Somebody Call Robocop!

When people flat out refuse to obey the law, they are arrested. It's as simple as that. When they refuse to be arrested, they are either beaten, maced or shot by the police, depending on how hard they resist their arrest. So why is it that when the Bush administration keeps breaking law after law and defying our government by refusing to comply with subpoenas or Dick Cheney's office flat out saying that some laws don't apply to him that these people have not been arrested? Obviously Alberto Gonzales isn't going to send any of his feds in to bust these guys, but if these laws are being broken in the District of Columbia, doesn't the Metropolitan Police Department have jurisdiction? All some member of congress needs to do is dial 911, report a crime, and have these clowns arrested by uniformed MPD officers. Of course, chances are that these arrogant people who consider themselves above the law would resist arrest, and which case they should get the same beatdown that any other criminal resisting arrest would get. Or better yet, send in the one cop who could get the job done without worrying about any of the political fallout. That's right, I'm talking about none other than Robocop! Robocop: Vice President Cheney, you are in violation of the law and you are under arrest. You have 10 seconds to comply. Dick: You'll never take me, copper! I'll fill your face with birdshot, punk. Robocop: Vice President Cheney, you are in violation of the law and you are under arrest. You have 5 seconds to comply. Cheney: Do you know who I am you stupid metal liberal? Robocop: Vice President Cheney, you are resisting arrest and I am now authorized to use deadly force...

I Should Just Ignore Her, but...

I hate blogging about this woman. I feel that even discussing her gives her a false legitimacy as a political pundit when she is truly nothing more than a right wing shock jock. Hating her for being a shrill name calling fascist bully is exactly what she wants and needs in order to paint herself as a victim to the oh so evil lefties who only want to take away her rights. And the right wingers love her because she says the sort of things that they think but are afraid to say in public. That said, I got the biggest smile on my face when I heard that Elizabeth Edwards took her to task live on Hardball, and that the Edwards campaign raised a ton of money by doing it. While the Jerry Springer Show or Monday Night Raw would be a far more appropriate venue for the level of discourse that this horrible woman brings to the table than serious political talkshows, it's nice to hear somebody whose family has been verbally brutalized by this woman tell her very politely what a horrible human being she is and then watching her lash back without the slightest bit of substance. I guess that's the best we're going to get until she winds up taking chairs to the head on pay-per-view. So here's the video if you haven't seen it yet.

This is Cool!

Suppose you've got a blog and you want to post a file. Maybe it's a song or a video clip, and you're either on one of these free blog hosts that won't let you host files, or you just don't want to get your bandwidth slammed. Or suppose you want to email a file to your friends or colleagues but your email or their email won't handle attachments over 5 or 10 megs. Check out Driveway - Online File Sharing to work around these problems. Host files up to 500mb each! Email or blog the links to your files. You don't even have to register with their site to do it. They're even developing new features to roll out soon like password protection and folder uploads. DISCLOSURE: This post is sponsored by Driveway.com

Fun With Guns!

In big budget Hollywood movies, whenever they have gunfights they are most likely using real guns that fire blanks. There are trained professionals who are certified to arm a film production and keep it safe and it all costs a lot of money. Plus these are shot on a closed set so as not to make the authorities think that there's a real gun battle going on and come in with their own guns blazing with real bullets. So what do the low budget guerrilla filmmakers do when they want to create a low budget digital John Woo-esque gun ballet with all the slo-mo dives and a .45 in each hand without having to sell their organs on the black market to afford to do it the way the big boys do? Many are using airsoft guns. These are very realistic looking replicas of real guns that fire little plastic balls with compressed air. Some of the higher end ones will even eject spent cartridges. These things do hurt if you get hit with them, so that should really be taken into consideration when you figure out your camera shots, and you should also stage these shootouts where there's no chance that you'll be seen by the police since you probably can't afford the necessary permits either. These guns are also really popular with people who used to play paintball. I had a buddy at my old job who says that the appeal of airsoft over paintball is the realism. DISCLOSURE: This post is sponsored by airgundepot.com

