Hit & Run: Laugh So You Don't Cry

I basically emailed the same thing to my father after seeing the Drudge link and reading the article. Reason's hit and run has a wonderful post on GW and his not so hilarious wmd jokes. What an ass.

George W. Bush, standup comedian:

Bush put on a slide show, calling it the "White House Election-Year Album" at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association 60th annual dinner, showing himself and his staff in some decidedly unflattering poses.

There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," he said.

Because leading your country to war under false pretenses is hiiiiii-larious. (via drudge)

ESPN.com - NCB/NCAATOURNEY04 - Marquee Matchup: Paul vs. Nelson

ESPN breaking down the Christ Paul-Jamar Nelson matchup that we are about to witness tonight. CP3 is about to take the college hoops world by storm tonight. Tune in and don't miss the show.

A 6-11 Player May Go From High School to No. 1 Pick


A good NYT piece on Dwight Howard the consensus number one pick in the upcoming NBA draft. It appears that Dwight is a quality guy (no that that matters all that much, but it is nice to see) though many people said the samething about Kobe Bryant and look what happened to him. Hopefully this draft will not also contain my main man Chris Paul, the up and coming pg of the Demon Deacons.

Howard says he knows the N.B.A. will be more than a physical challenge. He is already preparing for life outside the arena.

His father is a Georgia state trooper and his mother, Sheryl, is a teacher at Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy, a tiny private school Howard has attended since age 4. The school has 362 students, and Howard is one of 13 in his graduating class.

Raised as a Christian, Howard greets all adults with a "Sir" or "Ma'am," and despite his longtime plan to skip college, he has always been a solid student, accumulating a 3.2 grade point average.

His aspirations do not end with the N.B.A. He said he hoped to start a church and do other forms of Christian outreach during his playing career. Upon retirement, he said he might continue his education and begin a quest to enter politics.

"I have to always make sure I'm on top of my game off the court," Howard said. "I have to make sure I stay away from the things that would make me fall into temptation. I don't want to put myself in any predicament of messing up the name that I've got for myself. The guys here already know that I'm not going to go out and party all night and have sex and all that. I want them to look at me as a regular person and say, `Dwight's someone you can look up to.' "

The Onion | Political Cartoon Even More Boring And Confusing Than Issue

Another beautiful onion article that wouldn't surprise me if it were a true article. These guys are so hysterical.

Patting her husband's arm, Lawler's wife Janice said she shares his frustration.

"Just last week on Time magazine online, there was a U.S. map with each state colored differently," she said. "Some of them were red, some were blue, but some were orange and some were purple. It said "voting alert" across the top. I stared at it for 10 minutes and never figured it out. I'm still thinking about it."

Don't Touch Me Unless...

This fantastic post comes from the blog of a current student at my former high school. This gives you a pretty good idea of some of the white trash morons that now attend this never fine public institution. Just one more reason that we need to end the public school system. It probably also explains why my parents sent my brother and sister to a private high school.

CNN.com - Oregon county bans all marriage - Mar 23, 2004

Finally someone is beginning to take some steps in the right direction. What needs to be banned is not marriage, but the governments involvement in marriage. If all citizens are created equal, it shouldn't matter if someone is married or not. Getting the government out of marriage also ends all the ridiculous arguments over gay marriage, marriage tax breaks and any other marriage related issues that the government is involved with.

Chitown Sketchbook

My homeboy Gregg, who works in my office, has a couple shows coming up in the Chi. He claims they are good, so check them out if you get a sec.

He is involved with Family Swim and if you click on Greg his interview and some funny pics pop up. Check it out.

Scientific American: Digital Revolutionary: Interview with Leonardo Chiariglione

Father of the mp3 offers up some interesting thoughts and opinions.

I agree 100% with his answer below. I messed around with i-tunes and I think it sucks.

SA: A number of online music stores, where you can legally download music for a fee, have started a profitable business. (Apple’s iTunes, the leading online music store, reported in March that it had sold its first 50 millions tracks.) Are they a solution for the future?

LC: I don’t see these systems as a solution in the long run, because they put too many limits on the users. The music is watermarked or encrypted with Digital Right Management [DRM] algorithms and is then decrypted by your player. The problem is that every store has its own proprietary system, which is incompatible with the others. Consequently, you can play music on your PC, but not in your salon CD player or in your wife’s car, for example, because they use different systems. Where is the digital experience if you can’t enjoy your music as easily as you did before with a disc or a cassette? Eventually people will say, "Let’s go back to making MP3 copies. They are illegal but at least I can do what I like with them."

SA: How could you resolve this stalemate?

LC: What we need is a system that guarantees the protection of copyrights but at the same time is completely transparent and universal. With the Digital Media Project [DMP] we are working to develop a format that meets these requirements. The system will be nonproprietary, meaning that any manufacturer will be allowed to incorporate it into its products. It will also be designed to manage digital rights in a flexible way. For example, you could play a specific title until a certain date, or you could buy a subscription allowing you to play anything you want for a given period. People could even swap files on the Internet, as long as they have the right to play them. If DMP becomes the industry standard, you will be able to use music or video files as you do today with MP3 files, but legally. This will open endless opportunities.

Great questions raised on this Hit-and-Run post about Clarke and his new book. I think Washington is all power brokers and liars.

Interesting Reason piece on Wal-Mart and LA

After being out in LA a couple weeks ago and hearing the locals expound about how much they hate Wal-Mart this article opened my eyes about the Wal-Mart plight. Personally I'm not a big fan of shopping at Wal-mart, but none the less they shouldn't be able to ban the company from opening stores and offering cheap prices.

This isn't exactly a problem for Wal-Mart opponents, many of whom live in parts of L.A. where the shopping choices are myriad. While driving around the Palms area of West L.A. (home to reasons headquarters), one can run into four different supermarkets, a Smart & Final warehouse store, the Macy's and Robinsons-May department stores (located at the Westside Pavilion shopping mall with a Gap and other shops) and a Sav-on drug store.

For anti-big box types, a Wal-Mart is something they could live without. Much of the opposition likely comes from the image of Wal-Mart shoppers as hicks without enough style or taste to shop at a hipper spot such as Target. But for the poor with limited shopping options and even more limited incomes, Wal-Mart represents something else altogether.

When Wal-Mart opened its store last year, it didn't exactly devastate the neighborhood. Instead it filled the very space Macy's abandoned and brought cheaper-priced items to the area. It also brought 450 jobs; the average pay is more than $9.50 according to Kanelos, just above the $8.71 average wages earned by unionized workers in a typical Vons or Safeway. For an area with unemployment rates in the double-digits, Wal-Mart seems to many a godsend.