haught or naught

most of you probably know of a web site called hot or not. it lets you browse through random pictures that random people have posted and rate them on a scale of one to ten. it's surprisingly entertaining and something i do occasionally during the late afternoons when i'm at work and bored.

i used to give the hot girls ones and the ugly girls tens, just to even out the self-esteem playing field (because you just know that everyone on this site lives and dies by every single rating they get, especially mine). then i realized that just having your picture on this site makes you a little conceited, so now the ratings i dole out just depend on my mood.

here are some of the more interesting ones and my thoughts:

why? i have to believe that some people post pictures just for giggles. i sincerely hope this is the case. she (and i'm not completely conceding "she") looks like someone who would marry a formerly-gay man who was somehow "saved" by evangelicals. or liza minelli. (1)

(right) ahhh the above-angle-check-out-my-cleavage pic. a good rule of thumb i go by: if the picture reveals beaucoup boobieness, then chances are the subject is overweight. generally, the more abstract the picture (fuzziness, par example), the bigger the person. you aren't fooling anyone chica. (rating of 1)

well aren't you just the bee's knees? you like strangers checking you out in a bikini don't you ? i can actually smell the vanity exuding from this woman. she's got the body to pull it off, but i can't get past the fact that she would post this. i understand being proud of your body, but i do have a problem with showing it off. all you are inherently doing is making yourself feel better by making others feel worse. i dislike pride in general. i gave her a "1" on the hot scale. narcissism is a turn-off.

this one (right) is similar to the previous, only she doesn't really have the body or the fashion sense to pull it off. not that i'm that annoying fashion "guy" from entertainment tonight, but i know ugly when i see it. (rating of 1)





( left) if i went the rest of my life without seeing another dormitory slut dressed up in a playboy bunny costume i would die happy. not "happy" per se because i know the universe won't allow it. let's just say "less annoyed". if there's one thing worse than being conceited it's being conceited without warrant, like the 300-pounders who go on trash tv talk shows in spandex claiming to be "all that". (rating of 1)

look out snoop dogg. speaking for myself, i'd be to afraid to step to this shorty lest she jack my cheddar. i'm glad the ratings are anonymous otherwise this girl would hunt me down and beat me with fists, all the time saying "and what? and what?" for me intimidation has an adverse effect on the level of attraction, so she gets a ( 1) .

(right) i'm all for being unique and expressing yourself in whichever way you see fit, of course. but whaaaaaa? (rating of 1)





(left) do you have party hats in your bra? given the color of that hideous shirt you could lie on your back in the middle of the highway and people would assume there's road construction ahead. see those outfits behind you? any one of them would be preferable to that undersized see-through monstrocity. also get a different wig, stop wasting all your money on cigarettes and casinos, and don't reproduce. (rating of 1)

this girl is perfect. not trying to show off the body, not too much makeup, no crazy effects or camera angles, isn't waifish like an anorexic coked-up kate moss. i love glasses on girls, love brunettes, and she reminds me of lisa loeb. if this girl had a guitar on her lap i may have killed myself. (rating of 10)


GOO! someone let the love child of danny devito and miss crabtree out of her cell! it's not my intention to be a total dick, but i believe that putting your picture up for critique means that you realize that all responses may not be positive (most of these pics are probably fake anyway). or, in this case, may not be positive at all. to rip off "if they mated" from conan o'brien: cameron manheim and a pumpkin, a medicine ball and a schoolteacher, marlon brando and a bucket of fried chicken, a really tall girl and extreme gravity, and chunk from the goonies and compressed air. (rating of 1)

buttocks, buttocks everywhere

my, how the female ass grabs your attention in ads. this particular one seems to target men (or lesbians) whose only prerequisite for potential female companions is that they have an ass, and like looking out the window. a "proven compatibility test"? as long as she has that ass we're compatible! i could feel insulted by this -- how dare they reduce males to knuckle-dragging ass-oglers. we have souls dammit! but i know they're right. appeal to the lowest common instinctual denominator (sex), especially in men, and we're hooked. show us food or boobies and you have our undivided attention.

i'm batman

i am originally from iceland, but came to live in these united states to pursue my dream of professional spelunking. but, the current u.s. economy being what it is, combined with the scant few positions that actually pay enough to live on in cave exploration, has forced me to realign my sights. so currently i am a contractor that collects bat guano for various fertilizer companies. i gather shit for a living.

