Wednesday, January 08, 2003

the shield, new season

We watched the first episode of season two tonight of The Shield. It's STILL good--Vic is losing his grip ... wonder if Television Without Pity is going to start covering it?
posted by lee on 01/08/03 at 04:30 AM

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Monday, January 06, 2003

Dead Zone a little better, but not much

I really didn't care much that The Dead Zone started up again, but there was nothing else on and Stanley wanted to see it, so ... I pretty much gave up on the show after the vision in the cave with the shaman from long ago episode--what a pile of horse manure that was. And Stillson didn't appear until the last episode of the season.

Tonight's episode was better, sort of. It didn't explain anything, though, and wasted some good characters. Why did his visions suddenly come back after being absent for weeks? Why did the loony involve Johnnie in the kidnapping? What was his message all about? The writers for this show pretty much suck -- worse than the writing for the last two years of X-Files. Tries to be mysterious but ends up being insubstantial and just very annoying.

All in all, pretty disappointing. Next week is supposed to be about Sarah again--who cares about her? The writers try to make her seem noble, just screwing around on her husband that one time. But instead she comes off as a selfish, whiny slut. And Walter comes off as so noble he just seems dumb. Get some better scriptwriters!
posted by lee on 01/06/03 at 06:37 AM

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Saturday, January 04, 2003

Banished Words—or words that should be, at any rate

Banished Words is my favorite annual "award." Lake Superior State University (in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan) publishes a list of them every year.

From the press release:
"Make no mistakes about it,ђ Lake Superior State University issued its 28th annual extremeђ List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness, which the world needs now, more than ever.ђ

"LSSU has been compiling the list since 1976, choosing from nominations sent from around the world. This year, words and phrases were pulled from a record 3,000 nominations. Most were sent through the schools website: www.lssu.edu/banished.

"Word-watchers pull nominations throughout the year from everyday speech, as well as from the news, fields of education, technology, advertising, politics, and more. A committee gathers the entries and chooses the best in December. The list is released on New YearҒs Day."

Last year LSSU added "functionality" to the list—a non-word that indicates the user can't figure out what something really means, or is too lazy or stupid to describe, in plain English, what something does.

This year's list (read the why's on the website):


One of these days I'm going to start making my list of tv news clichés. I suspect it will take exactly two weeks to cycle through the entire collection. Submit your entries now!
posted by lee on 01/04/03 at 11:17 PM

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Israeli terrorists

A Brutal Routine (washingtonpost.com)

"THERE HAS BEEN a lull recently in Palestinian attacks against Israelis; a shooting attack that killed four in a West Bank settlement last week was the first major incident in a month. But almost every day, Palestinian civilians, including many children, are being killed by the Israeli army and police. An 18-year-old high school student named Amran Abu Hamediye was found beaten to death in the West Bank town of Hebron on Monday; family and neighbors say he had been detained by Israeli forces a few minutes before. On Sunday, an 11-year-old boy was shot and killed by troops in the town of Tulkarm. The day before, a 9-year-old girl was killed as she played outside her home in the Gaza Strip. At least four other Palestinian children under the age of 16 were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza during the past month. In one case, an 11-year-old girl was shot in the chest and killed as she leaned out her bedroom window to watch the funeral of a teenage boy who had been gunned down the previous day."

The United States should suspend all aid to Israel immediately. I wonder how arrogant that nation would be when cut off from it's $10 million PER DAY allowance from Daddy USA. Why are we funding Israeli terrorism?
posted by lee on 01/04/03 at 01:08 AM

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Friday, January 03, 2003

Way to go, Turkey!

CBS News | Army Deploys More Soldiers To Gulf | January 2, 2003 -- but Turkey is refusing to go along. At least for now.

"... refusal so far by Turkey to open its military bases to a buildup of American troops is complicating and threatening to delay U.S. plans for war against Iraq.

"There are currently 2,000 American servicemen in Turkey with the mission of patrolling the no-fly zone in northern Iraq.

"But U.S. war plans call for moving an entire army division -- 12 to 15,000 troops and all their equipment -- through Turkey into northern Iraq to secure Iraq's valuable oil fields and to prevent civil war among Kurdish factions competing for power in a post-Saddam Iraq.

"So far, Turkey has not even permitted the pentagon to survey Turkish bases to determine what improvements would be needed to handle the planned buildup.

"Turkey recently elected a conservative Islamic government and U.S. officials are worried its parliament will not permit Turkish bases to be used for a war against Iraq. As long as Turkey refuses, U.S. officials say, it will be impossible to open up a northern front and that would significantly increase the risks in any war."

Now I wonder if the appointed president is going to threaten Turkey for not going along with his criminal war plans. I hope the Turks continue to stand their ground against the US buildup and war with Iraq.
posted by lee on 01/03/03 at 04:40 AM

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Thursday, January 02, 2003

bush’s hypocrisy

Why N. Korea isn't like Iraq, according to Bush, The Straights Times, January 2, 2003 (it's tomorrow in Asia)

The story reports the total inconsistency of our appointed president's stance on North Korea vs. Iraq. It makes absolutely no sense -- unless you consider how much oil North Korea is sitting on vs. how much Iraq owns. Then it makes perfect sense to ignore a real threat and blow up an imaginary threat.

"The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believes that North Korea already has two nuclear weapons and could build five or six more in the next six months if it reprocesses its large stockpile of spent nuclear fuel into weapons-grade plutonium.

"As for Iraq, the CIA and Britain's foreign intelligence service estimate it would take the country five years to develop such a weapon - or a single year if Mr Saddam is provided with missile material." [Emphasis added]
posted by lee on 01/02/03 at 01:40 AM

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