Wanna see something freaky?

Here's a student film from fifty years ago, when I was a teenager. Prescient much?

Now wait a goddam minute

Here's an Associated Press report of Palin's convention speech. It's not labeled an opinion piece, but rather it has two writers' bylines and is carried as a news item. The headline--"Palin Delivers Star-Turning Performance at RNC"--reveals only a smidgeon of how biased the story is. What gives? Since when are AP "reports" of speeches--or of any other event--given such a one-sided slant? Is this a new AP policy, to report opinion as fact?

Meanwhile, back in the battlefields

the slaughter grinds on and on and on.

Just when you thought it was safe

to avoid America becoming a militaristic state, The Pentagon does this.

I told you so

In my novel, Gaviota, the protagonist is tentatively offered a Supreme Court position, but a few days later another, more radical, name is floated by the White House as nominee. Later, it's revealed that the radical was a "Hindy," for the dirigible, The Hindenburg, a trial balloon that was meant to perish, to ease the proposal of our protagonist's nomination.

Now, with the Palin nomination, I've surmised that Rove is using that device to ease the submission of a more mainstream name, and this article reaches the same conclusion.

SOFA, so bad

We've heard a lot lately about how Iraq's officials are demanding "sovereignty" for their airspace and their populace; about how any agreement with the US will involve jurisdiction of Iraq over US military personnel and civilian contractors; and about how there will be a specific timetable for withdrawal of all US troops. But now we hear that this may be bunk, that the real deal is soft on these issues, in particular our troops' withdrawal. Stay tuned.

Piling on Palin

Look, I don't want to be piling on here, but this Sarah Palin thing has the flavor of a Harriet Miers nomination. I mean, sure she's a cutey, and she wears glasses and all, but consider this: The names of the five Huskies in the dog team that she and her husband Todd Palin drove to victory in a local iditarod are Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and Trig. What silly names for dogs.

Oops, my mistake, my bad. Those are the names of their five children.