pat buchanan

is he a prick for the sake of being a prick? he was talking to the founder of 'black cops against police brutality' (a policeman himself) last night, and instead of talking about the problem of police brutality, he touched on it and then attacked the guy. here are the talking points, with answers in bold:

why black cops and not cops against police brutality? i created the group and i wanted to call it that.

would you help people that aren't black? yes. we helped a white guy that got shot a hundred times recently, and help people of all colors.

look at this video (of a cop hitting a guy on the legs with a flashlight). is that police brutality? yes. if you strike with the flashlight it is automatically police brutality, as we are trained not to use it as a weapon. (pat: i can't tell if it's a flashlight)

so why don't you go after the real problem of black-on-black crime? because my group is committed to stopping police brutality.

so you don't think that black-on-black crime is important? i didn't say that. of course it is. my group speaks to another problem.

so black-on-black crime isn't as important as police brutality? i didn't say that. they are both important problems. my group focuses on police brutality.

well i don't see why you ignore black-on-black crime. gotta go.

while not verbatim, this was a good representation of the event.

and you think your co-workers are bad

don't you just hate when this happens?

to saturn

cassini has made it to saturn. after studying the ringed planet, it's onto some of its many moons. there was a time when this story would have risen above all the crap we usually cover and lead the news. unfortunately, we have lost our love affair with exploration. The world, for the most part, is known. there are no more continents to discover, no lost cities of gold. space, though, represents a practically untapped arena to reach out and discover. will the world care about taking a larger step into space without pressing reasons forcing them to? i do not know. i hope we realize that exploration is its own reward. and yet every time we have ventured into the great unknown we have found riches beyond what we could have hoped for.

giants

seeing as i live in texas, i don't get to watch many giants games. yesterday, though, they were on espn2, so i got to see them rip the hated dodgers 7-1. bonds homer was insane. giants up 2.5 on the padres, 3.5 on the bums.

spider-man 2

the grade: A+

-sploilers ahead-

first: another bad audience. two kids kept yelling and making a general rukus, a bay cried most of the time, and some morons applauded the credits.

this movie was great, much deeper than the standard summer fair. alfred molina proves he is one amazing actor yet again, and cameos by bruce campbell and hal sparks add humor to an already funny, yet dramatic plot. even the cheesy "united we stand" scene was much better than the first movie. was it perfect? no. but it sure was close. this movie shows just how good a comic book movie can be. the title credits were particularly nice, with the first movie shown in graphic novel slides. my main problem? heavy-handed foreshadowing for a sequel. go watch this movie.

giants

they open up their series tonight at the dodgers. these teams have split the series so far this season, both going 5-5. a look at their head-to-head stats shows that perhaps the dodgers should be in first, but they are in third at 3.5 back behind the padres and giants. an interesting stat is the giants' lead in walks at 341. bonds has 109 of them.

handwriting and the future

we are getting to the point where the wealthy are feeling the pinch of being too computer literate. kidding aside, this raises the question, do we need to know how to manually write? cursive writing today could easily be limited to learning how to write your own name and read all the letters, and nothing would really change. as far as manuscript writing, this is the only way we really need to hammer home when writing, as there will always be the need to jot things down. let's ditch script writing is all i'm saying.

iraq sovereign

fearing losing press to spider-man 2, the u.s. handed over control in iraq two days early. well, that might not be the reason, but kudos to the new iraq. i hope it works out.

giants

they take the series from the a's, bonds goes deep, and he scores his 2,000 run. they also hold a 3 game lead over the padres, 3.5 over the dodgers going into their trip to chavez ravine.

ny urban teachers screw me out of $500

well, i got a letter telling me the fate of the interview i had in the big apple. it turns out i do not meet the credit qualifications to switch to math from history. the problem: i called them three times because i knew texas credits didn't correspond directly with cuny scores. three times i was told that i had no problems, that they checked it out and i could interview. even at the interview i asked again, making sure i wasn't wasting everyone's time (and my money). well, the letter explained that i was not eligible, due to the credits not corresponding. now, at any point they could have cleared this up, but they didn't. and i'm out $500. at least i got a story out of it.

around the world in 80 days

the grade: B-

this film worked. it didn't work phenomenally, but it achieved what it was after. there really isn't much to say about it, though. i did enjoy the wilson brother's cameo.

heinz (kerry) loaded

well, we knew that. but did you know heinz might be worth $1 billion? that's a lot of tomato paste. but it also gives america a choice between a billionaire's husband, or a millionaire (bush worth "only" $13 million). i'm glad the average american has people in tune with their needs.

cults

why does texas attract cults? i guess it's the land you can buy for cheap and the fact we're not a desert wasteland. well, my part is, but most of it isn't. this story makes me wonder, though, about where the line between cult and religion is. this story is about a cult, i doubt any would argue that. but if they get enough people, or stick long enough, will they get recognized?

hitler as political pawn

so now using hitler is ok. well, that's what bush's campaign is saying. in an attack add on their website, bush's campaign uses clips of people bashing him, as well as a piece of a clip from moveon.org that featured hitler. now, moveon.org pulled the add because they felt it was in bad taste. i hope bush's campaign will do the same.