News Roundup

Supreme Asshattery: Remember back in 2004 when we had 4 bad years under Bush but at least he didn't get to put anybody on the supreme court? At that point, America saw exactly what a lousy job this guy was doing. They knew that decades of Supreme Court rulings were at stake if this man was allowed to put his kind of people onto that court. He's put two of them on there and already they've assaulted the 1st Amendment. I'm sure many people don't think it's that big a deal that a high school kid was suspended over unfurling a banner that said "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," but until a couple of days ago, our country was founded upon the principle that people could unfurl banners that said whatever they wanted. Where will they chip away at it next? While we should have expected this sort of bullshit from a Bush-appointed Supreme Court majority, there was another player in all of this who deserves a big kick to the head. Remember Clinton Panty Sniffer Supreme Ken Starr? He was the lawyer for the anti-free speech side of this case. Pro Wrestling may be More Entertainment than Sports, but... killing your family and then yourself is neither. Did Chris Benoit take a few too many piledrivers, or a few too many steroids to drive him to this? And does Vince McMahon consider an act of murder/suicide to be acceptable "personal reasons" to miss a pay-per-view event? All joking aside, I haven't watched wrestling in years, but when I saw the headline about a pro wrestler murder/suicide, my first thought was "please don't be Mick Foley." But a strange coincidence is that of the four WCW wrestlers who defected to the WWF (this was before it was WWE) together, now two of them are dead. Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko better watch out. And Finally, Our National Nightmare is Over... or has it just begun? Paris Hilton is out of jail and free to resume her career of being famous without any talent for anything and getting paid to get drunk at parties. I just can't wait for all the interviews about how she's a changed person from all of this. And next fall on E! we'll have Simple Life Behind Bars. Whoopty friggin doo!

Dick Cheney: "I am Above ze Law!"

Do right wingers out there really have to ask what it is about Dick Cheney that makes people on the left go beyond just usual partisan dislike to the point where many of us bemoaned the fact that our enemies in Afghanistan failed in their attempt to blow him up? Of course they do! When people are more concerned with the good of their party than the good of our country, they make all sorts of excuses for every misdeed on their side while bashing the other side for the same thing, or justifying bad behavior by saying that the other side does the same thing so two wrongs indeed do make a right. So on top of Cheney's refusal to let the public know that he was allowing Enron to draft energy policy, and on top of his continued lies tying Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, and on top of his enabling of his corporate buddies to plunder our treasury with no-bid contracts in Iraq, and on top of his taking Antonin Scalia duck hunting and not having another accident with his shotgun, what's got me pissed off at the most vile vice president in the history of this country? It's his continued contempt for the laws of this country by acting as if these laws are for everybody but him. The White House defended Vice President Cheney yesterday in a dispute over his office's refusal to comply with an executive order regulating the handling of classified information as Democrats and other critics assailed him for disregarding rules that others follow. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Cheney is not obligated to submit to oversight by an office that safeguards classified information, as other members and parts of the executive branch are. Cheney's office has contended that it does not have to comply because the vice president serves as president of the Senate, which means that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch." [full story] As a law abiding citizen, this really chaps my hide. If I all of a sudden decided that a law didn't apply to me and simply refused to follow it, the feds would drag me away to prison. When does Dick Cheney get frogmarched out of the Old Executive Office Building in handcuffs, thrown into the back of a police cruiser, and tossed into a cell with some crackheads, street toughs and celebrity drunk drivers? And what's going to happen when the law says it's time for him to leave office? Will he go quietly or hole up in his office like those asshats in Waco or Ruby Ridge or New Hampshire? I for one would love to see him attempt to make a stand only to go down Scarface style. Say hello to my little friend indeed, Dickie.

