The Good, The Bad, and The Mookie: August 2005

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

The Wilburys Live On!

Worth the time it takes to download is this animated video of The Travelling Wilbury's song "Cool Dry Place," featuring lead vocals by Charlie T. Wilbury (A.K.A. Tom Petty). What's really cool is that the video was made by a 13 year old kid named Mitch. Check it out and give the kid some props!
http://www.deviantart.com/view/21898582/

Better stock up on Drano

Back when Al Gore created the internet, I'm not sure he had this in mind:

http://catsinsinks.com/

Why not?

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The Big Easy?

You have to view Newsday's slideshow of pictures from the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. I've visited New Orleans twice in the past year, and even stayed at The Hyatt which now looks like a bomb blew it out. Unreal.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-hurricane-katrina-pix,0,3092265.photogallery?index=2

Monday, August 29, 2005

My Review: March Of The Penguins

Even the most heartless bastard would enjoy this documentary about penguins! The film, narrated by Morgan Freeman, shows the arduous journey the Emperor Penguin endures every year for one sole purpose: mating. Gotta love it. The filming of this feature must have been is an incredible undertaking, as we watch the penguins huddle through the harshest of winter storms, deep in Antarctica. It's worth the price of admission just for the images of a part of the earth most of us never will get to see. Oh, and a bit of advice for the aforementioned heartless bastards: check this film out on a weekday afternoon, when there's apt to be fewer annoying children talking and running around in the theater. Grade: A

UPDATE (8/30): Jason Kottke tells the interesting story of how the original French edit of the film was reworked to be more appeaing the US audience: http://www.kottke.org/05/08/march-penguins-remake

Saturday, August 27, 2005

What the fuss is all about...

I recently was forwarded an essay titled "What's All the Fuss?" by Doug Patton, where the author chastises the media for investigating mishandlings of the Koran at Guantanomo Bay. Basically his position is that our soldiers can do no wrong since they are fighting a dangerous enemy. He also has made a distorted correlation between 9/11 and the war in Iraq...

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/dpatton/2005/dp_0606p.shtml

What I found most interesting about what he doesn't care about, is respecting the Koran while it's illegal to own a bible in Saudi Arabia. It's true that it's illegal for Christians to prostelitize and distribute Bibles in Saudi Arabia. The CIA Factbook says of the country, "The Government prohibits public non-Muslim religious activities. Non-Muslim worshippers risk arrest, imprisonment, lashing, deportation, and sometimes torture for engaging in overt religious activity that attracts official attention." http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2002/14012.htm

It's evident that Christians, and Jews are not welcome in Saudi Arabia and in fact Saudi Arabia is a hotbed for religious extremism. I wonder if Doug Patton cared when George Bush was seen walking hand in hand through a rose garden with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah when 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia?
ANYWAY... What the fuss is all about is that Saudi Arabian hijackers inspired/directed by Osama Bin Laden flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and instead of severing political ties with Saudi Arabia or even engaging in military tactics against that country we instead invade an impotent Iraq and, as Doug Patton says, wait for Osama to "turn himself in."

Yes, we are at war. But are we at war with the right people?

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Hypocrite Of The Month - Pat Robertson

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said that the U.S. should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Since the statements caused an uproar, he has tried to say his statements were taken out of context, however the meaning of his statements are pretty straightforward:

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it"

"We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability," Robertson said. "We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/23/robertson.chavez.1534/index.html

Now, some of Pat Robertson's (hopefully dwindling) supporters may say that they agree with his suggestions, but agreeing with his statements is irrelevant. What is relevant is that here is a man who claims to be a man of God, suggesting murder as a viable option. I'm pretty sure there is something in the Bible about killing. Hmmm...

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Pulp Fiction 2 - President Koons

Christopher Walken is running for President in 2008.

I haven't been this excited since Andy Kaufman announced he wasn't dead.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

What Is Rollyo?

Dave Pell of davenetics has created a new site called rollyo with the tagline "Roll Your Own." He is asking people to help beta test the new site, but he isn't saying what the site is. He asks us to sign up to help out based only on the logo (which is a cool one, as logos go) and faith in the power of Dave. I signed up because I dig his blogs and figure it might be cool to get in on whatever this is in the early stages and be part of helping it grow, whatever it is.

http://rollyo.com/
http://davenetics.com/2005/08/roll-your-own/