From the show Saturday night:

via phonecam

So, after having received the following email from MoveOn.org, I decided it
was time to get off of their mailing list. I mean, really. “The Movie the
White House Doesn’t Want You to See”? Could you guys be any more pathetic?

—–Original Message—–
From: Peter Schurman, MoveOn.org [mailto:moveon-help@list.moveon.org]
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 5:33 PM
To: Gus Dahlberg
Subject: The Movie the White House Doesn’t Want You to See

Dear MoveOn member,
On Memorial Day weekend, Hollywood is releasing a summer blockbuster movie
that’s making the Bush administration very nervous. In fact, they’d rather
you didn’t see it at all.

Why? Because it’s a disaster movie about global warming.

While “The Day After Tomorrow” is more science fiction than science fact,
everyone will be talking about it — and asking “Could it really happen?”
This is an unprecedented opportunity to talk to millions of Americans about
the real dangers of global warming and expose President Bush’s foot-dragging
on the issue.

It’s also a fun movie to see with friends over the holiday weekend.

So here’s the plan: On Memorial Day weekend, grab a few friends and go see
“The Day After Tomorrow” — the movie the White House doesn’t want you to
see. At the theater, meet up with other MoveOn members to give out flyers
that explain, in everyday language, what causes global warming, how Bush’s
environmental policies could lead us into a real-life climate crisis, and
what we can do together to meet this challenge.

Join in today at:
http://www.moveon.org/dayafter/

Please also sign our petition calling on Bush and Congress to prevent a
climate crisis, at:
http://www.moveon.org/climatecrisis/

…Sincerely,
–Carrie, Joan, Noah, Peter, and Wes
The MoveOn.org Team
May 12th, 2004
P.S.: You can see the movie trailer at:
http://www.dayaftertomorrowmovie.com/
###

PS. IT’S. A. MOVIE. JURASSIC PARK was more science fiction than science
fact, but I don’t recall a petition to get the White House to pay attention
to the possibility that frickin’ dinosaurs could walk the earth again. Get
over yourselves.

via phonecam

Clay Shirky’s interesting (if maybe a bit stretched, metaphorically speaking) essay on how the ease with which today’s digital toys, such as cameraphones and moblogs, can release information into the public eye virtually unfiltered is comparable to the effects of the arrival of the printing press upon the Catholic Church’s social and political dominance over Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The point Shirky makes about the power of technology to let images like the Abu Ghraib abuses out into the wild is, I think, a valid one. After all, for a hundred bucks or so, anyone can be James Bond. Keeping something secret in such a world is a difficult thing. Does that translate into the same kind of fundamental political shift as the Lutheran Reformation? I doubt it — but certainly, the culture has to make adjustments for it somehow…

Val, listening to the local news on NPR this morning, called me to pass on this little story:

The Ohio Supreme Court will decide whether a judge can order a deadbeat dad not to father any more children, NewsChannel5 reported.

Sean Talty, of Medina, is appealing his sentence handed down after being more than $30,000 behind in child support payments. He was found guilty on two counts of felony nonsupport of dependents.

He has fathered at least six children by five women.

Judge James Kimbler ordered him to make “reasonable efforts” not to procreate during his five-year probation.

Oral arguments before the Court were scheduled for yesterday; here’s the Court’s summary of the case and the basic positions each side’s taking…

From Reuters:

Senator ‘Outraged by Outrage’ at Prison Abuse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe on Tuesday expressed outrage at the worldwide outrage over the treatment by American soldiers of those he called “terrorists” and “murderers.”

“I’m probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment,” the Oklahoma Republican said at a U.S. Senate hearing probing the scandal.

“These prisoners, you know they’re not there for traffic violations,” Inhofe said. “If they’re in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they’re murderers, they’re terrorists, they’re insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we’re so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.”

…In heated remarks at odds with others on the Senate committee who took aim at the U.S. military’s handling of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Inhofe said that American sympathies should lie with U.S. troops.

“I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying,” he said.

###

More found at http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID;=5106409

From our great president. Here is the insightful message he delivered during his most recent press conference, stripped of all non-essential language.

So glad to see suiciders made the cut.

From WFMU via Wonkette.

You think maybe he digs the piano?

More pictures (mostly Carl) found here.