Profiles in Wingnuttery: The Browns

We've got another standoff between the feds and some wingnuts who are willing to become martyrs for a silly cause. This time the cause is the extremist libertarian belief that the government does not have a right to collect taxes. A dentist and her husband have built a survivalist compound out in the middle of nowhere New Hampshire and they're holed up with some wacko militia types and being visited by a Ruby Ridge survivor. PLAINFIELD, New Hampshire (AP) -- To avoid serving prison sentences for tax evasion, Ed Brown and his wife, Elaine, have locked themselves off from the world on their own terms. From behind the 8-inch concrete walls of their 110-acre hilltop compound, the couple taunt police and SWAT teams and play to reporters and government-haters with references to past standoffs that turned deadly. ... The Browns raised the specter of the first case, the 1992 shootout at an Idaho property called Ruby Ridge, by holding a news conference Monday with Randy Weaver, whose wife and child were killed there along with a deputy U.S. marshal. Ed Brown warned authorities they wouldn't take him alive: "We either walk out of here free or we die." ... The Browns' home on an isolated dirt roads includes a turret that offers a 360-degree view of the property and a driveway that is sometimes barricaded with SUVs. Ed Brown, a retired exterminator, and his wife, a dentist, have bragged that the compound is self-sufficient and capable of running entirely on solar, wind and geothermal energies. [full story] I have a very hard time feeling bad for these people who basically commit suicide by cop in these standoffs (I do feel horribly for the children hurt because the adults around them are idiots - but I put the blame 100% on the wingnuts who don't know when to give up). By the time there's a standoff, it's far beyond the point where the whole thing can be over with no consequences. At that point, you're either going to prison or dying. No matter how wrapped up in your cause you are, nobody of any importance is going to consider you a political prisoner and a victim of injustice. If anything, we people who work hard and pay our taxes to contribute to the functioning of our government are pissed off that the money we work so hard to make is being wasted right now on you spoiled little brats. And this sure is not going to be good publicity for the Free State Project! Do us all a favor and either surrender or start that hail of bullets that will be your end. Just do it soon. I don't want to have to keep reading about your continued stupidity every day.

And So Castles Made of Sand Fall in the Sea Eventually

This is an e-card I put together. After a day of getting all worked up over all sorts of annoying stories in the news and changing some of the poopiest diapers I've ever seen, it's nice to put myself on a virtual beach, get a bucket of virtual sand, Build A Sandcastle and name it something silly. E-cards can be a nice irreverent break from the usual grind. And this particular e-card is fun and easy to do. Pick a beach resort (I thought Jamaica would be the most fun), then choose castle pieces which you can scale, color, arrange and even pour water on to make holes in them. Add some beach stuff, give it a name, and voila, you've got your own little piece of the beach that you can sent off to whomever you think could use some sun on their skin, salt in their hair and sand between their toes. Once you're done, you can go on to build yourself a vacation. I could really use one of those myself!

If I Could Reach Through the Internet and Slap Another Blogger...

Pimping for blog traffic on Blog Explosion will expose you to a wide array of blogs from the wonderful to the dreadful. I try not to go off on the ones I find horrible, but there's this one guy going by the handle "Holy Instant" who makes me want to reach through the internet and just slap this guy repeatedly. Despite my atheism, I really try not to take issue with religious folks, but I tend to make the exception when they use their religion for a political agenda or against science. This clown has a bunch of blogs, many of which just have irrelevant post titles aimed at spoofing the search engines to trick people into looking at Christianist propaganda. And you could bet that the majority of these titles bash Democrats and praise Republicans and the war in Iraq. Apparently one of his blogs actually has something more to say than that, and it's just as bad as I would expect it to be. I just read one post, and it bashes Michael Moore for daring to show that our healthcare system is a mess in his new film, Sicko. Government can only degrade health care. Michael Moore's unethical socialist propaganda to the contrary, anything government inserts its fingers into develops a life-destroying cancer: bureaucracy grows unchecked, costs spiral up beyond any hope of control, and quality literally sinks into hell. Ideology-imprisoned politicians and bureaucrats in cahoots with self-serving physicians and surgeons who are willing to play their game is your perfect recipe for pain, sickness and death, as in the recent instance in the news of the lady left to die on the Emergency Room floor. Now I don't necessarilly believe that Jesus existed and if he did I certainly don't believe he was the son of any kind of god. What I do believe though is that the core of his teachings, whether actually attributed to an actual person or just written about by others, was one of kindness and SOCIALISM. That's right, big bad evil socialism, coming together of people as a society to take care of each other is the core of what Christianity is supposed to be about. So at what point did the concept of a capitalist system that leaves so many people behind become part of their holy scripture? Capitalism isn't even mentioned in the Constitution, let alone the bible. There are plenty of socialist programs in this country that none but the most hardcore libertarian crazies complain about, like roads, the police, the military, firefighters, etc. Mr. Holy Instant, you are a disgrace to he who you supposedly base your life around and if he actually existed and came back around, you'd be first in line to get his holy foot straight up your miserable ass. And as for the left's biggest lightning rod, hear Michael Moore on Howard Stern making mincemeat of Howard TV director and token rightwingnut Scott DePace.

