Serenity

What a great movie. I've never seen the TV show (Firefly) and I didn't miss a beat watching the movie. It is everything a movie like this should be: fun and action packed, funny, and believe it or not - smart. A lot of movies in this genre try too hard and get bogged down in mindless drivel (Star Wars) but Joss Whedon does a good job keeping it simple. And for anyone that misses Buffy you should see this movie. Whedon threw in a kick-ass Buffy-like scene just for us.

When creatives attack

This is what happens when the creatives get ahold of your picture:

Bush letter to Kanye West

Dubya is attempting to make up with Kanye.

The best day ever

I'm sorry for this blog being so political at times. My new music review is coming soon, BUT - as my girlfriend said, it's like Christmas in July.

Tom Delay Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe

I take great relish in saying to anyone that voted for George Bush and his band of thugs:

I TOLD YOU SO!

First the Michael Brown debacle, then the hijacking of the supreme court, and now this. I am too pessimistic to think that most Republicans will care that their representatives are so thuggish - but I can still smile and say:

I told you so.

Michael Brown: "hey, maybe it's OJ's fault"

So today Michael Brown blamed the governor, mayor, media, Office of Homeland Security, Santa Claus, and a variety of corpses for the failures of the government post Hurricane Katrina. Now yes, he is technically correct that there is blame to go all around, but what kind of leader steps in, says " I know what I'm doing, and I think I do a pretty darn good job of it" and then proceeds to lay blame at others feet. He's a Bush style leader - it's never your fault even in view of overwhelming evidence otherwise. Brown: "My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional," two days before the storm hit, Brown said. What a fucking cop-out - that's how you answer interview questions: "My biggest fault is working to hard."

My friend Grace summed it up: "the enitre band of thugs known as Republicans is the biggest bunch of pussies I have ever seen"

George Bush is the Lord of War

Funny picture of a billboard at Mission and Duboce in San Fransisco. Saw this on Adrants.

Macintosh and Yahoo (mac owners get the shaft)

Yahoo and Google are all that's left of the portal wars of the late 90's. I use Yahoo all the time because of its breadth of service. There is almost nothing online that Yahoo doesn't provide. It galls me that they don't pay any attention to Mac owners. How do they hate us? Let me count the ways:

• Yahoo Messenger hasn't been updated in years. While AOL and MSN upgrade their product often for the Mac, Yahoo has abandoned the Mac version. None of the new features available on the Windows version are available on the Mac version: stealth settings, animated emoticons, launch player, environments, etc. None of these are available for Mac users. Hint: use the excellent IM client Adium as a replacement; it replaces MSN Messenger, AOL, Jabber, and others.
• Launchcast, Yahoo's music station only supports no Mac browsers. If Yahoo would provide support to mozilla browsers like Firefox it would cover up a lot of problems, but most of their products run only in Windows IE.
• With Stattracker for fantasy football, the new version only runs on Windows IE. All other users pay the same amount of money and get the "classic" version. (If you're not clear, classic means that Yahoo is too cheap to provide service to anyone else than windows owners).

You would think that Yahoo would go a long way to provide cross-platform support since it chips away at an advantage that Microsoft has. I'm not asking that Yahoo do as much for mac users as they do for windows owners, but they have a long way to go to be considered mac-friendly. By simply providing support to Firefox for all of their features, mac owners would be able to access more features.

We can all sleep now

Tyra Banks' breasts are real! Now we can all turn back to coverage of the supreme court votes and Hurricane Rita.

Ewwww

So yes - I'm one of those that opens public bathroom doors with a paper towel. After reading this post about a study into how many people wash their hands - 25% of men don't. It's the simpliest step to staying healthy the article says.

Jesus Christ folks. Where do you have to go that you can't wash your fucking hands for 20 seconds?

Happy Birthday to me

So today I turn either a old 28 or a young 37.

Brownie resigns

Michael Brown resigned today and has gone back to the actual dog and pony show as opposed to the literal one he's run for the past few years. If I had just waited two seconds to post my previous message. Of course Michael Brown should have been a per hour laborer.

Check CNN.

Don't you love the Bush admin?

So in the middle of the night, FEMA corrected Michael Brown's bio. As if no one would know. It was a "clerical typing error". Of course. Some poor, per hour laborer lost their job over this for sure.

Love Letter to Condoleeza Rice

My friend Grace sent this to me. Love Letter to Condi.

Funny as freakin' hell.

P.S. She scares me.

Katrina - The Movie

I was just watching ABC's World News Tonight and in it there was a interesting interview with the head of the FEMA employee union. In it he described how the President and Congress were warned of the impending doom because dollars and focus have been shifted away from natural disasters.

That's when I realized the last week has played out like every script for pretty much every natural disaster movie ever. Idiot leader warned. Idiot leader ignores or doesn't pay enough attention to warning. Disaster and mayhem ensue.

Think about it - Day After Tomorrow: Dennis Quaid warns a very Cheney like Vice President about the changing world climate, to be ignored - everyone dies. Volcano: Anne Heche warns city officials that their city is about to be decimated by a volcano - again, the scientists win. Dante's Peak, you get the idea.

So next time you're watching a disaster movie and you say to yourselves "Our leaders aren't that stupid"...

Recommended reading: Why FEMA failed

Here is a great article from Salon titled Why FEMA Failed. It describes how FEMA has been changed by the Bush Administration in light of 9/11.

One has to wonder if the terrorists have won? Because of 9/11 we have reduced our preparedness for natural disasters even though they are guaranteed to happen. More people will probably die from Hurricane Katrina than from the Twin Towers attack and a lot of those deaths may have been avoidable.

Oh Kanye - hire a speech writer

I've finally seen the entire video of Kanye West's rant on Friday night's charity concert. I wish West's statement had been a bit more eloquent, well thought out, and less emotional than he was because for the most part, I agree with it.

It is universally accepted that the United States, state of Lousiana, and city of New Orleans were not prepared for Katrina. While West put the blamed racism, I think that his assessment puts too much focus on race and not enough on class. I don't think that the govermnet let people die intentionally. I do think that the lack of preparation is because a poorer area like New Orleans does not get the attention or dollars needed to solve the problems that ail them. We knew this would happen some day but no one did a thing. Don't tell me there wasn't money. The government decided to spend its money elsewhere. Elsewhere means places like Alaska where $941 million in pet highway projects such as a mile- long bridge serving 50 residents and costing $223 million. What would that money have done forthe Levee situation in Lousiana?

The rich can pick up the phone and demand that something be done. They can actually reach their congressmen and senators and get a response; poor people can't do this and therefore rely on their local representatives to demand their fare share.

Part of the problem are the assumptions that were made prior to the hurricane. The city was evacuated; every man and woman for themselves, but if you're poor and don't own a car how do you leave? And once you leave, where do you go? How do you afford it? There have been stories of price gouging by hotels as well as the gas prices doing what they've done. How can the poor afford it? Those of us that make a living wage don't concern ourselves with these types of issues.

My point is that every government dollar we waste in this country on fabulous sports stadiums, keeping military bases open that aren't needed, raising politician salaries is a dollar that is taken away from the people that need the money the most.

Kanye West sounded like a madman. Because of this, I fear that the point he was trying to make will be dismissed. It shouldn't be lost. We as a country failed these people. They were forgotten and we could have done better. We had a choice and the question is why didn't we make the correct one?

Donate money for Hurricane Relief

Those displaced by Hurrican Katarina need your help. Donate now.

The American Red Cross