deer-headlights

deer-headlights, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

In the discotheque. No, really.

Fiction as News

Remember how dramatic Aaron Broussard was? Compelling story
except for being untrue.

Monday

Man, is it ever Monday. I had a full day's work before the phone
started ringing. And darned people don't realize that some days
I just don't want to hear from them, well, if they're in the exact opposite
direction from where I'm going. I'd rather they hold off doing
stupid things with their machinery until I'm back in their area.

Ah, foo, ok I better git. Work will be a nice break from what I did
this weekend. (I sorted through basement memories in the folks old
house, my old house, the house I partly grew up in) Lots of things
brought back memories, but lots of things had to be thrown away. And
what if I toss out a brother's boy scout badge, or a sister's favorite
baton? So it was melancholy mixed with winnowing, categorizing with
recollections on top. My mind still hums from the shifting of mental
gears. I envy those with only one gear; obsessed people expend almost
no energy above the neck. Which is why Michael Moore must sleep
like a (big) (slobbery) baby.

Update: Ha, day went well. They always do when you start
them with a little jab at Michael Moore.

Taibbi

Wondering who this guy is who's been vouching for Sean Penn's heroics, I've googled
Taibbi and read some of his stuff. And yes, he *is* anti-Bush, but one thing he wrote
in a Rolling Stone article surprised me:

There are times when American politics seems like little more than two groups in a fever to prevent each other from trespassing upon their respective soothing versions of unreality. At one point at Camp Casey, an informal poll taken around a campfire revealed that six out of a group of ten protesters, selected at random, believed that the United States government was directly involved in planning the 9/11 bombings. Flabbergasted, I tried to press the issue.

"Do you know how many people would have to be involved in that conspiracy?" I said. "I mean, start with the pilots . . ."

"The planes were flown by remote control," a girl sitting across from me snapped.

Six out of ten? I'm investing in Reynolds Aluminum.

Batter Up!

Dana Milbank via Drudge points out the baseball metaphors in the Roberts hearings:

``I'll start out by pitching you something of a softball,''

``You hit a home run yesterday,''

``it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.

etc.
So where's my favorite: "no matter how nicely things started out, who didn't
know the Orioles would suck by September," ?

Katrina

432905CC000AF2920000475522007510909C050C019D0198010D, originally uploaded by lumberjack.

I got this in an e-mail and was struck by the beauty, well, and power.
This is supposed to be a Florida view of Katrina. I got no info with the pic, so
I'll just credit some-guy-with-a-camera. Good job guy-with-a-camera.

Rain

I quit early due to rumors of rain and generally bad traffic. I always tell myself
that I'll do office work when I quit early like this, but usually with no more
conviction than Ted Kennedy has with his abstinence pledges. Today I might get
some stuff done though; depends on how interesting the netnews is.

I'll tell you what, the Drudge headline: "Onlookers horrified as Michael Jackson is
spotted at a Dubai water park - wearing a skin tight all-in-one Lycra suit..."
is one I can wait for further details on. Truth is, I'm not clicking on the link only
because there might be a picture. Some things you just can't unsee.

Attn: P&G

From the Guardian:

A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.
Agents for the firm have told would-be customers it is developing collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments from skin taken from prisoners after they have been shot. The agents say some of the company's products have been exported to the UK, and that the use of skin from condemned convicts is "traditional" and nothing to "make such a big fuss about".

And buried in the article, in case you thought it couldn't get any more icky,
is the news that the same company is researching the use of aborted babies in their
beauty products.

Competition

Sean Penn gets tough with members of Oprah's crew who
were trying to rescue "his" victim.
"Back off! I saw him first."

Sean prevailed, explaining, "There's nothing in
the world as ominous as the sound of a 12 gauge
jacking in a fresh cartridge."

Sean the selfless

So Yahoo says Sean did pull people from the water:

"I witnessed him rescuing up to 40 people," presidential historian and author Douglas Brinkley told the New York Daily News. "He was up to his waist in toxic muck...I'm not going to comment on Sean's trips to Iraq or Iran, but in this case, he was an American hero."

On CNN's Larry King Live, Penn, 45, said he was just another person watching Hurricane Katrina coverage on TV, except owing to the fruits of his Oscar-winning fame, "I could afford to get on an airplane and get down there."

"It became easy to get out, for me to get a boat, and get out on the water with some other people, and try to get people out of the water," Penn said.

Alright, did he? Maybe, but it's hard to think that his motives were selfless. Why have
three people crew a bass boat is pretty much overloaded with five? I really would have been impressed if the
story had gotten out that he toiled anonymously.
and update: turns out the two "friends" were both [biased] journalists.. I knew I recognized Taibbi's name from
somewhere. I revert back to my screw-you-sean stance on the whole matter.