One Stop Celebutard Blogging!

For people who are interested in celeb watching and blogging, it can be a lot of work. There are so many sources to get the info you want, whether it's kissing, telling, accidental or not so accidental private part flashing, drinking, drugging, driving, crashing, jail going and leaving and returning and jesus-finding, angry voice mail leaving, drunken fast food off the floor eating, cellulite at the beach having, spouse cheating, third world child adopting, Scientology converting, Cabala trend following, photographer beating, nasty divorcing, custody battling, head shaving, red carpeting, etc dirt. If you're into this stuff, you'd have to hit the tabloids, E!, Perez Hilton, TMZ, Smoking Gun and a whole bunch of other places. Finally somebody figured out how to use RSS feeds and aggregated all the celebrity rumors into one convenient place where you can vote and leave comments. DISCLOSURE: This post sponsored by CelebrityGossip.com

We Have a Winner!

Winners, actually. A while ago, I had a contest for people to win a Washington Interns Gone Bad DVD. All people had to do was leave a comment to enter this contest. I had no idea just how hard it is to try to give something away. I got a whole two entries. While Billy Jacks' story of work on a Kevin Smith film gives him a definite edge, JSF has lived the Washington political staffer life that is lampooned in this film. So since they actually took the initiative to enter, they both win. And I'll give away one more copy to the first person to leave a comment on this post. Winners should get in touch with me and give me a mailing address.

Back That Data Up!

A couple of years ago at an old job (which is actually my current job, but this was before I left and came back again), one of my many duties was to build a custom database that would handle the running of the entire business. I had never built a database before in my life, so it took me a good 8 months to learn the ins and outs of database design, having to scrap days worth of work at a time and start over so that it all worked out right, figuring out how to set relationships and queries and making this thing do complex calculations. I was incredibly proud of myself for putting this thing together and seeing it being used on a daily basis. So how unhappy was I to find out that after I had left the drive that it was on had crashed and they lost the whole damn thing? The problem was that nobody ran a single backup in all the time I was gone, so all of the vital data, every electronic record of quotes and purchases and sales, and 8 months worth of my work went down the tubes because one simple necessity was not met. Backing up your data is insanely critical in today's business world, and often times a smaller business will tend to go with an inferior backup solution. Tape drives can be finicky and the software that comes with them can be a real hassle to get to work properly. On a cheaper consumer level, you've got external drives with cheap backup software that will do an OK job, but can sometimes have problems backing up files that are in use, and those are exactly the files you need backed up, like your email or database. That's why Online Backup solutions like IBackup are really the way to go. They've got plans to suit the needs and budgets of home users to small businesses to larger businesses with different levels of space and features. Disclosure: This post is sponsored by IBackup

I've Been Tagged!

I've been tagged by JSF to answer some questions. I don't usually do these things, but it's a nice break from politics (with the exception of the political questions) and writing paid posts. 1) Name your favorite band and singer. (The singer can't be from the band) Band: Radiohead Singer: Nick Cave 2) Favorite historical politician (domestic)? (Historical = Dead) Franklin Roosevelt - I couldn't have picked a better president to share a home town with. 3) Favorite historical politician (International)? Shit, I don't know. I'll say Margaret Thatcher just because of all the great British punk rock songs that came as a reaction to her right wing policies. 4) You're giving a Hollywood pitch (25 words or less) about your Blog -- GO: The West Wing meets Pink Flamingos 5) Other then where you live now, what city do you like? Washington, DC 6) Favorite modern politician? (In office now) The quickest path to my disdain and disrespect is to currently hold a national office. But Dennis Kucinich seems pretty cool. 7) Are you a Wilsonian Idealist or Nixonian Realist in foreign policy? I'm a Jasonian sick of it all-ist 8) Favorite obscure movie? Tromeo and Juliet 9) What is your favorite restaurant? Biasom Thai in San Francisco 10) Choose a music video on YouTube. Why that one? If you have to ask why this one, you'll never know. OK, time to pass this through the blogosphere like chlamydia through a college dorm. I tag the following bloggers to answer these same questions and then pass it on: Billy Jacks Techy Stuff Snoop Dad Bill O'Reilly

Spy Kid?

