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Well, I guess those bastard judges finally succeeded in murdering Terri Schiavo. They must be proud. Seriously: if that's all it takes to be a hero these days, why did we ever bother feeding our son?

Here are two phrases you have to promise me you'll use in at least two sentences this weekend: "Usurpation of judicial authority" and "impeach their murdering asses".

In so many ways this is a bigger disaster for our country than 9/11. We're not dealing with some fanatical foreigners spontaneously smashing a jet or two into a building. These are our judges, deliberately and for 13 days, in ruling after ruling, starving an innocent and not even sick human being to death.

Seriously, the time for reflection on the meaning of life and culture of bla bla bla this that and the other in this country is over. It's time to get off our butts and, to the extent of each of our resources, do something.

The Culture of Death spreads like a brushfire, and there's only one proven and effective way to fight a brushfire.

Hey! This is cool. Watch me nuke Fr. Bryce's weblog!

(The maggots are also cute).

It's hard to go wrong with a news headline like "GRENADE BOT BLASTS AWAY".

Link via Engadget, who also tells us that a community high school's underwater robot beat one from MIT.

Make your own Advance Directive before someone tries to kill you.

Fr. Bryce and now Peggy Noonan hit the nail on the head: the Schiavo-snuffers are in love with death.

The Old Negro Space Program: The Shocking-but-false Story of America's Blackstronauts

Link via POF.

From Engadget: Cool robots and really creepy robots.

Communicate with dolphins... in space! thanks to The Cracklebox.

Just discovered the Musicthing 'blog. It's very entertaining. They found The Tornado.

Background info on Michael Schiavo and Terri's "condition".

All of which points to that this wasn't just a collapse from bulimia as it's been reported in some places. Michael Schiavo is apparently a big, occasionally violent, bully.

Not surprisingly: Michael Schiavo has requested to have the body cremated immediately after Terri's death -- because she's afraid of bugs.

Honestly, he may escape justice in this life, but either in this one or in the next, these questions are going to be answered.

Subaru's RoboHiter

(Yes, of course there's no L in that name).

Whatever you do, kid, don't try to take Terri a glass of water.



So much for protecting the identity of juvenile "offenders". And I hope that cop's mom is mighty proud of her son for busting up the pernicious, one-member waterboy ring.

Say what you want, but that kid is a hero.

The next best thing to having your music played on the radio: I made someone's WebJay playlist of songs from the Opsound pool. Yay! What's a "WebJay"?

"The only problem is once you've shredded one hand, you can't shred the other one!"

Fr. Bryce is asking the right questions.

And can anyone explain how anything called the "Libertarian National Socialist Green party" can also be called "extreme rightwing"?

Does this mean that Ralph Nader or any Candian PM for the past 50 years are conservatives?

Very, very sad. Though the story does contain one ironic phrase which would be almost funny under almost any other circumstances (like not after a school shooting and on The Simpsons): "It's hard though, being a Native American National Socialist."

Tonight Feminist For Life's Honorary Chair Patricia Heaton takes her plea to save Terri Schiavo to Entertainment Tonight at 7:30 p.m.

...

Ms. Heaton is concerned for Terri and all vulnerable people. She tells ET: "I think we've gotten to the point in society where you kind of have to prove your value. We're getting to the point where it's being said that it's okay to dispose of you."

Whatever you do, don't try to bring Terri a bottle of water.

Michael Schiavo descends to new lows.

Seriously, "worm" is a complete understatement when applied to Schiavo. Even calling him a "worm turd" would be an insult to nematodian feces. Heads up, anyone who can't lift their arm to shake Bush's hand: you're next. All in the name of "families" and "privacy" (I'm not sure how the federal courts could prosecute this guy now; his murdered grandparents probably watched "Bowling for Columbine", in the privacy of their own home, and said "if you ever do something like that, you'll do it over our dead bodies!" And hey -- they said it to a family member, it's their right, right?). Schiavo should take a page from the Scott Peterson playbook: it shouldn't take you 14 years to kill your wife (of course hats off to Schiavo for doing it in such a way that made him rich and gets him off -- so to speak).

