Month: February 2005

Grave

Rice’s Diplomacy: the Art of Backpedaling

Post author By jp
Post date February 10, 2005
19 Comments on Rice’s Diplomacy: the Art of Backpedaling

From North Korea Says It Has Nuclear Weapons, the Associated Press, Feb 10, 2005:

“The North Koreans have been told by the president of the United States that the United States has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea,” Rice told a news conference in Luxembourg.

From The President’s State of the Union Address, January 29, 2002:

North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
[…]
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
[…]
And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security.

Shallow

Texas Hoax?

According to the New York Times, Texas Homos, a play about… well, guess, was written by one Jan Buttram.

Um…

You know, we hate to be so skeptical, but after Dan Rather’s superscript problems, and Jayson Blair, and that time that some random Sub Pop employee convinced the Times that “swingin’ on the flippity flop” was what people in Seattle said instead of “hanging out,” wouldn’t the alleged authorship of this little bit of stagecraft raise an eyebrow or three?

But perhaps the liberal media types over at the Times are in on the joke? Exhibit A:

“Ms. Buttram doesn’t quite know when to stop; the momentum she builds is squandered by a drawn-out denoument.”

Shallow

What Ever Happened to Baby Paris?

Post author By guy
Post date February 8, 2005
2 Comments on What Ever Happened to Baby Paris?

But cha AAH, Nicky, ya AAH in that chair.

Shallow

Who Says the French Aren’t With Us?

Post author By guy
Post date February 8, 2005
3 Comments on Who Says the French Aren’t With Us?

Actress and Johnny Depp’s baby mama Vanessa Paradis shows her support for the Iraqi elections.

Shallow

Play On, Playa

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to edit the financial black hole and editorial snooze that is Playboy magazine? With Playboy: The Magazine, a new game for Xbox, you can. After a little practice, you couldn’t do much worse than Christie Hefner. For those of you who only play Playboy for the pictures, here are some exciting screencaps from the game:

A successful magazine launch is always fun for the serious gamer.

Unless that’s a 30,012 word essay, I’d pass.

Nothing says party at the grotto like a formal handshake with “rockstar” Uncle Kracker.
(Screenshots courtesy Gamespot)

Grave

This is how a Republican President sits: surrounded by Money and War

Post author By jp
Post date February 8, 2005
44 Comments on This is how a Republican President sits: surrounded by Money and War

President Bush announces his 2006 U.S. budget, seated comfortably between Treasury Secretary John Snow and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
(AFP/Brendan Smialowski)
RELATED: Pentagon Budget Up; War Cost Is Excluded, the New York Times; Congress Unlikely to Embrace Bush Wish List; Experts Say Cuts in Farm Subsidies, Medicaid and Other Domestic Programs May Be Unrealistic, the Washington Post

Grave

And just like that, with one brave budgetary blow, we set forth to destroy this planet and get the fuck out of here

Post author By jp
Post date February 8, 2005
4 Comments on And just like that, with one brave budgetary blow, we set forth to destroy this planet and get the fuck out of here

From a rather bluntly-sequenced series of sentences in President Offers Budget Proposal With Broad Cuts, the New York Times, February 8, 2005:

“The Environmental Protection Agency would cut by $500 million its program to help poor communities build wastewater treatment plants and other water projects.
The cuts would be offset to some extent by increased spending on programs Mr. Bush supports. NASA would get an added $400 million, or 2.4 percent, bringing its budget to $16.5 billion as it focuses on the administration’s long-term goal of a manned mission to Mars.”

Grave

Scenes from a newly democratic Iraq

Post author By jp
Post date February 8, 2005
14 Comments on Scenes from a newly democratic Iraq

Iraqi policemen in Najaf, Iraq on Monday, Feb. 7, 2005, living it up.
(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Iraqi policemen in Baghdad, Iraq on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2005, dying it up.
(AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)

US soldiers at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq on Monday, Feb. 7, 2005, eating it up.
(AP Photo/Chris Tomlinson)

Shallow

The George W. Bush Book Club (All Hack Edition)

Post author By matt
Post date February 7, 2005
4 Comments on The George W. Bush Book Club (All Hack Edition)

Since The New Yorker‘s a double this week, and Andy Borowitz has been spreading himself a bit thin lately, I’m gonna take bad comedy matters into my own hands.
Here’s something twice as unfunny as you’re likely find on The Times op-ed page or in The New Yorker‘s ‘Shouts & Murmurs’ and you can read it for free.
If you ask the White House what President Bush is reading these days, the press office will call back with the official list: “His Excellency: George Washington” by Joseph J. Ellis, “Alexander Hamilton” by Ron Chernow and, not least, the Bible.
What the official list omits is Tom Wolfe’s racy new beer- and sex-soaked novel, “I Am Charlotte Simmons.” The president, a fan of Mr. Wolfe, has not only read the book but also is enthusiastically recommending it to friends.
– Bush’s Official Reading List, and a Racy Omission, by Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2005.
Also on George W. Bush’s reading list:
The Five Thousand Dead Iraqi People You Meet in Heaven
Beats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Abu Ghraib
Baby-killers’ Club Friends Forever # 12: Wolfowitz and the Disaster Date
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Blank : The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Gays
Dreams from My Father : A Story of Golf and Inheritance
This I Believe: An A to B of a Life

Shallow

Things About Which I Am Newly Excited

Post author By guy
Post date February 6, 2005
3 Comments on Things About Which I Am Newly Excited

Ford Mustang convertible
Diet Pepsi (and P. Diddy and Carson Daly and Wilmer Valderrama)
Bubblicious
Olympus M:Rope
Ameriquest Mortgage
FedEx Kinko’s (and Burt Reynolds)
Bud Light (and Cedric the Entertainer )
Volvo (and Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson)
Diet Pepsi (and Cindy Crawford and Carson Kressley)
Godaddy.com (and enormous breasts)
The Longest Yard
Bud Light
The Longest Yard
McDonald’s (and Abraham Lincoln)
The Simpsons
Visa Check Card (and Marvel Comics)
Ameriquest Mortgage
Quizno’s (and Baby Bob)
Ameriquest Mortgage
MBNA (and Gladys Knight and John Travolta)
24 (and nuclear disaster)
American Idol