People keep telling me that Stella ought to be in commercials, so I had to go ahead and make one for her to be in. The object was to make a video demonstrating the use of regular household objects to use for spying. I'm not sure how ordinary a minidisk recorder and mic are in most households, but it's pretty standard gear for me. Click To Play Check out USA Network's Burn Notice starting on June 28th, if for no other reason than for the casting of Bruce Campbell!

When Tragedy Fatigue Sets In

I can't even bring myself to watch the news anymore. I am so incredibly sick of hearing about people killing each other. Yet I take great joy in watching fictional people beating and killing each other. So instead of tuning in to the real killing on the news this weekend, I caught up on the whole batch of final Sopranos episodes for the best fictional violence on TV today and possibly ever. While I couldn't bear to hear reporters telling me about the deteriorating situation in the Middle East, I watched in shock while Tony held Cristopher's nose and gave Coco a curb job and I laughed with glee as Phil Leotardo's head got rolled over by his own SUV. I'd never been a big fan of AJ (is there even such a thing as an AJ Soprano fan?), but I found myself identifying with him in those last episodes. AJ gets deeply depressed and the ridiculousness of the situation in the world exacerbated it for him. I know a thing or two about depression and about how incredibly maddening the state of the world is right now. The scene at Bobby's funeral where AJ berates the people at his table for chatting about the Oscars while there's a war going on reminded me of myself at my most outraged and least appropriate times (though I was never that obnoxious about it I hope!). AJ also had a great quote in his shrink's office about how all these people are killing each other because they believe their gods want them to control the same piece of sand. It's too bad the series is over and we'll never get to see AJ try to get politically active, get incredibly annoyed at the futility of that, and become a cynical blogger.

I'd Gladly Pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger Today

Does anybody under the age of 30 even remember Popeye? When I was very young they used to rerun the old cartoons that my grandparents used to watch in the movie theaters along with newsreels and all that other stuff they'd show before the actual movie back before there was TV. There was also a Robert Altman movie version with Robin Williams in the title role which I think has for the most part been completely forgotten about. Anyway, there was this character named Wimpy and he was always broke and would always ask anyone he would come into contact with for personal loans in order to secure himself a hamburger. I would think this was not a particularly uncommon thing during the Great Depression when these cartoons came out. And it's not all that uncommon now to sometimes need more money than you've got. I can go on and on about the reasons that people are struggling these days, mainly due to corporations cutting labor costs and putting Wall Street ahead of Main Street, but I digress. Finding the right loan can be tricky. Anyone who has seen the Sopranos knows that borrowing money from disreputable sources can be hazardous to your health, but some lending institutions are no more reputable than a loanshark. They're not going to break your legs, but they could zap you with all sorts of hidden costs and fees, making you pay a lot more than you might if you had done some research and gone with somebody better. So if you're considering borrowing some money, it would behoove you to compare the kinds of deals and terms you can get for Secured personal loans. It would be smarter than getting yourself in a situation where all of a sudden Tony Soprano starts bleeding your hardware store dry. And speaking of which, it's generally considered a very bad idea to borrow money to use for gambling. Don't do it! Seriously. Disclosure: This post is sponsored by the UK Personal Loan Store.

Googl'd

When it comes to building and maintaining websites, I tend to enjoy the creative aspects such as design and writing. The part that I have always found to be most challenging has been search optimization. There are different search engines which rise and fall in importance and each one has a different way of listing your site and if having a good spot in searches is important to you, you've either got to be an expert in search or be ready to consult with one. If you're going to attempt to take on this endeavor yourself, there are plenty of places to read up on the subject, and one of those is Apogee's Search Marketing Blog. Companies like Apogee are experts on all things search engine related so you can focus on the creative end of things. Their job is to get their clients where they need to be in the search engines using Ethical SEO (Search Engine Optimization) because if you abuse the system you run the risk of geek wrath and you really don't want that. Now if only I could talk my boss into hiring a company like this instead of just asking me to figure it out. DISCLOSURE: This post has been sponsored by Apogee Search Marketing.