Not a great man doesn't even begin to cover it anymore.

My friend from college, Chad, who is now studying at Yale Law School, sent along a brief audio clip of one of my songs, which he played on a guitar and sang:

Chad sings "And We Lost..."

This is the first time I've ever heard anyone sing or play one of my songs and it was really weird to hear, especially since it actually sounds good when he does it. It's like looking into the mirror and being surprised at how good you look and then you realize it's someone else looking back.

For her part, when Jackie heard it she said, "Wow. It actually sounds good. All you need is for someone else to sing your songs!"

So, if you're Drew Barrymore is making a movie with Jimmy Fallon considered a step up or a step down from Adam Sandler?

And for that matter, if you're Jimmy Fallon, is making a movie with Drew Barrymore considered a step up or a step down from making a movie with Queen Latifa?

Discuss.

USB Sushi.

Er... Yum?

Sometimes, on days like today, you just need to hear "Lifeboat" by Steve Taylor:

Teacher: Good morning, class!
Class: Good morning, Mrs. Aryan.
Teacher: Today we're going to play a game!
Class: Yeah!
Teacher: This game is called Lifeboat. All together...
Class: Lifeboat!
Teacher: Good! Lifeboat is a lesson in values clarification. Can you say values clarification?
Class: No.
Teacher: Values clarification is where your little minds decide which lives are worth living and which lives are worth...ahem... not living. Now here's how we play. A big ship just sank. There are five people on the lifeboat. But the lifeboat is only made for two. I'll list the five people on the chalkboard, and you, class, will decide which three will be thrown overboard. Are we ready?
Class: Yes, Mrs. Aryan.
Teacher: Good! First, there's an old, old crippled grandfather. Second, there's a mentally handicapped person in a wheelchair.
Alison: What's mentally handicapped?
Teacher: It means they can never be a productive members of society. Third, there's an overweight woman on welfare, with a sniffling, whimpering baby.
Max: Is the baby on welfare, too?
Teacher: Let's not push Mrs. Aryan...
Sydney: Who else is in the boat?
Teacher: A young, white doctor with blue eyes and perfect teeth, and Joan Collins. Now, class, take five minutes to make your decision. ... Times up! Well class?
Class: Throw over grandpa 'cause he's getting pretty old
throw out the baby or we'll all be catching it's cold
throw over fatty and we'll see if she can float
throw out the retard, and they won't be rockin' the boat ....

Another reason to love South Dakota.

Especially when one compares Mike Rounds to our own "Bloody" Jenny Granholm. Also, their unemployment rate kicks ours' ass.

When it came out, I never really gave Kurt Elling's Flirting With Twilight a fair listen on a good system, despite the fact that he's probably one of my favorite recording artists and definitely my favorite jazz vocalist ever. Well, today I got my .mp3 player (it's a Cowon flash-based player, and it's fun) and had a listen to "You Don't Know What Love Is", which is one of my favorite ballads (many's the night in high school I would sing that to myself... sad, I know). And... it's an amazing version. Check out that CD (and all of Kurt's stuff.. he's yet to release anything that isn't awesome) and you'll see what I mean.

Drum off!

Buddy Rich vs. Animal the Muppet

Dan Hickey vs. Cog the Robot

Worst. Band. Name. Ever.

I have to believe all the good band names aren't already taken.

Sweet! I guess you CAN download my tunes from MusicMatch.

I found this site earlier in the week while looking up mp3 player reviews. It's a good gadget site: Engadget.com.

It's not just real-life gadgets, though. They have a nice piece about Dr. Who's TARDIS.

Shocking Pink Rose

I have no idea what this song is about, but it's awesome. I guess it's by a group called W. Apparently, it's right up there on the Korean charts with 50 Cent. Anyway, it's out on the Fluxus Music label and I found it on Melon.com which I guess is like a Korean version of iTunes.

I likes the MediaMonkey, I really do.

But has anyone seen my Freezepop CDs? I want to listen to them, but apparantly I never ripped them to this PC.