it sounds bad, but it suits me. i'm not a fan of the sun (since bats only leave their roosts at night i have to make hay while the sun doesn't shine), and it amuses me to think that people pay so much for a bunch of crap i found on the ground.

plus bats are cool. they look like evil hummingbirds. a few times i've gone into caves during the day just to observe the tens of thousands sleeping on the ceiling. the constant pissing was like rain.

i'm guessing that it stinks something awful but i've done it for so long that i can't remember what my first reaction to the odor was.

sometimes i wish i was a bat (or at "bat man" if you will). it must be great to know that you shit gold.

love the sinner, hate the sin?

i struggle to understand many things about christianity and catholicism, so this one just gets tossed on the pile i guess. from an article in the washington post:

Word that a soon-to-be-released Vatican document will signal homosexuals are unwelcome in Roman Catholic seminaries even if they are celibate has devastated gay clergy -- and raised doubts among conservatives about whether an outright ban can be enforced.

the article says that the number of gay priests currently in existence may range from 25% to 50% of all clergymen. there are, however, so many other things that bother me about this in addition to the shoot-yourself-in-the-foot factor (isn't there a shortage of priests as it is?).

they want to ban celibate gay priests. if a person doesn't engage in sexual activity to begin with, how can you label them gay or straight?

and if a person trips and has sex with someone in the forest but noone's around to hear them, do they make a sound?

instances of hypocrisy and intolerance just like this are what drove me away from catholicism (my predilection for sleeping late on sundays probably played a role as well). i could write a doctoral thesis in my sleep about contradictions in christianity.

which might be theraputic in actuality, though it would be hard to avoid jokes involving "seminiarians" and "lay ministers".

the article quotes archbishop edwin o'brien (how i wish his name was patrick fitzmichael and his friend's name was michael fitzpatrick. get it?) as saying "...generally speaking, in my experience, the pressures are strong in an all-male atmosphere."

in your experience the pressures are strong... to do what exactly? have you dreamt of frolicking in open fields with supple young altar lads eddie? perhaps involving warm hugs and jakko-esque sleepovers?

projection: accusing others of that which you are guilty of.

does the catholic church now admit that homosexuality is innate? that it is not, in fact, a "disease" that can be cured or prayed away? what about all those evangelical "help centers" for gay people that supposedly treat the "illness"? what about former gays who were "saved" and are now married to mannish women?

is that all now just a bunch of bunk?

i do agree with one evangelical mantra -- there are indeed many, many souls in need of saving. i hope attrition works for them and god (she, he, it, aol, whatever) accepts blind ignorance as an excuse for hatred.

theraputic plinko

do you hate georgie? like wasting time? click here.

survey questionnaire

1. how much do you despise pointless internet surveys?

2. what exactly would you like to do to people who propagate such meaningless surveys?

3. how many magic markers must you sniff to think other people are interested in your favorite color?

4. on average, how many inane online surveys do you encounter per month?

5. how do you respond to someone, friend or otherwise, who sends you a chain-letter survey via e-mail?

6. what's the most ridiculous, retarded, mind-numbingly wretched question you've read in an online survey?

7. why do you suppose one person would give a flying fuck about whether another person prefers coke or pepsi?

8. when you receive an e-mail that instructs you to "pass this on to everyone in your address book or xxxxxxx will happen to you" do you forward it, delete it, or mail an envelope laced with anthrax to the sender?

9. it's been said that mass-mailing religious messages brings you closer to jesus. have you ever felt a burning sensation when you urinate?

10. do you believe that not forwarding an e-mail survey will bring you bad luck? and, if so, how many times a day do you run head-first into hard things?

