Let the joyous news be spread. The wicked witch at last is dead!

The above quote expresses my best sentiment at the death of the odious Jerry Falwell today.

Vital signs are weak, Cover Girl. But Duke's no ordinary man.

I was debating a more conservative buddy at work and his view of how America projects itself to the world and it struck me that much of his own sense of politics, at least his continued loyalty to George W. Bush, stems from his belief that Bush's redeeming and defining quality is the concept that he's muy macho.

When my friend looks at George W. Bush Commander Guy he sees this-

The picture of resolution and strength.

But what most of America and much of the rest of the world see when they look at Bush is something more like this-

Therein lies the breakdown of communication between my friend an I. He has a twisted view of machismo.

When your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses.

Thank God President Bush is now turning that massive brainpower he's used to fight the War on Terror towards fighting air pollution.

I've said it before and I'll say it again; we'd all be better off if Bush spent the rest of his term golfing. Every day.

He is simply incapable of making the right decision about anything and doesn't even have the blind luck to win a toin coss.

Some of these buildings are over 20 years old.

If you like film You'll probably enjoy this tour of locations used in movies in Los Angeles-

We know now we can't beat their machines.

As a minion of the Cartoon Overlord our own Overdroid was designated his spokesman on an interview on the G4 network.

Soon we will all serve the Overlord.

Bullwinkle, do you know what an A-Bomb is?

Islamist Squirrel attacks grade school.

A squirrel went on the attack in a San Jose elementary school Wednesday, bloodying an 11-year-old girl and a parent in a slashing, biting assault and injuring a second grown-up before making its escape.

All three victims from Evergreen Elementary School were treated for bites and scratches at a local hospital, school district spokesman Will Ector said, and all were undergoing rabies treatment as a precaution. They also were administered antibiotics, he said.

...

The squirrel dashed off after attacking the girl, and the school went into a lockdown as a safety precaution, Ector said. Traps have been set.

As a precaution President Bush immediately rushed to a secure location in Nebraska.

Peter Parker! And the girlfriend!

With regards to Spiderman 3 which we've been discussing over at Swinebread's place I just want to make one more short observation outside of the slice n'dice we're doing on the movie.

Peter Parker is the everyman. The right girl for Peter Parker isn't the beautiful actress Mary Jane or the gorgeous model Gwen Stacy. The right girl for Peter Parker the girl that lives across the hall and makes him cookies.

That is all.

We're off to Rome to see the Pope.

There's been a bunch of debate bouncing around the intertubes and the more traditional media about the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion focused on the make religious make-up of the majority in that opinion and what it means towards future cases before the court. Predictably; those that pooh-pooh each an every other claim of discrimination in our society are the first to trot out the discrimination defense when they feel the least bit wronged. In this case they're screaming that those who point out that the five majority members in that decision are catholic are somehow displaying an anti-catholic bigotry.

The well that those that defend the majority justices seem to always dip from is that of John Kennedy and his run for the presidency. Kennedy faced a lot of public criticism, mostly from protestant Evangelicals in a not so ironic twist, that a catholic president would be beholding to Rome if he were elected. In a 1959 Look magazine interview he responded to this criticism directly -

"Whatever one's religion in private life may be, for the office-holder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts – including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state."

President Kennedy was flatly stating that his duty to the constitution would come before his duty to his religious beliefs. The criticism directed at the five catholic members of the court after the Carhart decision is that they were inverting that equation.

Finally- putting all that aside and focusing on diversity. Many of us do want the court to be more diverse but not under the simplistic equation religious conservatives have held us to. A female conservative, a black conservative and an Italian-American conservative do no diversity make. What we need on the USSC is intellectual diversity. Five of any group that subscribe strictly to a narrow, ideologically binding religious worldview is counterproductive towards those ends.

Yeah, that's right... I'm bad!

There's a certain critter that crawls around the Fark.com political forums that I find more that a bit annoying.

No, it's not one of the dwindling number of Bush apologists that reside there. When it comes to Fark you can bet that nine times out of ten anybody bouncing into a forum making blatantly pro-Bush declarative that it's actually a Fark moderator trolling to stir things up and get page hits for the advertisers. True Bush dead-enders tend to congregate on LGF or Red State or Free Republic or some other such site where like-minded knuckle-draggers can find a sympathetic ear and a cheeto encrusted shoulder to cry on (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The creature that drives me absolutely bonkers is the infamous Moderatus Fakus - fake moderate. During every discussion and regardless of the issue by the third post or so there will always be one of these little parasites poking into the thread and writing something along the lines of "Who cares? Both parties suck" or some other such inane comment intended to make the person who writes it appear above the political fray.

I have nothing against moderates. In fact; I consider myself to be center-left. What I do have a problem with are those that conflate being a moderate with an "all politicians suck" sentimentality. Yes, politicians are usually pretty shady characters and almost always narcissistic. Tell us something else we don't know, oh all-seeing one. Is the sky blue? Does the earth rotate around the sun? What other great wisdom can you bestow on us?

Add to that groups of politicians representing voters with like-minded views, let's call them political parties, and you have organizations that are going to be self-interested, clumsy and downright unattractive. So what? Can you name any organization put together by people that's perfect? There's no company or government, no church or union that doesn't have it's problems. Here's another great pearl of wisdom for you Mr. Moderate: people are imperfect. Any organization built and run by people will be imperfect by extension. It's the way we are.

You don't look clever, or smart or observant by pointing this out. "Politician's suck" doesn't make you John Swift. It doesn't even make you John Belushi. It makes you look whiny and annoying and afraid. Afraid that if you actually engage in the political debate you may be wrong about something.

Welcome to the human race.

Hit puree!

A couple of days ago I made a guilty confession to Swinebread that one of my favorite movies was Richard Donner's 1985 film The Goonies.

The funny thing is I have a hard time quantifying just why I like this movie so darn much. Part of it is the way Donner directed the kids in the movie. Half the time they're stepping all over each other's lines and just throwing their lines out at light speed but this has the effect of making the dialog sound more like kids actually talk. Donner was smart enought to just roll with that.

It's also got a great score by Dave Grusin and a pop soundtrack that featured Cindy Lauper, REO Speedwagon and the late Luther Vandross. The music just seemed so perfectly... 80's.

Swinebread notified me that there was a comic in the works and that I should check it out. Sure enough "The Goonies: Search for Sloth" is in production with a late summer release date and it's co-authored by none other than Mr. Richard Donner. Not only that - they consulted every cast member from the original movie about their characters while writing this. Frickin' awesome.

Just keep Chunk away from the blender...