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TV Land just announced that it will start a new show called “I Pity the Fool”, where Mr. T will go around the country giving advice.
“My show ain’t no `Dr. Phil,’ with people sitting around crying,” he said. “You’re a fool - that’s what’s wrong with you. You’re a fool if you don’t take my advice.”
TV Land network plans Mr. T series
Watch this TV Funhouse video. It was aired once, and never again–presumably because it’s too true for the big owners of NBC.
Compfused.com - Conspiracy Theory Rock
Two roboticists built one of the most advanced artificial intelligence robots ever made, and put Phillip K. Dick’s face on it, in tribute to the late Sci Fi author. Problem is… on his way to show it off at Google, one of them left in the overhead compartment of his flight. The airline found it and shipped it to him, at which point it… disappeared.
That makes them (say it with me) Dick-Head Losers.
Daily Helmsman - Robot head lost in shuffle of travel
My buddy Derick (who keeps a personal blog linked from my left bar) has just started a new blog dedicated to beverages of all types and descriptions. I can’t think of anyone more into beverages than Derick.
He’s still in the shake-down period–the theme is different every time I go there–but the beverages are great! Go check him out!
This new entry on Snopes.com describes a vicious rumor started against the Pakistani owner of a convenience store in Knoxville. Evidently a flyer and an email are circulating accusing the owner of refusing to serve a serviceman, and for cheering and celebrating on 9/11. None of which has been proven, and all of which is vehemently denied by the shop owner.
As a result, this man and his family—all naturalized or naturally born US citizens—fear for their safety and livelihoods.
This is what it comes to, friends, when patriotism turns to jingoism. It brings out the worst in us, and those most vulnerable get victimized. I’ve long suspected that the US is the Junior High School of the planet.
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Politics (Shell Game)
I confess, the horny geekboy in me is very excited about the upcoming Aeon Flux movie. I loved the Liquid Television shorts.
Here’s a cute little webcomic that gives the history of the Aeon Flux franchise, complete with spot-on editorialization.
CulturePulp 041: The Not-So-Secret History of ‘Aeon Flux’
It’s such a perfect moment, isn’t it? Annoyed by a reporter’s question (”You seemed a little off your game this morning. You seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?”), Bush called an abrupt end to the press conference and scurried for the door.
Unfortunately, the door was locked, preventing a clean exit. “I was trying to escape,” said the Leader of the Free World, “Obviously it didn’t work.”
Locked doors thwart Bush’s escape bid
Update: Just a little follow-up thought. Bush needs a “Bush is Stupid” meme right now like a (well, another, har har) hole in the head. Anybody else see shades of Dukakis in the Tank here? Anybody else hear echos of Howard Dean’s Scream?
It’s official: television executives have no idea what’s good.
As of yesterday, Arrested Development is no more. It was the best thing that’s been on TV in a long, long time. And as with most good things on TV, it was yanked without really giving it a chance to find anything other than a cult following.
Which goes to show you: you’ll never go broke underestimating the taste of television executives. A perfect example is the sitcom Friends, which dragged along for 46 seasons, 38 of them post-shark-jump.
Fox puts abrupt stop to ‘Arrested Development’
[White House Budget Director Joshua] Bolten said he expects the government can meet the president’s stated deficit-reduction target — even without tax increases. “The disaster response is a relatively short-term hit to the budget,” he said. “If we’re sensible in our spending, both on the disaster response and on belt-tightening elsewhere, and we keep strong economic growth policies in place, I believe we can still meet the president’s target of reducing the deficit in half by 2009 and remain on track with a steadily declining deficit path, either reaching or heading very close to balance,” he said.
That’s great. By 2009, we’ll only have half of Bush’s legacy of financial mismanagement around to deal with. Hey, and let’s talk about economic growth policies to the bottom 2 quintiles whose gross taxes have actually INCREASED under Bush. (via Ecolanguage.Net.)
This must be the same financial mismanagement that ended Dubya’s careers in oil and baseball.
WSJ.com - Bush Budget Aide Weighs Cut in Benefit Outlays
This can’t possibly be a bad idea. On the plus side, I can see there’d be a lot of girls out there who would love a boyfriend who would do anything for them…
Presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr., who is petitioning the court for more freedom, is lonely and longing for a close relationship like the one he had for many years with a former psychiatric patient, a psychologist testified yesterday.