11. are you averse to irony?

trademark phillip 2005

i still have power. knock on wood.

the horror

oh the humanity! help us! HELP US!

nah, not quite that bad. supposedly the worst is yet to come but i'll probably be unconscious for it. i may wait until the power goes out and then sleep.

i was going to take pictures of the weather but for some reason i can't find my camera. i'm hoping that the homeless guy i gave a box of crackers to last night didn't steal it. fucking greedy homeless people.

jim cantore from the weather channel has become the angel of death. they always send his poor ass to cover some of the worst weather there is. he's one of those people that you never want to see in person, kind of like the guy wearing the "i'm a bomb technician if you see me running try to keep up" t-shirts. jim cantore: harbinger of bad things. i hope they pay him well.

i'm going to go try to find a downed power line to lick.

don't hold your breath for a cookie. actually, do.

a benefit was held in madison square garden the other night to raise money for the victims of katrina (the hurricane, if i need to qualify "katrina") with several prominent musicians and bill clinton, dog bless him. i heard a quote from elton john about how it's important at times like these for musicians to step up and use their celebrity and means to help.

but is it only people with wealth and celebrity that should give? stupid question, revision: at what point do you make the decision that your means and resources aren't sufficient enough where you can help others? how relative is "wealth"?

if i have more than you, shouldn't i be obligated as a moral human being to help you?

everything turns into the final scene from "schindler's list" where liam neeson ponders how many people he could have saved with his car, or his ring. and it makes me wonder how much crap i have that i don't need and the monetary value thereof that could be better used, not just to improve the quality of someone's life, but to ensure that they can simply sustain that life.

my tv could feed a starving child in another country (fuck, in THIS country). i sit in my apartment and stare at my computer and television and vcr/dvd player and other irrelevant crap that has no impact on my ability to live, and i feel guilty.

these things only improve the quality of my life. i enjoy them but how many people would be alive today if i had given the money spent on these things to charity?

so the question of the day is: how much are we, those of us with a sense of worldliness and sincere concern for others (definitely not everyone), obligated to help those less fortunate? where's the line in the sand where you say "i won't give anymore, i'm not willing to give up this luxury or that luxury"?

the richest 500 individuals in this world have the same income as the poorest 416 million.

i think empathy and selflessness are next to godliness (although the pumpkins say emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness and cleanliness is godliness, i disagree. i'm lonely but pretty clean). it's what seperates liberals from conservatives.

i had to throw politics in there.

of course republicans claim to be empathetic to the needs of others, but their actions scream that this only applies when "others" are white, corporate americans. right barbara bush? let them eat cake!

laura "pickles" bush yesterday said ""we've seen terrible, terrible things and we've seen unbelievably unselfish acts of giving as well by communities all across the united states and, of course, many more unselfish acts of giving than bad things...".

so more good than bad has come from the hurricane?

she goes on to say "maybe the media hasn't shown us that much, but we've read about it and we do know about it."

parallels... to... iraq... overwhelming self...

first of all pickles, you and your husband can't take credit for other people's charitable contributions. remember the tsunami, when all those poor people who weren't even americans died? you did the same thing. we "little people" helping other "little people" enmasse is a testament to us, not you and the fascist regime you operate.

i understand that there's no news like bad news, and color me badd (i'll sex you up), but i don't think providing people with a basic infrastructure to live -- electricity, water, food, etc. -- is evidence of above-average performance. you're just fixing that which you incompetantly fucked up. it's like chris rock says:

niggers always want credit for some shit they're supposed to do. they'll brag about stuff a normal man just does. they'll say something like, “yeah, well I take care of my kids.” you're supposed to you dumb motherfucker! “i ain't never been to jail.” whaddya want a cookie? you're not supposed to go to jail you low expectation-having motherfucker!

i'm betting that the response to hurricane rita will be exponentially greater since the sacred oil refineries lie in its path. don't mess with texas.

these people so lack self-awareness and compassion that it makes my head spin. crazy is the inability to ask yourself "am i crazy?". they'll never question themselves.

tut tut...

see the yellow dot? that's where i am. why can't these fucking storms hit on a monday or tuesday? goddammit. it's because this whole universe is AGAINST ME. and watch, the electricity will go out friday at 5 p.m. and come back on monday morning at 6 a.m. phillip's murphy's law: if bad crap can happen to me, it will. if we do lose power my plan is to xanax out until it's back on, because all heat and no tv makes phillip a dull boy.

i know, it's going to happen to alot of other people too. psshhh, who cares about them though.

i'd love to see all the oil refineries and smokestacks in lake charles and sluphur get completely tagged though.

tall boy in the morning

the steam coming off of my coffee is a beautiful thing. it seems like one of those things where no two wisps are exactly alike, like snowflakes. rationally, there are probably too many variables involved to ever be able to measure or predict such a thing. philosophically, i just like the idea that not everything is predictable. chaos theory, fate, yadda yadda.