The Day the Music Died

A long time ago I read a book called True Adventures of the Rolling Stones which was a great snapshot of their most tumultuous period, starting with the death of Brian Jones and ending with Altamont. I had a casual liking for their music before, but reading this book really piqued my interest and I became more of a fan as a result, primarily of their late 60's to early 70's albums, Sticky Fingers probably being my favorite. Until tonight, the Altamont concert for me was just one of many ugly incidents that I'd read about in the world of rock and roll. I'd known about the film Gimme Shelter for years, but it wasn't until tonight that I finally saw it and came face to face with the absolute horror of that day. This concert was supposed to be San Francisco's answer to Woodstock, but instead it was the last nail in the coffin that buried what was left of the peaceful psychedelic 60's after the riots of '68 and ushered in the fear and loathing of the 70's. There were lots of problems with the planning of this concert, but there's a universal consensus that the one tremendously bad decision was to hire the Hell's Angels as security and to pay them in beer. Those poor hippies had no idea what they were in for. This film did an amazing job capturing the event. It opens with the members of the Rolling Stones uncomfortably watching the footage and listening to radio coverage of the aftermath. Before they get to the actual concert, there's some filler from a show at Madison Square Garden, including their opening act, Ike and Tina Turner (wow! I'd never seen footage of them before.), and then some footage of them at Mussel Shoals studio listening to an early mix of Wild Horses. Then it starts getting into Bill Graham and Melvin Belli trying to secure a new venue for the show after losing their permit for Golden Gate Park and the chaos of their last minute scramble. As they start a helicopter shot of the road going into the concert, everything seems OK, even though you know how it's going to end. There are the typical shots of hippies having fun, much like in the Woodstock film, but then the Harleys start rolling in and we see that besides the peace and love and happiness that there are people who are having really bad trips and very early in the day, before the first incident with the Angels, the vibe is starting to turn ugly and the promoters are more concerned with the logistics of getting the music going that they pretty much turn a blind eye to all of this. Even after the Angels punch out Jefferson Airplane's singer, the show goes on. When Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh arrive and hear about it, their reaction is "bummer, man." As the concert progresses, there are lots of incidents of the crowd being beaten with pool cues by the Angels, and of course the culmination of a man being stabbed to death at the end of Under My Thumb. Besides the irrelevant filler, this film was brilliantly made. There was no need for narration. This was part of the cinema verite school and the beautifully shot footage really spoke for itself. The dread just builds and builds through the Stone's set. Each time the chaos in front of the stage gets worse and Mick has to urge the crowd to mellow out and be cool, you know it's just a matter of time before all hell breaks loose. As they start singing Under My Thumb, the camera shoots a profile of Mick with an Angel standing next to him who is a portrait of drunken rage, making facial contortions and looking like something out of a werewolf movie, the perfect shot to precede what is about to happen. And then the song ends and a deadly fight takes place right in front of stage left. Amazingly, the Stones played one more song, Street Fighting Man, before getting themselves the hell out of there. This is not an easy film to watch, which means the filmmakers did their job. If you even only have the slightest passing interest in the Stones or the late 60's music scene, you really owe it to yourself to experience this film.

I Signed up for Pay Per Post

I've been signed up for PayPerPost for about a week now and assuming that my posts actually start getting accepted, I will have made over $100 which I plan on spending on bills and other fun and exciting household expenses. What I love most about PayPerPost is the concept of being able to put paid ads on blogs. So far I've learned that you really need to stay on message with these paid posts regardless of your personal writing style. My style tends to be anecdotal, with heavy doses of sarcasm, politics and pop cultural references. I get to the point eventually while trying to be entertaining. The last thing in the world I want to do is sound like a freakin' infomercial. If that's something my advertisers can accept if not learn to love, then this will be a long and prosperous relationship. I have not made any new friends doing this as of yet, but I always welcome new readers.

The Police!

