February 2004 Archives
Apparently the Governator has seen Demolition Man a few times too many, and is starting to take it seriously.
There's something I've been trying to understand. It seems that most politically active entertainment industry types -- actors, musicians, etc. -- are Democrats. Lord knows they're the ones who usually find a venue to say something asinine that pretty much embarasses the rest of their party. Why is it, then, that the Republicans are the most likely to take their celebrities seriously? As in, seriously enough to vote washed-up actors into high office?In his initial public appearance during a four-day East Coast trip to attend his first National Governors' Association meeting and raise money for his bond campaign, Schwarzenegger also talked in some detail about the possibility that he might want to run for president some day.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits anyone not born in this country from seeking the White House, but Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is trying to amend the Constitution so foreign-born residents who've lived here 20 years would be eligible.
- Angel has been cancelled.
- Enterprise is on the ropes.
- CSI's star is thinking about taking a hike.
I've finally gotten sufficiently fed up with Outlook Express to seek out an alternative e-mail client. The thing about bad software, however, is that if you live with a piece of software long enough, you get so used to its quirks that it's hard to adapt to a new program with new quirks. I've fiddled around with several different e-mail clients over the last few days: Pegasus, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc. All fine programs in their own ways, but none of them seemed quite suited to my way of working. I finally bit the bullet and chose to try living with Mozilla for a while, for web browsing as well as e-mail.
A couple of webloggers that I follow, Peter Milan and John Scalzi, have both just finished writing novels over this past weekend. Congats to both of you!
A Defense of Marriage Amendment would enshrine, for the first time, language of intolerance and exclusion in a document that was intended to set forth basic rights.Medley is calling it The Hate Amendment. Sounds about right.
I don't remember what I was doing during the Superbowl halftime show, but I only heard about the outrage later. I was horrified to learn that there was an improperly covered boob on stage during the show.
Said boob calls himself Kid Rock.
I oppose any sort of anti-flag-burning amendment. I respect the right of protestors to desecrate the flag in deliberate protest. (I despise most of those who do so, because that helps those they oppose to define patriotism for their own self-serving ends, but that's another rant.) However, I find myself disgusted when someone casually, unthinkingly disrespects the flag by treating it as just another scrap of cloth, as Kid Rock did on Sunday.
As for the weekend's other overexposed boob -- well, I'll just say that we Americans need to learn to make a distinction between nudity and pornography.
The raging epidemic of Mad Carb Disease is leading to increasingly bizarre culinary behavior across this country. The latest food under siege: the noble pizza. I'm willing to consider the possibility that reduced-carb crusts have their merits (and can't be much worse than what passes for pizza crust in St. Louis). This alleged "pizza-in-a-bucket" nonsense, on the other hand, is a threat to all that is good and right. It's not pizza. It's pizza-less pizza.
(By the way, I gotta ask: Are low-carb, high-protein diets taken seriously anywhere else in the world, or are they a uniquely American pathology?)
- The AOL TopSpeed ads made me laugh, and were well worth the $500 spent on production values.
- The new Truth anti-smoking ad was pretty good. Much better than the industry-sponsored wink-wink-nudge-nudge-just-wait-till-you're-18 ads.
- And while I didn't exactly enjoy it, I approve of any attempt by the Anhauser-Busch corporation to associate its products with animals' rear ends.