[the adult in me likes the wheat side, but the kid in me prefers the frosted side]

i'm skipping work today. not working on weekends and holidays is great, but there's something special about not working on a day in which you inherently believed you would be working. for those of you jealous that i'm off, just suck it. i only had one day off for xmas last year. my belief is that it had something to do with that whole "assault on christmas" craze of '04.

did anyone watch "my name is earl" last night? is was right damn funny. i've always thought highly of jason lee (and did anyone recognize ethan staplee from such films as mallrats and american history x? he lost alot of lbs.). "the office" airs immediately thereafter, but that's one of those shows i'd rather wait to just watch the whole season on dvd at once. there's something to be said for devoting an entire weekend to one really good show.

also the season premiere of ...svu was last night but i had to tape it. i was busy crafting an excuse to get off of work that i hadn't used before. i went with hysterical blindness. it's not that far from the truth.

stealing cigarettes is easy

i stole some cigarettes yesterday. sprinting from the circle-k with my carton of reds was rough. i'm completely out of shape as a result of my loafish lifestyle. the cigarette jones underlying the past week finally beat out my higher reasoning skills, so i had to steal.

i hadn't eaten anything but condiments for almost 48 hours so you'd think i'd aspire for something more sustaining. you'd be wrong. i am a man of vices living in a society of immediate gratification. i want my nicotine now please.

shoplifting isn't new to me. i used to jack batteries and razorblades from the supermarket, only because they're so expensive and wear out so fast. i would discreetly take them out of their respective packages while pushing my cart up and down the aisles collecting groceries. without the upc code the sensors at the exits don't go off kids.

i'd drop them in my pockets (i always wear cargo shorts or pants) and walk out after actually buying all the other things i needed. it was satisfying, but i shortly thereafter became a man of principle and gave up the petty theft racket.

until now, i guess. stealing wasn't something planned; i was just going in to fondle the products and remember how great it was to eat. that's my story and i'm sticking to it.

but that beautiful box reminded me of the craving and how wonderful that three-second breath of smoke was. those small moments are the only vacations a poor man gets.

the clerk behind the counter was a squat woman who obviously didn't relish her job. i like to imagine fictional backgrounds for strangers i see, and in my mind this woman despised her station in life. she too was a smoker, never married, but still probably crapped out a baby or six.

and she was not going to chase me. my rationale is that the only type of person who would actually chase someone for stealing a twenty-dollar grocery item would be either the store owner or a relative of the owner; someone with a vested interest in the store's profit margin. but this is 2005. the family-owned small business has to battle wal-mart, and is thusly rare (and i doubt $20 is going to really hurt mr. and mrs. circle-k).

i grabbed and ran, right out the door, death sticks in tow. the clerk may have yelled, i don't remember. i don't know if she even bothered calling the police. do convenience stores call the police for things like that?

i got away with it and am now looking for any kind of fire. it's harder to find than you'd think when you're broke.

shenanigans i tell you

i've never liked or approved of awards shows (especially the grammy's--one of the most embarrassing blights on our society, second only to george bush). "everybody loves raymond" won for best comedy series at the emmy's last night. color me miffed.

"...raymond" is such a mystery. i cannot understand why it is (was) so hugely popular, or especially why it warrants critical acclaim. since it was the final season was it just for posterity? oh dog please let it have been for posterity (i still don't approve, but don't tell me that it's because the show is funny).

the only thing i can guess is that it's hypnotic: everybody loves raymond. you want to fit in don't you? then YOU must love raymond! zig heil!

how could anything supercede "arrested development" (season two on dvd october 11)? that show is so good that not only should it have won nearly every comedy series award in existence but also the nobel peace prize (for keeping me sane and thwarting my occasional killing sprees), the miss america pageant, the wisconsin state fair pie-eating contest and every junior high school science fair in the country. the entire television industry should be kissing mitchell hurwitz's hairy bean bag for providing it with a saving grace.

jason bateman, if it's any consolation, you won my heart (*tear).

also i'd like to bone portia de rossi sidways. david cross could watch in the corner in his cutoffs, completely unaroused and unconcerned (inside joke for fans of the show).

thisnomer

i'm ditching my "phizz" handle. i don't know why i ever used it. henceforth i'm using my real name, which was pretty easy to figure out anyway. don't ask about the impetus, i have no idea.

refute bitch!

this letter in our local rag outraged me so that i have a carnal need to rebut. and since any letter to the editor i would submit in response would be frought with "fuck" and "dumbass" and "fuck" i'll just post my thoughts here, on what i like to call my "blog". my comments are colored (and colorful, imo).

