rectum? Damn near killed 'em! (that was for you hanny)

Ahh, get this log out of my eye!

President Bush says Americans should respect homosexuals, but he wants to make sure marriage is defined strictly as a union between a man and a woman.

"I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own,"

Loosely translated by Meg this morning, "I am a Christian nut job, and that should be the law of the land."

I miss you
But I haven't met you yet
So special
But it hasn't happened yet
You are gorgeous
But I haven't met you yet
I remember
But it hasn't happened yet

And if you believe in dreams
Or what is more important
That a dream can come true
I will meet you

i miss you - bjork

it's a sad and beautiful world...

What happens when your mom cuts your hair, and is secretly in love with Jim Rockford:

I have memories of places and people and times. But mostly, I remember the car trips to their houses. I remember the streetlights that illuminated the neighborhoods in a orange yellow that was very different from the bright white lights of the suburbs, the blacktop that seemed so organic, appearing to have been poured into the streets and flowed to each corner and then dried and broke apart and melted under the heat of summer, rounded flowing streets with cracks and holes that looked soft to the touch. I remember the smells of pasta, sausage with peppers, smells of pizza, corn beef and cabbage easing their way into the back seat, the smell of soot and refuse. Not bad smells, being the smells of holiday and family, of christmas in Queens or easter in Brooklyn or maybe a day trip to Staten Island.

I do remember events of births and deaths and marriage and turmoil and happiness, but these all sit secondary in my memory. I realize that these are all transitory events, only holidays, just brief stops. I am not a child of New York, but only a nephew, a grandchild, or a second cousin watching the city slip by from the back of a '72 duster.

It's best to keep America just like that, always in the background, a sort of picture post card which you look at in a weak moment. Like that, you imagine it's always there waiting for you, unchanged, unspoiled, a big patriotic open space with cows and sheep and tenderhearted men ready to bugger everything in sight, man, woman or beast. It doesn't exist, America. It's a name you give to an abstract idea. . . .

- Henry Miller

Those of us who become momentarily disheartened by "the cries of victory" should remind ourselves of that long history in which seemingly insurmountable power fell not only of its own unbearable weight, but also because of the resistance of those who refused finally to bear that weight, and would not give up.

It Seems to Me - Howard Zinn

The thing I didn't remember about New York before moving back was how the city is littered with trash and dog excrement.

Julie and I are riding home last night on the train when a panhandler starts his speech about needing change or food or what have you. "I love this guy", I say to Julie. "Me too." she says, "He has the greatest voice." Then she leans over to me and whispers, "This is the guy that smells like crack." Now, this isn't a condemnation in any way of the man, or a concern that the dollar I was about to give him would be used for drug purchases. It was basically a statement of interest regarding a person smelling like crack. The she says, "He doesn't smell like crack today." It occurs to me, "How the hell do you know when a person smells like crack?"
    "Jim was hiding from drug dealers in my bathtub for two hours one time!"

Ahhh...

U.S. Resists Entreaties to Send Peacekeepers to Liberia

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, pleaded for the United States to intercede "before it is too late" and the best opportunity vanishes. "I think we can really salvage the situation if troops were to be deployed urgently and promptly," Mr. Annan told reporters.

Among the chief reasons cited for the ambivalence: The United States has no vital interest in Liberia; the military feels overextended in Iraq and elsewhere; the last African intervention, in Somalia, ended in a debacle; Pentagon officials, in particular, increasingly chafe at noncombat missions.

He was moonwalking on the boardwalk, but stopped to pose as Tim took this photo. Then he kicked the living shit out of me.

Some might say this is all I think about, but I swear its not true. I also like really tall people.

Larry Wall's State of The Onion

We the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with so little We are now qualified to do anything with nothing

via - kottke

slipping:

I dreamt last night that I was walking in the rain on the Interstate. The road was covered in ice. I was with two friends, and they tried desperately to push me up an ice covered hill, but to no avail. In my thoughts, the icy walk reminded me of long backpacking trips, and I knew there would be an end to the icy road. But my feet kept slipping, and my friends kept pushing.

How long can a boy go without sleeping? When do the nightmares sneak out into the daylight?

A spammer, trying to circumvent my spam filtering software, and succeeding, inadvertently sends me poetry.

Subject: Check for updates on our site!
From: a damned dirty spammer
Date: Wed, July 16, 2003 9:20 pm
To: mark - at - exceptionmedia 

...breathable aliens designating afflict unmarried 
rigidly procuring plumed bonanza rafters...

Watchmen Faithfully Adapted.

For all of you who never were (or, aren't) an adolescent geek and have no idea what I'm talking about: http://www.links.net/vita/fwp/dox/watchmen.html

Missing people I haven't talked to in a while.

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience. - Henry Miller

As we wait on line to ride the Cyclone, the guys in red shirts inform us to hand over any loose items we may be carrying. Tam and Julie off handedly mention a bit of concern, "Hmm, maybe this ride is more intense than we think." I reassure them that it is 75 five years old, and is small and rickety, "How bad could it be?" Once again, I am proven a fool.

Six out of the eight people I know who rode the Cyclone on the Fourth of July complained of neck pains. I, always a glutton for physical punishment, loved every body racking moment.

Here's a great animation of the Cyclone in action over at scribbling.

For you Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson fans out there: the original Bottle Rocket script.

Be it said: the motives that lead to a nation's major historical acts can probably rise no higher than the spiritual understanding of its leadership. While George W. may not know as much as he believes he knows about the dispositions of God’s blessing, he is driving us at high speed all the same. He is more of a white male by at least an order of magnitude than any other boyo in America, yes, we have this man at the wheel whose most legitimate boast might be that he knew how to parlay the part-ownership of a major-league baseball team into a gubernatorial win in Texas...

- Norman Mailer

Objectivity is seeing the world as it is, not how you wish it were.

Distortion of Evidence: sign the petition at MoveOn.org

Three weeks ago, MoveOn launched a petition asking Congress to create an independent commission to investigate whether the Bush Administration manipulated and distorted evidence to take the country to war in Iraq. Over 190,000 of us joined the effort. Now Congress is literally taking up our call: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) has written a bill that would create just such a commission, and it's already co-sponsored by a wide array of moderate Democrats -- including many who voted for the war.

Larry (the bird) has had a rough few weeks. After flying into a wall and hurting a wing, he has been frantically pecking out his feathers. He came home from the vet today with a bird cone, as you can see in the pathetically sad photo below. He should be fine now that his neurotic pecking can be abated.

Battleground God, Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground?

In saying that God has the freedom and power to do that which is logically impossible (like creating square circles), you are saying that any discussion of God and ultimate reality cannot be constrained by basic principles of rationality. This would seem to make rational discourse about God impossible. If rational discourse about God is impossible, there is nothing rational we can say about God and nothing rational we can say to support our belief or disbelief in God. To reject rational constraints on religious discourse in this fashion requires accepting that religious convictions, including your religious convictions [that there is no god], are beyond any debate or rational discussion. This is to bite a bullet.

The TPM Religion Portal - In this section, we feature articles, interviews and activities that deal with some of the issues of the philosophy of religion.

via - ben

Caution: acid rock commentary to follow:

I am listening to Shine On You Crazy Diamond, and damn it if David Gilmore doesn't have the fattest sweetest guitar tone ever.

NOTE: this discovered, oddly enough, without the aid of psychedelics.

and more Nick Cave, just 'cause.

Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones
The streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and cunts
With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones
Counting on their fingers,
with crumbs down their fronts

I have been having the most vivid dreams lately. I slip in and out of periods where I am able to remember my dreams, and where I am not. I am currently in a dream remembering phase. But lately, the dreams I have been having seem so real. Normally my dreams take a strange twist at some point into surrealism, and when I awake, it is easy for me to distinguish the dream from reality. lately, that has not been the case. My dreams have taken on such a realistic flavor. No wild flights over the city powered only by my arms. These latest dreams contain real people and events, and strong emotions that are carried over into the waking world, sometimes to the point where it takes me a moment to draw a line in my mind between waking and sleeping.

I have finally started slipping into the depths of insanity.

Too bad it only seems
It only happens in my dreams
Only in dreams
In beautiful dreams.

wonder wheel - 8.3 mgs (needs quicktime)

cost of war clock

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953

...any Democrat who so blatantly distances himself from liberalism can go take the proverbial flying leap at the rolling donut, as far as I'm concerned.

via (thismodernworld)

A-freakin'-men! Stand up and shout about your god damned liberalism. It's hell of a lot better than being a middle of the road panty waist, or melba toast, or what have you.

My first two days at Franklin Street

We head north on the Cross Island Expressway destined for Westchester. The rain pours down. My brother mentions that if we can make it past a certain point there will probably be no traffic on the way up. It makes me realize that he has spent a large portion of the past ten years driving in a moving truck around New York. And to make thing more interesting, you are unable to drive commercial vehicles on the parkways in New York, and you can't drive in the left lane on the Long Island Expressway. In essence, a fair amount of routes are cut of to commercial vehicles. It occurs to me that he must spend a huge amount of time sitting in traffic, and the thought makes me shutter. So I ask him, "How do you take all the traffic?" He just shrugs, and says, "It doesn't bother me when I'm in the truck. I just tune it out. For some reason though, when I'm driving in a car, It makes me crazy" As if the gods have been offended by of our blasphemous talk regarding the thoroughfares in the tri-state area, we start to see break lights up ahead, and the traffic starts. The smell of dark-roast coffee permeates the air, and we slowly inch our way towards Westchester.

Oh God...
Where are you now?
And what you gonna do
About the mess I've made
If there was ever a soul to save
It must be me
It must be me

Annie Lennox, Bare, Oh God (Prayer)

1. Seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement, form, or proportion.
2. A characteristic or quality pleasing for its charm or refinement.
3. A sense of fitness or propriety.
4. A disposition to be generous or helpful; goodwill.
5. Mercy; clemency.
6. A favor rendered by one who need not do so; indulgence.

this looks very cool.

U.S. Iraqi Detentions Violate Law

In order to uphold human rights you also have to respect human rights

via this modern world

And even more biased liberal media:

These aren't facts that the Bush administration denies, after all.

via peter