posts have made me look like a staunch elephant lately, but the hope and inspiration of the Iraqi election, and the repugnance of those who would undercut its importance, has been on the brain. Thomas Friedman is brilliant on the subject today--taking his fellow lefties to task and offering a reminder why he still reigns supreme among NY Times editorialists.

Democrats Concede '08 Election

Shocking but true. The Dems are trying to rediscover they're winning ways by putting their party in the steady hands of Dr. Howard Dean.

Girls will be girls (for boys)

I have to defend our female soldier mud wrestlers. If they did this at any number of college frat houses, they would be ignored or tacitly applauded. Instead it's supposed to be the next great scandal? Why do we wink and smile at domestic college students, but throw the book at the kids who have to spend several months in a miserable place to pay for college? This incident was completely isolated from any Iraqis or prisoners. It probably crossed some line, but why is this worth publicly singling out one of the girls (let alone demoting her). And who is this creep that took a bunch of sleazy pictures of female soldiers mud wrestling, and then turned around and leaked them to the Daily News? Pathetic.

Look, many of our soldiers do not represent the very best of America. But at the same time, it seems to me that many of them do. And while cynics drive their good deeds out of the news--labeling such stories as jingoism--the media continues to splash unseemly sketches, hoping to land an Abu Ghraib sequel. It's stupid and unfair. Imagine if we made a headline of every asinine thing a New York City firefighter did. You could make them look like a pack of corrupt ignorants too. I think if you take any group of several thousand people and hype all of their misdeeds the picture you get is a lousy one. Let's cut the kids overseas a bit more slack, so long as they are doing their job and respecting our allies and enemies. They are enduring things most of us know nothing about and deserve a reasonable amount of grace.

State of the Union

Well I watched pretty much the whole speech. (First time I've missed a minute of it in years, but that Duke/Wake Forest matchup was a good one.) I thought Bush did a decent job of explaining the Social Security problem, and obviously there will be one, no matter what Paul Krugman says. 25 years from now there will be several million Baby Boomers slowly wasting away in front of their televisions with artificial organs in their torsos and new vaccines in their veins. And their daily lives, to say nothing of the organs, will be financed by the part of my paycheck I'm not getting today. When my genetically modified body is 145 do you think I'll still be collecting? No sir. So yes, we have to do something, but it will take more than the modest introduction of private accounts for young people. And obviously there was nothing exciting or inspiring about this section of the speech.

The second half was wonderful. Not even the speech itself so much as the 100% new context in which to speak about Iraq.

There was a time when Americans openly took a certain amount of pride in the Iraq project, but the run-up to the 2004 election took the wind out of that sail. To say nothing of the tragedy and discouragement dealt regularly in large doses by the insurgency. Howard Dean started railing against the war, went to the lead in the polls, and the chase to critique most fervently was on. Most have forgotten that before the Dean rhetoric and poll surge Democrats had given up on the Presidency for 2004. The serious contenders (e.g. Hillary) were waiting for 2008 when there was a legitimate chance. Plenty changed, and Dean's angry criticism rang more and more true as the news got more discouraging. The frenzy of self-critique that eventually fell after the intial Dean Domino left behind a trail of best-selling books, splashy headlines, and sober news editorials on the corruptness, errancy, and ineptitude of the Bush administration. They were the most ignorant and dishonest pack of people that ever got to use the White House as office space. The worst Presidency in our lifetime. That's how far we got from mid 2003 to late 2004--unbeatable president became the worst of the past century.

But now the election is over. The eyes of the main stream media are a little less wild; their mouths a bit less frothy. The pictures of ink-stained fingers could almost make you cry. The fact that a liberated Iraqi woman sat next to the President's wife was beautiful. To watch her long, meaningful embrace of a mother whose son had died in the effort to secure her voting rights was profound and powerful. Perhaps I'm a sucker but that was the most beautiful and stirring snapshot I've ever seen in American politics: the mother of the dead marine, sobbing and holding the liberated Iraqi woman, next to the First Lady. I almost lost it when she put her son's dog tags around the woman's wrist at the end.

Historians will debate the worthiness of the loss of life, but it is beautiful to see that our military has done something good. It would be wrong to blame Democrats for making the military look bad. Abu Ghraib was more devastating to perception of the war than any campaign argument. We were rightly ashamed as a country. But how wonderful that the thousands of other soldiers who never debased themselves by humiliating the powerless had the opportunity to see the joy of the Iraqi people on election day and see the fruits of something GOOD they had done. And how beautiful that last night a poignant glimpse of that accomplishment could be seen in the halls of our nation's capitol.

Somewhere, John Edwards is Smiling

Add one more to the list of outrageous jury awards. The plaintiff, whose photograph had been used in Taster's Choice coffee ads for years without his knowledge, has been awarded $15.6 million for his anguish. What do I love most about this? He was initially asking for $8.5 million, which Taster's Choice rightly refused-- the jury just decided it would be fun to double it. And why not? It's a big huge corporation, and he's the little guy. Attractive, and holding a cup of coffee. The best part of all is just this guy himself. Former model, now bay-area kindergarten teacher. His quote at the end is pure Northern California: "I don't buy Taster's Choice. I do beans."

I do beans?