News flash [already i detest the self-righteousness]! Hurricanes are now racist according to the liberal Democrat Jesse Jackson [you mean accouding to what rush limbaugh said jesse jackson said]. It is also racist to call a criminal a criminal [jackson said it was racist to label all blacks criminals because some took televisions while most took food. sorry booby]. Jackson and the racist Congressional Black Caucus (whites are excluded) [from the congressional black caucus? madness.] and other liberal politicians have been all over the news with this important information. According to them, George Bush caused Hurricane Katrina, the tsunami and every other natural disaster that has hit this country [when did anyone ever blame any one person for any natural disaster? seriously].

Where was the preparedness of this state prior to the hurricane? Is the governor not in charge of the National Guard [yes but geroge sent half of them to the desert. lots of hurricanes there, fucker]. Where was Mayor Nagin's preparedness for the hurricane? Why did the mayor of New Orleans not enforce the evacuation [does the word "mandatory" not mean what i think it means? inconceivable.]? Why did the people not leave [since everyone had a car and a place to go, i really can't answer that one. oh wait i do know. because you're an ASS.]? It is a lot easier to blame Bush for everything [pretty easy since it's always his fault, yeah]. Even the weather forecasters could not predict where the storm would hit. At first, it was to hit the Fort Walton-Destin area. It was then to hit Alabama, then Mississippi, then Louisiana, maybe Texas. Was President Bush supposed to have enforcement along the whole Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas? [er... yes? he declared louisiana to be in a state of emergency two days before the storm hit, so it seems he was aware pre-landfall] The liberals will stop at nothing, blinded by their hatred, [liberals aren't supposed to hate, but he's right, i do hate bush. he costs lives and is a deplorable animal. but no emotion ever blinds me personally] to try to destroy the president. They have not offered any solutions, as usual [all we DO is offer solutions you retarded fuck! have aid ready, fund the levees, bring the troops home... these are solutions dickhead!].

The real culprit was Hurricane Katrina. The left could not wait to blame President Bush [that's true, but nor could the right on this one since it was so blatantly his fault]. The first day after the hurricane, I heard on the news the reason for the storm was because the president caused global warming and he did not sign the Kyoto agreement [you may indeed have heard that since you only watch fox news, cmt, nickelodeon, and filter your information intake based on only what you want to hear. i only heard that the storms may be stronger on the average because of global warming, that pesky theory]. The truth is there were plenty of catastrophic storms long before man [agreed], long before machines and long before factories [agreed, agreed]. A lot of them were worse than Katrina. Even hurricane experts agree global warming has nothing to do with the hurricanes [ahem, au contraire lab partner]. They occur every year and have done so for as long as this world has existed [noone blames the existence of hurricanes on global warming, just their severity. prick].

I suggest there are enough problems existing without the blame game [do you listen to republican talking points? amazing how they all use the words "blame game" on the same day and don't want to play it. "let's not play the blame game, now's not the time. but it was the mayor's fault!"]. The solution now is to act together to help our neighbors. This is not the time to try to score political points using the destruction of Katrina as the catalyst [what was the point of this letter? how many times did you say "liberal"?].

Al Louviere [, ignorant asshole extraordinaire]

Lafayette

i'm very fortunate that i firmly believe in karma otherwise i'd find this jackass, beat him with the severed leg of a pig and leave him with a can of lysol up his ass. he writes to the advertiser frequently and usually i just giggle girlishly at his foundless posturing, so i don't konw how the bee raped my bonnet today.

it's all transference; accusing your opponent exactly of that which you are guilty of. case-in-point: the class warfare cry. (r)'s say (d)'s legislate against that wealthiest 5%, (d)'s say (r)'s legislate against the poorest 95%. and they're both correct. "which is worse?" is not at all a rhetorical question here.

again, i try not to hate anyone. but fee-fi-fo-fum i hates me a republican.

the answer to a question nobody asked

john roberts looks like a robot. i keep waiting for him to peel aways his face and kill everyone with his eye laser. roberts... KILL! roberts... SMASH!

here's my impression of republican questions directed at john roberts during his supreme court hearing:

• what is your favorite color?
• just how great was ronald reagan? (that was an actual question)
• president bush's popularity seems to be growing like a kudzu vine. your thoughts?
• if i had two apples, and my friend bobby ate one, how many apples would i have left?
• concerning roe v. wade and stare decisis, don't you think bo brice got robbed?
• what should brittney name her baby?
• do you support abortions for penguins?

suck my balls republicans, long and hard

it's always unbelievable how bush celebrates the inception of his supposed "era of accountability" after bill clinton's term but repeatedly rails against playing "the blame game" when the mistake is his, which is always.

everything for him is a dog-and-pony show. he doesn't govern, he only pretends to. look at the suppsed town hall meetings he had with the public during the 2004 campaign. everyone was pre-screened, questions were scripted, aides were planted. any public speaking venue at all was cleansed of dissent, so the crowd appeared to be 100% supportive. it's all a facade.

as is the perception that america has taken some turn towards conservativism because all three branches of government are currently republican. i don't think people suddenly felt a pang of conscience and decided to vote for someone they thought was virtuous (no neo-conservative has ever come close to "virtuous"). neo-cons claimed the moral high ground during elections, saying jesus was on their side. and why would anyone believe otherwise?

because the media has been and is criminally reticent in conducting anything semblant to actual journalism since september 11. maybe it's laziness, or fear of beind denied access, or being called "unpatriotic" for asking relevant questions that has caused this tilt towards naive acceptance. whatever the cause, the lack of respect for the truth is killing our democracy.

as a result the public at large is misinformed and votes against its own best interests. mr. and mrs. bumper-sticker-reader vote for their candidate because he or she touts "traditional values" and, for instance, says marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals. who cares about torte reform or bankrupcy restrictions or the environment or the other non-sexy myriad of issues that affect our lives directly - just don't let the faggety-fags get married. it hurts my mind.

and i don't understand the evangelical support for this administration. i don't understand how people believe that it's possible to be a good christian while supporting war. i don't understand how it's okay to be anti-choice while supporting the death penalty. i don't understand cognitive dissonance.

it's well-known among non-ostriches that bush, as governor of texas, signed off on more executions than any governor in u.s. history, but inconvenient little tidbits like that - formerly known as FACTS - have little bearing on today's brain-dead self-delusional conservative religioso poseur. maybe it's pride; not wanting to admit that the person they voted for and supported is a braying jackass. regardless, it's destructive.

kanye west said that george bush doesn't care about black people. i agree, only i would say that he doesn't care about people lacking money, black or white.

so what is the conservatives' ultimate intent? i think they're striving for some capitalist utopia in which corporations are the only entities with rights and people whose only fault was being born into poverty can't vote (like modern-day ohio). affirmative action for rich white people! the poor dears...

and i will put it in writing - george bush did not beat al gore, he did not beat john kerry, and he probably didn't beat anne richards for the texas governorship. american democracy is an oxymoron.

bye-bye brain

since there are so many shows i'm going to have to encorporate into my week once the fall season gets under way i've decided to go all organizational up in this motha and come up with a schedule.

sunday: i record the animation on fox (the simpsons, family guy) while watching the west wing on nbc at 8:00 and law & order: criminal intent at 9:00

monday: arrested development, 7 p.m., fox. record and watch repeatedly

tuesday: taping the biggest loser on nbc while enjoying gilmore girls on the wb (the station for white, teenage, idiot girls. and twentysomething men.). law & order svu at 9, nbc.

wednesday: law & order, 9 on nbc.

thursday: csi, avoid nbc like grim death

friday: no good programming whatsoever.

saturday: night live

i could have also listed the shows that i predict will fail hard but i'm tired. maybe on the morrow.

future perfect

it's only a matter of time before facts and pictures lie only in memory and circumlocution, slander, parsing, and finger-pointing from republicans leave the whole new orleans damage control debacle a hazy memory in the minds of the public.

in three months' time the american people will be mezmerized by headlines about missing white girls or celebrity scandals while all those displaced people, so poor and so black, will be left without a home. one of our nation's most multicultural and tolerant cities will be gone and the vice president's private contractor friends will get taxpayer money to develop and rebuild. but, like in iraq, they won't.