“He wants to have a girlfriend. He wants intimate contact with a female,” Paul Montalbano, chief of pretrial services at St. Elizabeths, the Southeast Washington mental hospital, testified yesterday.
Hinckley Wants Girlfriend, Psychologist Says in Court
NOW you’re talking! An open letter to George Bush urging him to sell his Crawford stomping grounds and donate the proceeds to disaster relief.
That’s right, sell your ranch in Texas, and donate the money to the victims of this horrible tragedy. I realize you love your ranch; you’ve spent almost a year of your presidency there, doing important things like clearing brush, eating pretzels, and taking naps. But that’s exactly why you need to sell it. So many people have lost their homes; the least you can do is give up ownership of one of your many residences for their benefit to show that you have some trace of compassion. Think of it as a symbolic gesture that you’re finally ready to stop running away from the responsibilities of the Oval office, and you’re ready to meet head-on the full duties of the highest office in the land.
President Bush: Sell the Ranch
It’s almost cute when he tries to portray some compassion.
UPDATE: Marcy comments: “It’s even cuter when he outsources it to his dad!”
deseretnews.com | The cavalry arrives
For the last few weeks I’ve been totally buried with trackback spam, mostly for casinos and weight loss pills. I just installed a WordPress plugin that claims to help that by blocking trackback spam bots based on the charactaristic way they seem to hit sites. I don’t have a lot of faith it’ll be 100% effective, but from the work it does, I’m reasonably sure it won’t have any side-effects on the site. If you see anything strange, though (apart from moblog posts missing their images, which I haven’t had a chance to do anything about yet), please post here.
UPDATE: Didn’t work worth a damn. I’m turning off trackbacks until I see some solution to this. Comments are still live, with the CAPTCHA humans-only mod, which requires you to read text from an intertwingled image correctly.
CNN is coming out swinging on the vast disconnect between what FEMA and the administration are saying about NOLA and what’s actually being reported from the trenches.
CNN.com - The�big disconnect on New Orleans - Sep 2, 2005
This is about the funniest, deadliest, most brilliant thing I’ve seen on the web. It’s like The Onion, but liberal!
Here’s a large, 1-meter resolution satellite photo of New Orleans taken yesterday. Makes the detestation pretty clear. It does look like the vieux carre dodged the bullet, but most everything else in the town is covered with water.
Considering that a three-inch flood is enough to make a house uninhabitable, it’s hard to see there being much of anything salvageable when the floodwaters recede.
new_orleans_msi_aug31_2005_dg.jpg (JPEG Image, 4062×4544 pixels)
Overnight, Hurricane Katrina pretty much nailed New Orleans. Nobody’s on the street reporting about it, it seems. From what I can find, all the worst-case predictions about NO’s ability to withstand a direct hit from a Cat 5 storm appear to be coming true. Experts estimated that 60% to 80% of the city would be wiped out by wind alone, even before the storm surge hit. They expected the French Quarter to be 20 feet underwater.
It sounds from the reports like most everyone evacuated okay. I’m sure it was pandemonium, but at least the stories aren’t about how many people didn’t make it out of the city. There are lots of people holed up in the Superdome (which evidently lost roof sections early this morning). MSNBC reports that the storm may leave up to a million people homeless.
We’ve got a lot, in this big ol’ world-leading country of ours. But all our technology and political power and military might just doesn’t mean much when something like this happens. Whoever we think we are, we’re just a flyspeck.
It’s not smart to push nature around, “improve” things with levees and elaborate drainage systems. One thing you can be sure about–Nature will push back eventually, and it’s way, way, WAY bigger than us.
Brilliant article over at Game Revolution about all this alledged epidemic of teen violence caused by violent video games. Turns out video games can’t possibly be the cause of this so-called epidemic because… there is no epidemic.
This article is required reading for all gamers.
The Truth About Violent Youth and Video Games - Game Revolution
Posted from the Treo 650 at baggage claim in SLC. Next stop after dance camp is a visit to the ‘rents. Geek celeb sighting of the day: Morgan Webb got off the plane ahead of ours this morning.