Oh! And my pals in The Original Brothers and Sisters of Love, after some hardships, have reformed as The Great Lakes Myth Society, and rocking harder than ever (well, folk-rocking harder than ever... only it's not really folk-rock... oh, just listen to their new CD yourself). Check them out. This I command you.

Look past the bold typeface and overuse of the marks of exclamation (!) and listen to the tapes here. PP and the other abortuaries really are encouraging kids to coverup statutory the rape of them and violating the laws of all 50 states which say they have to reveal this sexual abuse to the authorities.

You'll never see this on 20/20.

I'm listening to some of my old tunes (most notably one of the tunes I'm most proud of, "Tech Support" -- it's just something about how that track came together from start to finish in an afternoon, was about two friends of mine at the time who were having relationship troubles, and was my homage to one of my keyboard idols, Bernie Worrell) which I don't do often: it's too painful when I realize that I haven't done any new music lately -- it's just to hard to do. I know that this sort of thinking is just a form of sloth (or accidie)... but, I mean, it's REALLY HARD to make music sometimes. Maybe I should do a song about that. Even if it sucks, it'll be better than nothing.

Writing music, though, for me is like being Wile E. Coyote and walking off a cliff onto the air: it's only possible if you don't really know what you're doing.

PS. I also like "Underground Places" which is actually a missionary song.

"I play the Janko!"

Stories NPR's Morning Edition has done in the past week on the (defeated) amendment to the bankruptcy bill which would have raised the minimum wage (and also the rate of unemployment): 2

Stories NPR (all of NPR) has done (ever) on the Schumer amendment to the same bill which would have removed bankruptcy protection for anti-abortion (and only anti-abortion) protesters (also thankfully defeated): 0

Wesley J. Smith's ("Consumer's Guide to the Brave New World) take on "Million Dollar Beeinflussung".

The Complete "Calvin & Hobbes" Archive. Yes. All of them. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Link via POF.

Ouch.

This should just about put your worst day ever in perspective.

The chimps chewed off most of Davis's face and tore off his testicles and foot, Chealander said.

I haven't said it in a while, so let me say it now Fr. Bryce is awesome. He's really been on a roll lately... well-deserving of all of those 'blog awards.

Me, I haven't been 'blogging as much since I found a way to get paid doing it. The job title is "Knowledge Specialist" in case anyone is interested.

Chalk up another one for Burt Rutan.

There's nothing funny about your newspaper offices being burned to the ground. Or is there?

The real act of cowardice here is that they went after the leader of the true religion of peace. Let's see them say something similar about an Iman, any Iman, and live to tell the tale.

Every so often on the way to work I'll catch the Cla'ence Update on the local Adult Urban Contemporary station. It's usually hilarious.

Lost Actors

If you are a sci-fi fan and you think those Lost actors look mighty familiar, you're probably right. Without consulting any message boards or imdb, here are the Lost actors we've seen in other sci-fi/fantasy shows. Let's see if you can add others!

Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) was, of course, Gavin Park on Angel. This one was pretty obvious.

Dominic Monaghan (Charlie) is a hobbit. That's even more obvious than the first one, so no picture.

Terry O'Quinn (John Locke) appeared on an episode of ST:TNG as Admiral Pressman (Jackie caught this one today). He was also on X-Files and Millenium, too, if you watched either of those shows.

Harold Perrineau (Michael) appeared in the lousy Matrix sequels as Link (but without a Great Fairy Sword, his character didn't really contribute much).

Mira Furlen (crazy island lady Rousseau) played Ambassador Delenn on Babylon 5, but I never watched that show so Steve at work had to tell me that that was who she was.

'Blogwatch!

Here are two:

Angry Twins: "Arthur and Andrew are a pair of Chinese-Catholic twins who love the Catholic Church. We're opinionated, orthodox, and obnoxious... the ANGRY TWINS!"

And boy are they ever angry! But it's funny anger (I hope), like the kind of angry I used to be.

And Gregg the Obscure is back! Yay!