journalists are already being precluded from taking pictures of dead bodies, the count of which will no doubtedly be understated. very similar to the government's policy of not allowing pictures of coffins returning from iraq isn't it? i detect a recurring theme with our "elected" officials, our "leadership", our always-requiring-quotation-marks dictators.

and speaking of quotation marks here are a few statements about the tragedy that are representative of the situation and the republican mindset:

• "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," - former first lady barbara bush, referring to evacuees in the houston astrodome
• "You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving." - senator rick santorum (r), pennsylvania
• "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" - president bush, to f.e.m.a. director michael brown on his handling of the disaster (michael brown was today replaced as head of the cleanup "effort")
• "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." - president bush
• "George Bush doesn't care about black people" - kanye west
• "I'm getting lectured from Republicans in Oregon, California, upstate New York, Arizona telling me I need to back off the President, I need to back off of FEMA, I need to back off these state leaders. You and I are on the Gulf Coast- we know how these things are supposed to be run. This has nothing to do with politics..." - joe scarborough, conservative msnbc pundit

there were several more that i've heard over the past two weeks that i couldn't find word-for-word. here's the crux:

• laura (pickles) bush - hurricane corrina. corrina?
• rush limbaugh - build your own levees poor people!
• geraldo rivera - the horror... the horror... (much girlier than brando though)
• man in mississippi to veep - "go fuck yourself mr. cheaney" (that one i remember word-for-word)

the only image that most visible conservatives want to reverberate in the minds of the populous is the one of black people stealing televisions. and if, for the sake of argument, race did not play a role in the federal government's complete mishanldling of disaster relief, then why were all the hurricane relief efforts in florida executed flawlessly? was it because the victims were mostly white? was it because jeb bush is the governor? yes, and yes.

it's for the devil

this season i am a football fan. generally i don't like sports but i'm tired of my favorite programs getting preempted by games and stressing me out, and since i can't beat them i'll join them. i'll root for the saints again and subsequently get used to sunday afternoon disappointment. beer? on sunday? i'm not going to go as far as eating half a roasted animal and drinking on the sabbath unless i'm still up from saturday night (entirely possible).

this will be good. i'll be able to talk to my boss about games and do some real male bonding. plus my apartment could use the elevated testosterone level since my gilmore girls season 3 dvd's came in. now i won't have to hide them behind my vin diesel favorites.

your shit does, in fact, stink

when i've had a horrendous week i start to feel sorry for myself. i try relentlessly to avoid self-pity, mostly because i hate other people who do it and i hate hypocrisy. so when i start to lament in the least bit my own station in life, or what i deem the lack of a life, i remind myself that there is always someone whose trials are exponentially worse. then i spend an hour trying to kick my own face.

after the attacks on seven-eleven someone said "irony is dead", which i never understood , but i think certainly self-pity should die after the new orleans destruction. not just from this - it's not a first in blatant examples of human suffering - but it's a stern reminder. maybe my personal life is shit and my job is going nowhere, but at least i'm not chopping at the rafters in my attic with a hatchet trying to escape rising water while my family drowns.

someone's situation is always worse than yours. someone is always better than you at what you deem your special talent. when i start to regret not having shoes i remember that at least i have feet.

stuff = shit

this is an op-ed piece from today's new york times by maureen dowd. it pretty much covers the bases of my ire::

Stuff happens.

And when you combine limited government with incompetent
government, lethal stuff happens.

America is once more plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted police force, insufficient troop levels and criminally negligent government planning. But this time it's happening in America.

W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he told Diane Sawyer.

Shirt-sleeves rolled up, W. finally landed in Hell yesterday and chuckled about his wild boozing days in "the great city" of N'Awlins. He was clearly moved. "You know, I'm going to fly out of here in a minute," he said on the runway at the New Orleans International Airport, "but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen."

Out of the cameras' range, and avoided by W., was a convoy of thousands of sick and dying people, some sprawled on the floor or dumped on baggage carousels at a makeshift M*A*S*H unit inside the terminal.

Why does this self-styled "can do" president always lapse into such lame "who could have known?" excuses.

Who on earth could have known that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack us by flying planes into buildings? Any official who bothered to read the trellis of pre-9/11 intelligence briefs.

Who on earth could have known that an American invasion of Iraq would spawn a brutal insurgency, terrorist recruiting boom and possible civil war? Any official who bothered to read the C.I.A.'s prewar reports.

