Huh.

So apparently there's this huge bru-ha-ha over the fact that Willie Nelson just released a version of "Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other", but no news coverage I can find so much as mentions Pansy Division's cover of it. I'd always assumed it was written by them, but I guess not. I know that as soon as I saw the trailer for "Brokeback Mountain" ages ago I started singing it under my breath. :)

Anyway, had a nice quiet but productive Cupid's Day, though I did fall off the food wagon and allowed myself a chocolate bar. Hey, it's a holiday, right? I'll climb back on the calorie counting today and hopefully start making some more progress. Not sure how much I trust my scale right now, though, as it seems to need to be calibrated every single time I use it these days. As soon as I get one of those 20% off coupons from BB&B I'm so getting a nice digital one.

Got all of Aelf's gifts wrapped up for her b-day this weekend. Go me! And got some other minor, but necessary tasks done. Then flopped down to indulge in The Daily Show, Jon was just having way too much fun with the Cheney hunting incident. He kept bursting out with, "It's too easy", and he's right. Though I think my favorite was every correspondent repeating the same, "The vice president of the United States shot a 78 year old man in the face" while staring right into the camera. Rob Corddry's mix of all the excuses why Iraq had to be invaded with the accident was sheer comedic genius.

Also forgot to mention that I finally found a reasonably priced copy of my all time favorite anime series, "Last Exile". Got to hear my beloved Lord Dio in his original Japanese voice. It was kind of odd, the American one went with a more mature voice (I'd place it at 17-20), but with this odd other worldly sound to it. The original voice was a young boy's (say 12-14) and I have to admit it added a certain poignancy to the character. Not sure I would've been as mad about him had I heard the Japanese version first, but I love the contrast and the fact that it allows me to experience the character in an entirely different way. *happy sigh*

The sport of death

The ever eloquent James Wolcott chimes in with a different perspective on the Cheney "hunting" accident:

Andrew Sullivan quotes an eloquent chastisement from Matthew Scully, author of Dominion: The Power of Men, the Suffering of Animals, and a Call to Mercy, regarding the callous disregard demonstrated by Vice President Cheney.

"Birds are not skeet. They are living creatures, 'the fowl of the air,' and it is unkind and dishonorable to treat them this way. The sportsman shoots in jest, to paraphrase a saying, but the creature dies in earnest."

I saw a creature die in earnest earlier this afternoon on CNN. Rick Sanchez was filing a report on hunting protocol and safety, tramping through the woods with a pair of experienced hunters. At the end of the segment one of the hunters shot a quail, which fell from the air and landed in the grass, its wings thrashing. An animal died so that the segment could make its point. And it made me realize or re-realize that I don't have any respect even for "responsible" hunting, because the deaths it causes are still wanton and unnecessary, even if the carnage is less promiscuous than that of the canned hunts favored by Cheney, Scalia, and similar Davy Crocketts on male-bonding expeditions.
[...]
Rich guys pretending to be Jeremiah Johnson is one of the many fascimile editions of rawhide authenticity being successfully peddled in the media with no one willing to stop and say that inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on animals should be a source of sin and shame, and that the decent thing to do would be to break Cheney's shotgun in two before anyone or anything else is harmed by his buffoonery.

It's easy to lose sight of this point when one is busy chorteling over the inanity of the incident. I've been rather guilty of that over the past few days myself. I too have never seen the appeal in the violent death of another living creature, and frankly labeling this activity a "sport" is borderline offensive as far as I'm concerned. It's as much a sport as stomping on ants is, destroying life because you're bigger, stronger, better armed, and in the end, because you can.

My birthday comes early this year

Ann Coulter, felon:

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections records show Coulter voted last week in Palm Beach's council election. Problem is: She cast her ballot in a precinct 4 miles north of the precinct where she owns a home — and that could be a big no-no.

...

Here's the sticky part for The Right's Lady Macbeth: She wrote down an Indian Road address instead of Seabreeze on her voter's registration application. And she signed to certify the information as true.

"She never lived here," said Suzanne Frisbie, owner of the Indian Road home. "I'm Ann's Realtor, and she used this address to forward mail when she moved from New York."

...

No matter, Florida statutes make it a third-degree felony to vote knowingly in the wrong precinct. Lying on a voter's registration can cost up to $5,000 and five years behind bars.

Happy birthday to me :)

Hey, anybody remember that NSA spying scandal?

Sure we've all had fun at Dick's expense over the past few days. I mean it's easy to be distracted when the vice president shoots a 78 year old man...In. The. Face. Particularly when it now seems likely that ol' DUI Dick was hitting the sauce before he went out to blast a few birdies to smithereens. But it's high time to refocus on the bigger scandal, folks, sure it's less entertaining and doesn't lend itself to such amusing Elmer Fudd jokes, but it's, you know, about the president breaking the law. Senator Byrd just unleashed a volley on C-Span that should help with that:

…We cannot continue to claim that we are a nation of laws and not of men if our laws and, indeed, even the Constitution of the United States itself, may by summarily breached because of some determination of expediency or because the President says “trust me.”
[...]
…In the name of “fighting terror” are we to sacrifice every freedom to a President’s demand? How far are we to go? Can a President order warrantless house-by-house searches of a neighborhood, where he suspects a terrorist may be hiding? Can he impose new restrictions on what can be printed, broadcast, or even uttered privately, because of some perceived threat to national security? Laughable thoughts? I think not. For this Administration has so traumatized the people of this nation -- and many in the Congress -- that some will swallow whole whatever rubbish that is spewed from this White House, as long as it is in some tenuous way connected to the so-called war on terror.
[...]
…I plead with the American public to tune-in to what is happening in this country. Please forget the political party with which you may usually be associated, and, instead, think about the right of due process, the presumption of innocence, and the right to a private life. Forget the now tired political spin that, if one does not support warrant-less spying, then one may be a bosom buddy of Osama Bin Laden.
[...]
…There is a need for a thorough investigation of all of our domestic spying programs. We have to know what is being done, by whom, and to whom. We need to know if the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act has been breached, and if the Constitutional rights of thousands of Americans have been violated without cause.
[...]
…I want to know how many Americans have been spied upon. I want to know how it is determined which individuals are monitored and who makes such determinations. I want to know if the telecommunications industry is involved in a massive screening of the domestic telephone calls of ordinary Americans. I want to know if the United States Post Office is involved. I want to know if the law has been broken and the Constitution has been breached.

And if you get the chance I highly recommend taking a look at Glenn Greenwald's latest post on why this scandal is, or should be, a winner for the Democratic party.