Maybe you have heard

The album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is forty years old this week. I'm sure everyone knows that. This morning I heard a nice story on NPR about covers done of songs from Sgt. Pepper. One really stood out, a version of A Day in a Life by a band called Big Daddy. They do the song as if it's a Buddy Holly song and instead of a long piano chord at the end you hear a plane crash and snippets of radio news stories. It's very eerie and very good. You can hear the story here.

Good News, Everyone

I just watched the new White Stripes video. Great song. Good video.

Screw Rudy

"Although few people outside of New York know it yet, there is an emerging controversy over Giuliani's heroic 9/11 legacy. Critics charge that Rudy's failure to resolve the feuding between the city's police and firefighters prior to the attack led to untold numbers of deaths, the most tragic example being the inability of firemen to hear warnings from police helicopters about the impending collapse of the South Tower. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the two departments had been "designed to work independently, not together," and that greater coordination would have spared many lives."

God help us if that jackass becomes president.

Howdy

I gots a couple of links for you today. How about a contest for convergences of images sponsored by McSweeney's? I especially like this one. I don't usually go to McSweeney's because they are the This American Life of the internets and they rejected the list I sent them a couple of years ago but this is good.

Also the New York Times has a good story on Cubs pitcher, Kerry Woods, written by Buzz Bissinger, the guy that wrote Friday Night Lights and Three Nights in August. You can read the article here.

Pure Genius

You know, some of the best acting I have witnessed in the last few years has been by the women they are using in those fake video chat advertisements that show up on Myspace when you log out. The way they mouth simple phrases so that you can read their lips. How they are able to convince me that they are almost too shy to take off their shirt or flex their arms. And the way they manage to look self conscious and appear to not believe that someone would be flirting over video chat with a twenty-year-old with giant boobs and a wasp waist. I haven't seen performances by a sexpot this convincing since that blonde chick in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Obama Bashing

I've really been enjoying all the fake controversy that has been coming out about Obama. It looks like he is ready for it and won't allow himself to be swift boated like the wussy John Kerry. Check out this great video of Colbert jumping into the fray.

More Drudge Dickness

Fake newsman Drudge linked today to a story in which Nancy Pelosi says she witnessed the effects of global warming during a trip to Greenland. What is the headline on Druge? It's "I saw the climate change." God, he's a dick.

Happy holidays

Today was memorial day. I saw in a news headline that the president honored America's deceased war dead. I'm amazed he can even get near the grave of the Unknowns without the ground opening up and swallowing him.

Yesterday we had a nice party. I invited a bunch of people and was surprised when a bunch of people showed up. It was a lot of fun. We grilled out, played croquet and the One Big Loud Guy even managed to organize an outdoor game of Scrabble.

Outdoor Scrabble

Drudge still an ass

Here's how Drudge approaches global warming (his headlines):

"Pelosi Departs to Europe on Global Warming Mission...

Britain hit with arctic air, snow...

Spring snow breaks 1911 Canadian record...

Late Snow In N Dakota..."

As long as it's mostly Democrats approaching global warming with any sense it won't be possible for Drudge to admit it may exist. Again politics trumps the planet.

Howdy

I mentioned yesterday that I left town for my grandfather's funeral. I had just been up there a couple of weeks before and was able to see him three times. He was my grandpa and he was a helluva a nice guy. One of my fondest memories of him is the day I was telling him about this Ty Cobb biography and he said off-handedly that he had seen Ty Cobb play. Not only that, he had seen just about every legendary Detroit Tiger player you could mention. He also said that the way he got into games was by helping to clean the stadium after a game and getting a pass for the next game.

A few memories of his funeral:

1) There were a lot of people crying at the funeral (of course) but what really brought the house down was the mention by the priest of Grandpa's previous dog, Checkers. Checkers was an amazing poodle mix that I used to walk before my mom moved back to Northern Michigan and Grandpa took possession of Checkers. Just a few months ago he got another dog. This dog has no idea how lucky he is. Grandpa was in the habit of outliving dogs.

2) It's a little odd to see again a roomful of people you haven't seen since the last family funeral in 1985 and many longer than that. I recognized a lot more people than recognized me. My mom had to keep saying, "You remember, little Eddie" and hold her hand down near her waist.

3) A cousin of mine was there with his kids and I was reminded of the two great-grandparent funerals I went to as a kid. I saw a mixture of sadness and bemusement among the youngsters.

4) The priest at one point referred to gramps as the patriarch of his family and I don't know if he knew how right he was. I know a lot of people went to him with troubles. Unfortunately I did not do this enough. Not really at all after I graduated high school.

Howdy

I've been away for a few days. I was up in Michigan for my grandfather's funeral. I'll have more on that later but right now I gotta talk about the little bit I heard of President Bush's press conference this morning. I swear today, in answer to a question about intelligence concerning the Iraq war during it's planning, he said that whatever we do militarily in the mideast we are going to have to fight Al Quaeda and fighting Al Quaeda is a major part of the war on terror so no matter what we do militarily over there it is an essential front of the war on terror. In fact, from what he said, I gather that maybe the complete botching of the occupation of Iraq may in the long run become seen as essential to fighting the war on terror. By his logic we can do anything there we want because it will be opposed by Islamic radicals and then becomes part of the war on terror. Amazing. How is he still in charge?

Here is the quote I am referring to. This argument is a perfect circle and those are rare in nature but becoming more common from the mouth of our idiot president: "As to al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda is going to fight us wherever we are. That's their strategy. Their strategy is to drive us out of the Middle East. They have made it abundantly clear what they want. They want to establish a caliphate. They want to spread their ideology. They want safe haven from which to launch attacks. They're willing to kill the innocent to achieve their objectives, and they will fight us. And the fundamental question is, will we fight them? I have made the decision to do so. I believe that the best way to protect us in this war on terror is to fight them.

And so we're fighting them in Iraq, we're fighting them in Afghanistan, we've helped the Philippines -- Philippine government fight them. We're fighting them. And this notion about how this isn't a war on terror, in my view, is naive. It doesn't -- it doesn't reflect the true nature of the world in which we live.

You know, the lessons of September the 11th are these: we've got to stay on the offense; we've got to bring these people to justice before they hurt again; and at the same time, defeat their ideology with the ideology based upon liberty. And that's what you're seeing, and they're resisting it.

I think it ought to be illustrative to the American people that al Qaeda is trying to stop new democracies from evolving. And what should that tell you? That ought to tell you that we're dealing with people that have an ideology that's opposite of liberty and will take whatever measures are necessary to prevent this young democracy from succeeding.

The danger in this particular theater in the war on terror is that if we were to fail, they'd come and get us. You know, I look at these reports right here in the Oval Office. For people who say that we're not under threat, they simply do not know the world. We are under threat. And it's in our interest to pursue this enemy."