Who on earth could have known that New Orleans's sinking levees were at risk from a strong hurricane? Anybody who bothered to read the endless warnings over the years about the Big Easy's uneasy fishbowl.

In June 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, fretted to The Times-Picayune in New Orleans: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Not only was the money depleted by the Bush folly in Iraq; 30 percent of the National Guard and about half its equipment are in Iraq.

Ron Fournier of The Associated Press reported that the Army Corps of Engineers asked for $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans last year. The White House carved it to about $40 million. But President Bush and Congress agreed to a $286.4 billion pork-filled highway bill with 6,000 pet projects, including a $231 million bridge for a small, uninhabited Alaskan island.

Just last year, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials practiced how they would respond to a fake hurricane that caused floods and stranded New Orleans residents.

Imagine the feeble FEMA's response to Katrina if they had not prepared. Michael Brown, the blithering idiot in charge of FEMA - a job he trained for by running something called the International Arabian Horse Association - admitted he didn't know until Thursday that there were 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying victims of Katrina in the New Orleans Convention Center.

Was he sacked instantly? No, our tone-deaf president hailed him in Mobile, Ala., yesterday: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

It would be one thing if President Bush and his inner circle - Dick Cheney was vacationing in Wyoming; Condi Rice was shoe shopping at Ferragamo's on Fifth Avenue and attended "Spamalot" before bloggers chased her back to Washington; and Andy Card was off in Maine - lacked empathy but could get the job done. But it is a chilling lack of empathy combined with a stunning lack of efficiency that could make this administration implode.

When the president and vice president rashly shook off our allies and our respect for international law to pursue a war built on lies, when they sanctioned torture, they shook the faith of the world in American ideals.

When they were deaf for so long to the horrific misery and cries for help of the victims in New Orleans - most of them poor and black, like those stuck at the back of the evacuation line yesterday while 700 guests and employees of the Hyatt Hotel were bused out first - they shook the faith of all Americans in American ideals. And made us ashamed.

Who are we if we can't take care of our own?

you can't know the unknowable

that was a donald rumsfeld quote.

PLEASE LISTEN: amazing ray nagin radio interview

beating a dead horse is not my intention here (nor meant as a distasteful pun) but i've been so irate and incensed all week about the federal lack of response to the hurricane. on good morning america yesterday the president said "i don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees".

YOU FLAMING BRAYING JACKASs RAPER! did you eat brain tumors for breakfast (heathers)? this was being predicted F-O-R-E-V-E-R! condoleeza rice said the same thing after 9/11 even though a week earlier they received a presidential daily briefing entitled "bin laden to strike in u.s." and mentioned the possibility of hijacked airplanes. "who could have predicted they would hijack airplanes and fly them into buildings?" YOU, you fucking unempathetic irresponsible short-sighted excuses for human beings.

this is the administration that desperately avoids knowing the BLATANTLY KNOWABLE. i shouldn't say that - they know 100% what goes on, they just choose to do nothing about it unless their political power or corporate friends' interests are in jeopardy. fuck poor, black people.

i don't know what else to say besides what the fuck. in big capital letters: W-T-F. as a true liberal i try not to actually hate anyone, but my god do they make it difficult.

for a little comic relief i turn to robert, a disgruntled mississippi citizen. video here

throes of war

george w. bush IS terrorism. the hurricane was the most serious threat to national security since seven-eleven and he played the guitar during. his flippant expression while talking about disaster relief was inconceivable (i keep using that word. i do not think it means what i think it means).

as far as i'm concerned the people killed in the hurricane are casualties of war. money going to iraq is money not going to strengthening the "homeland", including levees and drainage systems. in iraq we are spending:

• almost $200 billion total
• $5.6 billion a month
• $186 million per day
• $129,000 a minute
• $2,150 per second
• over $700 per person thus far (average)

also lots of people died (are dying).

what would you do with that $700? what could our country have done with $200 billion? don't just think of how much the war has cost the u.s., but what erewhile could have been done with that insanely large amount of money.

football analogy (i do love my sports): jock guy goes to score a touchdown but fumbles on the one-yard line. an opposing team member picks up the ball and runs the length of the field, scoring a touchdown for his team. jock guy's fumble didn't just cost his team seven points, it gave seven to the other. it's a 14-point swing.

our country hasn't just lost $200 billion (and counting), we've suffered a $400 billion swing.