Last night I saw the Police and they were amazing! When I heard they were reuniting for a tour, I figured that tickets would be both very difficult to get and incredibly expensive. The show at the McAffee Colosseum in Oakland did sell out quickly, and we just forgot about it but then somebody on one of Anne's mommy groups put out 4 tickets for face value and she snapped them up for a fathers day present for me! The seats were very high up, but close to the stage and we were able to see pretty well, though at that height, the sound was a little bit muddy with some serious echo from the back of the stadium. They opened with Message in a Bottle and Synchronicity 2 which were both really strong. There were some really awkward songs where they just couldn't quite get into the pocket, like Truth Hits Everybody, and at least during the first half of the show it seemed like they were doing much better with mellower tunes than the ones that really rocked, but they really got consistently tight after a while. Because of the muddy sound, sometimes it was hard to even tell what song it was until Sting started singing, and on some of them they even changed around the intros like on When the World is Running Down, though there were a few that I could recognize from the first drum beat. They played all the hits. Some of the highlights for me in particular were Walking on the Moon, So Lonely, Wrapped Around Your Finger, Driven to Tears and Can't Stand Losing You into Regatta De Blanc back into Can't Stand Losing You. They even somehow managed to make the massively overplayed Every Breath You Take sound fresh in an encore, and surprised me by ending the whole show by rocking out on Next to You. All in all, it was an incredible experience. I've been a fan for years and never thought I'd ever get to see them live. They really looked like they were enjoying themselves and all three of them played incredibly. It was great to see Sting rocking out again after being an adult contemporary artist for the last 20 years, and it's amazing to see him play such intricate bass lines and sing at the same time. I'm really glad to have been able to take part in this historic show, and I hope that they don't make this another 10 year long "farewell" tour like some of these bands do. I highly recommend this tour to any fan of this great band. It's definitely better than your average reunion tour which often reek of washed up desperation to grab the money one last time. Edited to add: The look of the concert was also really nice. They had large LCD displays that for the most part were flashing splashes of the color tones used on their album colors as well as some images. The cheapest bit of merchandise that could be perchased were these pins with blue and red LEDs. I thought they were kind of cheesy, but then I noticed that looking at the walls of the stadium in the dark, all the people wearing these pins gave an appearance of video static. Also, one major negative were the bimbos sitting right behind us who were gabbing about their stupid lives through the whole show. Take that shit to MySpace you dumb twits! They obviously couldn't have cared less about the Police, but it sure would have been nice if they could have shut their mouths out of respect for the rest of us. That shit wouldn't fly for a second at an opera or a symphony, I don't see why it's tolerated at a rock concert (though there are other things that wouldn't fly at a more serious musical performance which I welcome at a rock concert and if that makes me a hypocrite, so be it). So to the ladies (and I use that term loosely) seated in Section 131, Row 5, Seats 22-24, if you're reading this you should know that you annoyed the living hell out of everybody sitting anywhere near you and that you should seriously reconsider going to concerts in the future if you can't shut your vapid pie holes for 2 lousy hours. Here's a picture that my friend John took. Click it to see more. Here's a setlist and press reviews.

Does John McCain Have a Shred of Integrity Left?

I miss the John McCain from 7 years ago. He seemed like a respectable man of integrity, willing to speak his mind even if it might have been off message from the republican party line. He still was a very hardcore conservative, but not in the pocket of the religious right lunatics or the neoconservative chickenhawk think tanks. His campaign for president against Bush started out pretty good. He was a well spoken guy with lots of experience and intelligence running against a clown with a lousy track record. He tried to take the high road against a campaign that knew no limits to how dirty they were willing to fight him. There was the racist push-polling in South Carolina, insinuating that he had an out of wedlock black child. And one thing that offended many people was an article being recirculated referring to McCain as "the Manchurian Candidate," written by notorious "Swift Boat" scumbag Ted Sampley who has made a career out of smearing veterans who don't toe a certain ideological line. But while "Manchurian Candidate" is quite the overstatement, McCain is definitely exhibiting symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome these days. No, he has not come to love his old Viet Cong captors, but rather those who so savagely attacked his character just a few years ago. It's been uncomfortable watching him defend Bush's incredible blunders year after year. But the fact that he has hired the same media team that ran such a dirty campaign against him is just plain disturbing. How can he see those people every day after what they did to him? How can he sit in a meeting with them as they figure out ways to smear his competition without thinking of how they did that to him and resist the urge to just go postal on these political vermin? And what's next? Is he going to hire Bill O'Reilly as his spokesman after Bill told the former POW that he didn't understand torture? This is the perfect illustration of the power as a drug analogy because McCain is acting like a junky giving alleyway blowjobs for his next fix. Please don't forget my contest to win a Washington Interns Gone Bad DVD!

