What do I look like, me lad? See the hat? The buckles on me shoes? Why, I'm a Leprechaun!

For St. Paddy's Day I suggest we hunt us some 'chaun.

Although that trap seems a little non-violent. I prefer to use this to catch the little green bastards-

Vietnamese Spike Pit

May I be frank?

All in all I'd say this is a pretty good list of movies that make guys cry. Speaking for myself, and as someone who you all already recognize as muy macho, here are some of the flicks that choke me up personally-

Saving Private Ryan - Sure the "earn this" part is emotional but when I saw it in the theater I was sniffling in the first five minutes. The old Ryan heading up to the monument at Normandy where his much younger family is smiling like they're heading to Disneyland and you can see the fear and reluctance and memories begin to weigh on him just gets me.

Stranger than Fiction - I just saw this film but the part where Will Ferrell finally picks up the guitar and starts singing and the near picture perfect ending were hard not to cry through.

Amelie - A movie like Stranger than Fiction where life is reaffirmed at the ending. Seeing Amelie finally find somebody and watching her ride through the streets of Paris on the back of his motorcycle are the parts that move me.

Field of Dreams - I don't even like baseball. It's the idea of tossing a ball around with dad that gets me. I think that all of us as adults would rather be doing that.

The Gold Rush - I can't watch Chaplin dreaming of entertaining his love and her friends and doing the Dance of the Dinner Muffins without crying.

The Shawshank Redemption - Another perfect ending where hope wins out and so do the hankies.

Sheriff... do the letters F.O mean anything to you?

Well this is Jim Dandy.

Ga. Senate Panel OKs Confederate Month

ATLANTA (AP) - A panel of Georgia lawmakers signed off Thursday on a plan to create a Confederate heritage month, even as legislative leaders reacted coolly to a push to apologize for the state's role in slavery.

Sen. Jeff Mullis' bill would dub April as Confederate History and Heritage Month to honor the memory of the Confederacy and ``all those millions of its citizens of various races and ethnic groups and religions who contributed in sundry and myriad ways to the cause of Southern Independence.''

You're pirates. Hang the code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway.

I just read the phrase "the constitution is not a suicide pact" for about the umteenth zillioneth time in the context of a political debate. The implication is always that the shady and extraconsitutional measures taken by the administration over the last several years were necessary in order to ensure the physical safety of the populace against our enemies. In a nutshell: it's okay to ignore the constitution if it keeps us safe.

But what if it's the actions of a bumbling executive that have made us less safe? What if it's his incompetence that's emboldened our enemies and left us more at risk of attack? Would it be proper in this instance to employ extraconstitutional means to remove such a president?

Of course not. The constitution isn't some sort of quaint document suggesting the means of formation and rules by which we govern ourselves. It is a statement of values and mission. It says who we are as Americans and as Americans we believe that this is a nation of laws. Laws that apply to everyone.

So you see, the whole thing has been as inevitable as in a nursery rhyme.

It looks like the YouTube party may be over.

Viacom's billion dollar suit will lead to self-censorship at the very least.

Personally I don't see how the quality available via YouTube would cut into any of the business of Viacom. The sound is tinny and the video pretty low quality. If I was Viacom I'd build my own free video model and include advertising instead of suing. But what do I know? I'm just a consumer that finds YouTube pretty damn cool.

Oh well.

Are you mad, as well as stupid?

Unfortunately this 29% seems to have representation in about 50% of congress.

I listened to Washington congressman Brian Baird interviewed yesterday and was astounded at how utterly out of touch he was both in his assesment of the situation in Iraq and politics here it at home. He kept referring to discussions with the troops and how most of them want to "win." He dodged a direct question on the nature of the mission and the appropriateness of using soldiers to carry out vague, non-military mandates. He bobbed, weaved and floated like a butterfly and stung like a, well, butterfly.

Democrats in congress should be ashamed of themselves. They've gotten so used to acting reflexively against their base that they've taken up a position that puts them squarely on the wrong side of the majority of the country. They can try and hide behind mealy-mouthed nonsense about how this is the "first time congress has set a timetable for withdrawal" all they want. Nobody is buying it, least of all the people that helped put them in office in the first place.

I would say that he has a rather limited and uncreative way of looking at the situation.

Is stupid a "pre-existing condition?"

From the letters to the editor in today's Oregonian:

Don't Cover Birth Control

Susan Nielsen, in her column of March 4, complains about the fact that she has paid for other people's medicine all her life, but nobody paid for her birth control pills. She supports House Bill 2700 which would require insurance companies that cover prescription drugs to cover birth control.

Birth control and most other medications are part of the cost of living, not a one-time huge expense that should be insured against. Insuring against the cost of living just raises the cost of living, as the insurance companies have to have their cut: they are not about to lose money.

The problem is not that Nielsen's birth control hasn't been paid for by insurance all these years, but that she has forced to pay for other people's medicine.

Once an expense is expected, it is uninsurable. That is what pre-existing conditions are all about in health insurance. Fertility is a pre-existing condition.

Rycke Brown, Grants Pass

There's almost too much stupid here to tackle at once. I feel a bit like a hungry gator that's come upon a wounded hippo.

I guess I could point out to Mr. Brown that impotence is expected once men reach a certain age yet insurance companies insure the cost of medicine to treat that condition just the same.

Or I could point out that there's all sorts of medical reasons women take birth control pills that have nothing to do with preventing pregnancy.

While we're on the subject of pregnancy it doesn't appear that Mr. Brown has done the cost-benefit math on insurance costs. Hint: is it more expensive to the insurer to provide birth control pills or pre and post natal care? Not to mention the cost of the delivery itself? Remember that insurance companies aren't about to lose their cut.

As Atrios is fond of saying- The stupid! It burns!

(above image/ quote chosen especially for Hypatia)

The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past.

If you have a minute for a little real world action then please call Peter Defazio's office and put your chit in for him to run against Gordo next year. He might not be as strong a candidate as Kitzhaber but he's got a real chance of making Oregon blue.

Defazio's Oregon office: 1-800-944-9603

George just want to look a little special today.

The new look of the site is an attempt at a minimalist ascetic. Let me know what you think. My posts are also showing up in the Blue Oregon live feed now and traffic's been picking up slightly.

Not that I care about such things, mind you. I'm above all that.

You give him credit for too much cleverness.

Perhaps I'm just a tad bit more skeptical than Newsweek but I'm having a hard time swallowing the latest in a long line of administration spinjobs that they're doing things differently now.

But that was then, before Iraq turned into a quagmire, the Democrats won control of Congress, Rumsfeld was eased out and Bush began worrying more about his legacy. When The Washington Post exposed wretched conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the Bush team responded as if Texas had been invaded. The behind-the-scenes scramble to rectify the mess at the facility and to take better care of veterans is revealing of a new way of doing things in the Bush administration.

Wake me up when the administration finally starts PREVENTING or SOLVING problems before they erupt in the media and become a political liability. Short of that it's the same old, same old.