What is wrong with us?

Really, what is wrong with us as a society when our biggest concern is not that war with (insert name of country George Bush and Dick Cheney are currently touting as 'evil') is looming on the horizon, our men and women are being killed and wounded every day in Iraq, Osama Bin Ladin is still on the loose (because George doesn't consider him to be important enough to look for), the Avian Flu is still a threat, spinach and peanut butter are more dangerous to your health than trans fats thanks to e. coli and salmonella, and what is the front page news? What is the headline of all the news websites?

ANNA NICOLE'S MOTHER GETS STAY TO STOP FUNERAL
LARRY BIRKHEAD ARRIVES FOR PATERNITY CASE
LAWYER ALLEGES 'FRAUD' IN SMITH BABY'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE
COURT: DON'T MOVE ANNA NICOLE'S BODY
STERN: ANNA NICOLE WAS MY BEST FRIEND

With all that is going on the world, and all of the things that NEED to be fixed (medical care, education, social security, our soldiers dying because they lack the property equipment and training, levees that are no closer to being in good shape than they were when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast) our news is interested only in covering ANNA NICOLE SMITH?

She's dead, and those that loved her should handle their grieving and their disputes in PRIVATE. The outcome of this case is not going to impact anyone but her family. Hello, media, could you please cover stories that affect THE REST OF US and stop pandering to judges, her mother and her alleged boyfriends who are only looking for publicity? I can only hope that custody of her baby is either given to Howard Stern, the man that has been taking care of her, or that some judge makes her a ward of the court and lets her be adopted by a normal family. Her mother and Birkhead only want custody of her for the money that she stands to inherit.

Just my two cents.

Those hilarious right-wingers

Sometimes I wonder if Comedy Central realizes just how much of a threat Fox News is. Unfortunately I'm not talking about "The Half-Hour News Hour", either.

Picture this, if you will: a guest on one of the Fox News shows is saying that every day we are losing more and more American lives, and Ann Coulter very confidently announces, "No, we're not!"

Could someone please let those families of the dead soldiers know that according to Ann Coulter, we aren't actually losing any American lives in Iraq. I have no idea where anyone could have gotten that idea.

I must admit though, that her column at anncoulter.com actually contained a few factual statements. For example, she states that "Any idiot can run for president." This is undeniably true given that an idiot is currently serving as president.

Something that struck me as rather odd is that in her photo section, there is a picture of her posing with the marker for Senator Joseph McCarthy. Too bad that whole "fall of Communism" thing happened before we could have McCarthyism, Round Two, huh Ann?

If I could ask Ann one question, I think it would be this: Why don't you give up the hate angle and tell America what you good Hard-Right Conservatives are doing to make this country better? You've got plenty of examples of what Liberals are doing to ruin it, why aren't you Conservatives fighting to make things right?

Oh, and if you've never read one of Ann's books and are wondering if you should give her writing a chance, consider this little fact: her hardcover books can be found selling on Amazon.com used for as little as 29 cents.

Finally, as a tribute to Ann's amazing writing skills, I give you something to read: Jonah Goldberg on Ann Coulter.

A sad day

We are members of Catster (the cat site run by the same people who run Dogster) and we learned today that a very sweet, special kitty named Navin has passed away and gone to the Rainbow Bridge.

I don't know why that makes me so sad. Maybe it's because Navin's diary made me laugh so much. He and his Magic Pants were just too hilarious at times. Or maybe it's because we had been visiting Navin's page less lately because we were just too busy.

So busy that we didn't even realize he had been sick for the last few weeks, or that he had been diagnosed with feline leukemia.

Navin, we all love and miss you, and our thoughts and prayers are with your family. I know that you are at the Rainbow Bridge with the tail that you always longed for, running free for the Magic Pants are no longer required.

When toys attack...

The world is going to hell in a handbasket.

Okay, maybe not literally straight to hell, no matter how much some of the good Evangelical Christians may be trying to push up the schedule for the Rapture, but you know what I mean.

A major American city was brought to a stop by...gasp!... Light Brites? Yes, several devices which can only be described as...well, Light Brites with battery packs were placed in cities around the country to promote Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The Light Brites displayed characters called Mooninites (I think that's how it's spelled, anyway) giving the finger. Giving the finger the best that a Mooninite on a Light Bright can give the finger, anyway.


Do I think that officials in Boston over-reacted? Well, yes and no. I can certainly understand being alarmed to find the electronic things laying around. During the day, I suppose that an LED card (which would not really look like a Light Brite) and a battery pack could be suspicious, but would it have been so hard to investigate, realize what it was (are you telling me there was no one single person within the Boston Police Department that knows about Aqua Teen Hunger Force and didn't recognize the Mooninites?) and dismiss it as a prank at worse?

Do I think that Turner Broadcasting should get into trouble for this? No. They hired an advertising agency to come up with a marketing gimick, the agency came up with the gimick and hired to idiots to carry it out. We'll get to the idiots later. I've heard a lot of people say that Turner Broadcasting should have realized that this was a bad idea. Now unless you believe that villains actually think and plot the way that the villains in the Batman series and movies do, who would think of a Light Brite with a cartoon character giving the finger would make a clever bomb? The bottom line is that they hired an agency to come up with the idea, execute the idea and presumably deal with any issues that arose from the campaign.

Do I think that the advertising agency should get into trouble for this? Well...yes. Not for the idea, mind you. The only way I can imagine those LED thing-ies being even remotely dangerous is if The Joker was behind them (and only if The Joker was being portrayed by Jack Nicholson at the time that the Light Brite bombs were being assembled). The agency could have moved faster when the whole scare started, though, instead of seeing how many Mooninites the Boston bomb squad would blow up. Would it have been that hard to pick up the phone, call Boston and said "Listen, about those suspicious devices that you've found..."

Should the idiots that put the devices up get into trouble? Absolutely. Yes, they were hired to do a job, and that is what they did. But...they also were very much aware of the panic that those devices caused, and even videotaped what was going on while laughing at the chaos being caused. They should have come forward right away and put and end to the whole thing instead of revelling in the limelight and making their stupid comments after they were arraigned and released on bail.

I still do not understand how anyone could have looked at those devices and thought that it was a bomb, but I do understand being concerned about what it was. How paranoid have we become when anything that has lights and wires and batteries is assumed to be some weapon to destroy us? Everything could potentially be a bomb, so does that mean that I should dial 911 and report it if someone leaves the restaurant and forgets his cell phone? Should I be arrested as a terrorist if I put my old VCR out in the dumpster? I've still got one of those big, unweildly cassette player/recorders from the early 80's...I wonder if it could be used to rob a bank?

I don't need a lecture about this being a post-911 world. I'm quite well aware of what happened that day, and we've made the terrorists more successful then they ever imagined. When we use the events of that day as an excuse to panic about every little thing then we have put ourselves into a prison of our own design. There is a big difference between being observant and being paranoid.

You want to defeat the terrorists? Start by letting go of the fear and living your life.

Sometimes a Light Brite is just a Light Brite.