Random Stuff

After the big weekend o' political blogging, I'm all burnt out and can barely think of anything particular to post about. I TiVoed the Sopranos finale but haven't had a chance to see it yet, but there was no hiding from the spoilers between Howard and the blogs I read. I was thrilled to hear that Phil Leotardo finally gets wacked, and it sounds like it was pretty gruesome. I really hoped they could have brought in Joe Pesci and Ray Liota as special guests to do that as a nice tribute to Goodfellas. I can't wait to finally see it, but it probably won't be until the weekend because we have company tonight and tomorrow night we're going to see The Police!!! I'm really psyched for that show. When I heard they would be touring, I pretty much just assumed that tickets would be impossible to get and ridiculously expensive, but Anne snapped some up at face value which wasn't nearly as unreasonable as I expected, and her folks came up to babysit Stella, so we are having our first concert in years! I'm also trying to get set into Pay Per Post. It sure would be nice to get some money for blogging. I know a lot of you folks on Blog Explosion use it, so I'd love to hear some input about the good, the bad and the ugly of using them. So, that's it for now. I plan on posting a detailed review of that Police show on Thursday.

Israel, Palestine, and the Rules of the Playground

This is the last post about the Israel/Palestine issue I plan on making for a very long time. I find this issue to be incredibly draining, and I just want to get back to snarky and sarcastic humor about politics and other stuff that I enjoy blogging about. I think that people on both sides of this issue are more interested in being self righteous and bashing the other side than trying to get to the real root of the problem and try to reach out to the other side and stop all the bloodshed. In my conversations with JSF over at Valley of the Shadow, I have come to a much better understanding of the pro-Israel point of view. While I do not condone the brutality of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories and I vehemently disagree with the tactics that are employed in the war of ideas that goes along with it, I at least try to understand why one would condone this in order to figure out how to get past all of that and try to make some peace, and I also understand some of his frustrations with the Palestinian side. What JSF and many on his side seem to think is that the supporters of the Palestinians give uncritical support and condone the destruction of Israel and the targeting of innocent people in suicide bombing attacks. I personally think that Israel's right to exist and the incredible and staggering wrongness of suicide bombing attacks that target innocent people are both so obvious that they go without saying, but people like JSF need to hear these things from the Palestinian supporters lest they assume that we condone such attitudes and tactics. So in order for JSF and other interested parties to try to understand where the Palestinian supporters are coming from, I have come up with the following analogy. I don't expect you to agree with it, but it might help you to understand the thought process better rather than just simplistically chalking it up to antisemitism which is most certainly not the case in the vast majority of people who support the Palestinian cause. Think about that kid who has been bullied all of his life. That kid starts working out and getting really good at defending himself. But at some point his fighting goes beyond defense and he turns into a bully himself. He treats all the other kids on the playground as potential threats to him, delivering preemptive beatings and not allowing free movement about the playground, and breaking bones in retaliation to open hand slaps. While he was being bullied, many people felt badly for him and supported his self defense. But when they try to point out to him that he is an abused kid who has turned into an abuser himself, but he sticks his fingers in his ears and sings lalalalala and then regards these supporters turned critics as just more potential bullies and he tries to shut them up any way he can. And while most of the community thinks that there's a problem, the school principal has this kid's back. When the other kids on the playground start kicking has ass back, just how badly do you expect the people who had supported this kid until they could no longer do so in good conscience to feel? While these former supporters may not like that the other kids are fighting dirty, they still have a very hard time sympathizing with a bully. I don't want an argument about the validity of the analogy because it isn't about that. It's about understanding the thinking of the other side in order to get past the rhetoric and try to come together to make peace. And now I am officially done with this subject. I'm not even going to respond to comments on this post, or comment on this subject on other blogs. And as a reward to those who made it through this whole thing, here's some much needed comic relief from Gilbert "Dice" Gottfried: