By the Power of Grayskull!

First a great big "Happy Birthday!" to tersa, moonlightnrain and I have a gifty for you and I'm wondering what's up with your plans for this year. I remember you mentioning you'd like to see a show but I don't recall any firm plans being made. Perhaps I am out of the loop.

Otherwise lovely weekend with lots of puttering in the garden which is, in a word, lush. I have achieved a somewhat "Pokemon" outlook when it comes to the acquisition of mint varieties. I want them all, and damn tersa's eyes for spotting a variety called Apple Mint that I do not have. The seller only had it in a big planter with a bunch of other mints I already own for this week, but promised to have individual ones next week. It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.

Got to see "Hot Fuzz" this weekend which was, well, just ok really. I'd heard glowing reviews and I got my hopes up a little too high I think. If I had to choose between it and "Shaun of the Dead" the latter would win every time. Maybe it's just that they basically did a brilliant action movie parody episode of "Spaced" that I found way funnier and more creative, or just that I hadn't seen "Point Break" and "Bad Boyz II". But the other problem I had was that they'd tell you about a joke verbally, then show you the video reference to the joke, then actually enact the joke, by which point I was kind of like, "Yeah, ok, got it." The very end was quite funny, but again it didn't have me howling like "Spaced" or "Shaun of the Dead" so I left more than a little disappointed.

Then elo_sf sent me the latest Dr. Who episode which I pretty much just skimmed through. ( Behind the cut for minor spoilers: )

On a happier note I'm currently working on a mix for my epic length HP/DF fanfic and it is just brilliant if I do say so myself. Of course it's hard to put together a bad mix when it's for a ghost story, there are just way too many great songs out there dealing with death and grief. And finally having an excuse to use Sinead O'Connor's "I am Stretched on Your Grave" has made me downright giddy. It's kind of embarrassing really.

But my dreams, they are as empty as my conscience seems to be...

Gosh, isn't it refreshing to see another sex scandal that doesn't involve Dems? I mean I thought we'd damn near cornered the market on teh sex, but no, apparently not:

Former U.S. AID director Randall Tobias, who resigned yesterday upon admitting that he frequented a Washington escort service, oversaw a controversial policy advocated by the religious right that required any US-based group receiving anti-AIDS funds to take an anti-prostitution “loyalty oath.”

All I can say is, I hope he used a condom.

And speaking of whores, did anybody happen to catch George Tenet on 60 Minutes last night? I loved how he managed to both say he'd been scapegoated by the administration while, at the same time, tap dancing around actually blaming anyone there for doing it. He came closest with Cheney, but even then he skirted the issue. Pathetic.

Fundies are funny people

Just when you think the fundie whackjobs can't get any nuttier, they go and prove you wrong:

The second most powerful member of the Texas House has circulated a Georgia lawmaker's call for a broad assault on teaching of evolution.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, used House operations Tuesday to deliver a memo from Georgia state Rep. Ben Bridges.

The memo assails what it calls "the evolution monopoly in the schools."

Mr. Bridges' memo claims that teaching evolution amounts to indoctrinating students in an ancient Jewish sect's beliefs.

"Indisputable evidence – long hidden but now available to everyone – demonstrates conclusively that so-called 'secular evolution science' is the Big Bang, 15-billion-year, alternate 'creation scenario' of the Pharisee Religion," writes Mr. Bridges, a Republican from Cleveland, Ga. He has argued against teaching of evolution in Georgia schools for several years.

He then refers to a Web site, www.fixedearth.com, that contains a model bill for state Legislatures to pass to attack instruction on evolution as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

Mr. Bridges also supplies a link to a document that describes scientists Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein as "Kabbalists" and laments "Hollywood's unrelenting role in flooding the movie theaters with explicit or implicit endorsement of evolutionism."

Could we just maybe make a rule that nobody who's basically one shopping cart and tin foil hat away from being one of those crazy people you avoid on the street is ever allowed to actually hold a position in any government office. Like, you know, ever. I can't help thinking we could all benefit from this rule if only we could convince the GOP, however as it would undercut a great many of their contenders for office and a lot of their base, I rather doubt it'll ever happen.

Holy fuck!

I'm sure this terrorist will be winging his way to Gitmo any second now...yep, any second...

A 27-year-old Austin man was arrested on Friday and charged with placing an unexploded bomb containing some 2,000 nails outside an abortion clinic in the state's capital.

The explosive device also included a propane tank and a mechanism "akin to a rocket," Austin Police Commander David Carter said.

The device was discovered on Wednesday in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center, police said.

The Texas Joint Terrorism Task Force -- made up of federal, state and local law enforcement authorities -- arrested Paul Ross Evans, who authorities said was on parole for an unspecified crime.

If someone can explain to me how this isn't domestic terrorism I'd really like to hear it. I'd also like to know why this isn't getting any real coverage in the news.

Hungry like the wolf

Ok, one more and I promise to stop. Paul Wolfowitz, who, if he had a soul, would've crept off into obscurity ages ago, instead decides to hold out for more phat lootz:

Behind the scenes of the gladiatorial battle that will take place between Paul Wolfowitz and the World Bank Board today are efforts by his lawyer, Robert Bennett, and the Bank staff to negotiate terms of Wolfowitz's departure.

According to some insiders, Wolfowitz wants "some acknowledgment" of the Bank Board's complicity in the messy circumstances surrounding his and Shaha Riza's situation.

Secondly, allegedly on June 1st, Wolfowitz becomes eligible for some large financial bonus -- for performance and time on the job. One estimate puts this figure at about $400,000. Wolfowitz wants to make sure those funds are credited to his private bank account before saying farewell to an institution that has come to despise him.

Both sides have threatened each other with slow, painful, drip-drip approach to the release of damaging information that each side has about the other.

One blast in the battle are revelations that it costs the Bank a whopping $5 million per year to pay for Wolfowitz's security detail.

TBogg provides us with the definitive response:

Wow. $5 million is a lot of cash for security. He must have solid platinum fembot bodyguards who shoot diamond bullets through their nipples, but unfortunately aren't hardwired to have sex with him which is why the State Department has to step in to pay his sex poodle to "lick his comb", if you know what I mean and I'm sure you wish you didn't.

Keep in mind that $400,000 isn't that much in todays dollars. That's like, two years worth of girlfriend payments tops providing she doesn't ask him for another raise.

Actually, we'd rather not think about that...