Stephen Colbert delivered a fantastic monologue at the White House Correspondent's dinner last night. He went for the jugular several times throughout the speech, so ya gotta hand it to him for having the balls to crack some of the jokes he did right there in the presence of King George himself.

You can read the full transcript over at Kos, or view the last 2/3 of the speech here at Crooks and Liars, but be warned that the file is pretty large. It's definitely worth watching if you have a broadband connection though.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the monologue:

Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say I did look it up, and that's not true. That's cause you looked it up in a book.

Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

I believe in democracy. I believe democracy is our greatest export. At least until China figures out a way to stamp it out of plastic for three cents a unit.

In fact, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

Okay, look, folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull before a comeback.

I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, "Cut me, Dick, cut me!," and every time he falls everyone says, "Stay down! Stay down!" Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.

OK. Doesn't matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will. As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story:  the president's side, and the vice president's side.

Okay, so I was a week late on posting some of Bill Maher's new rules from a week ago, but this is still worth reading. I think Bill hits the nail on the head talking about the environment here. Plus, it's also hysterically funny:

Now, tomorrow is Earth Day, when President Bush gets his picture taken in front of a tree and Dick Cheney shoots whatever flies out of it. And, as despicable as this administration's record on the environment is, it never was their issue. But Al Gore made a living in the Senate talking about the environment. He makes a living talking about it now. It's just when he was running for president that he shut up. And that's why Democrats keep losing. They don't stand up for what they believe in, yes, like "girly-men", from making the counter-argument.

"How can we explain climate change in a 30-second campaign ad?" Oh, I don't know. How about this: "The Republicans want your children to die." There, I did it with 28 seconds left. Is that scaring us? Well, somebody ought to.

How come the Republicans can pick seemingly bogus, random issues like activist judges and boys kissing, and Mexicans pouring over our borders, and get everyone all worked up about it, and the Democrats can't figure out how to demagogue Armageddon?

Hey...you know what else is pouring over our borders? Greenland. You know, Republicans do a lot of things badly, like plan wars and balance budgets and...dance. But they sure understand that the winner in an election is the one who scares the most crap out of the voters. "Gay marriage!" "Terror alerts!" "The war on Christmas!" How long before Janet Jackson's tit strikes again?! And it's a lot bigger now.

But the environment is real. You can smell it. In parts of Houston, you can grab hunks of it with your hands and use it to lube your car! And if there is a single face you might want to use to personify this evil, he was in the news this week: the retiring and handsomely-compensated chairman of Exxon Mobil, Lee "Fat Bastard" Raymond. [photos shown of Lee Raymond and character "Fat Bastard" from Austin Powers film]

If Lee looks like he's been eating the earth, he has. Even worse, his company has been paying for fake science to confuse people into thinking global warming was still too iffy to act on. You know, if the Democrats can't make this prick into their Willy Horton, they are so pathetic, they might as well go ahead and nominate for president that nice blonde lady who married Bill Clinton. You'll thank me in a year.

Ladies and gentlemen, I literally fear for my kids' future, and I don't even have kids. Glacier National Park in Montana, you know, named for its glaciers, had 150 glaciers when they opened. It's got 26 left today. If we don't take care of places like Montana, we're going to faced with an even bigger problem: gay married men with absolutely no place to go fishing.

Sad, but true.

Ted Rall on the razor sharp timing of the Bush administration:

I would say this picture from today's anti-war march in New York just about says it all [from CNN]:



I also think this quote says a lot:

The demonstrators stretched for about 10 city blocks as they headed down Broadway. A police spokesman declined to give an estimate of the size of the crowd, although organizers claimed there were 300,000 people. There were no arrests.

So, 300,000 people and no arrests? That makes me SO happy.

Look, I wasn't alive during the 60s, so I can't make a personal comparison to what the political climate was like back then, but one can't deny all the parallels between the two wars. The tide of public opinion turned against this war a LONG time ago, but since George Bush has said the troops won't leave Iraq while he's still in office, I think people taking to the streets is about the only thing that could possibly force his hand.

Things have just gotten so bad in Iraq lately (with April being the deadliest month so far this year), I just keep coming back to the most famous words to ever leave John Kerry's lips: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" That's the question that these marchers are asking. It should be the question that voters have on their minds when they cast their ballots this November as well.

Well, the weekend has been really nice so far. I got down here yesterday afternoon, and finally got to see Teri's condition for myself. Basically here biggest symptom is dizziness; I mean, we're talking too dizzy to walk dizzy. The good news is that she's feeling much better today, thanks to a prescription from her sister. Stef was a really big help in nursing her poor mom back to help though.

Today was the pivotal gave five of the Red Wings series with the Edmonton Oilers at the Joe. Stef's dad got us four tickets for the game, so we drove down to Detroit with Stef's brother Justin and his good friend Jack Johnson. For those who don't know, this is the Jack Johnson of U of M hockey fame, the kid who knocked one of the MSU skaters flat on his ass in a somewhat dirty play earlier this year. As much as my fellow Spartans love to hate Jack though, he really is a very polite young man, so it was fun to go to an NHL game with a kid who will probably be playing in the league in the not-too-distant-future.

Anyway, the game it self was a blast during the first period, and for about the last two minutes of regulation. Everything else in between though was kind of a drag. The Wings didn't really show up for most of the second and third periods, and that's really when Edmonton stepped it up and got the job done. I blame myself for our loss today. I've basically concluded that I bring the worst luck to any hockey team that I root for, especially when I'm watching a game in person. We used to go to tons of MSU hockey games back in the day, but the pretty much always lost whenever I was in attendance. Well, for my first NHL game today, the streak continued, as the Oilers beat down the Wings 3-2.

Our only hope for redemption today for the Pistons to pull out to a 3-0 lead in their playoff series with Milwaukee, but the sports gods were frowning on the city of Detroit today. We ended up losing pretty badly to the Bucks tonight. Sigh. I guess it's just one of those days.

Tomorrow Stef and I still need to do a few chores for Teri before we come back to Lansing. Tim still won't be back from Las Vegas until Tuesday (at least, I think that's the plan), so we want to make sure she has everything she needs in the meantime, in case her condition heads south again. But that's basically it. I hope everyone is having a fun weekend!

From the diaries over at Kos:

Well, after reading all the raves for Kos & Armstrong's book (of DailyKos and MyDD blog fame), and watching Glenn Greenwald's new book shoot to #1 on Amazon, I just ponied up $27 to buy both.

Ya gotta love Amazon sometimes when it comes to their bundles. I mean, $27 for two hardcover books seems more than reasonable to me. Plus, considering what a slow reader I can be, these should last me through the end of the summer.

I'll let you know how they are once I actually get a chance to sit down and read them.

It seems like everyone is getting new cars lately. First, Dan started talking about getting a new set of wheels when he and mom were up here for the movie premiere a few weeks ago. Yesterday my mom told me about all the cars he was pricing out and test driving, and it started to make me a little jealous. Right now it sounds like he's going to settle on the fuddy duddy Buick Lucerne, but I keep trying to convince Dan to treat himself to the Caddy if he's gonna spend that much.

A couple days ago I found out that Racheal here at work just got a new Chrysler Crossfire. It's that really cool sports car that came out about a year ago. I've been salivating over those babies since they first came out, and now I have to look at one in the parking lot when I walk into the office every single day.

And now I just found out that Kim Tyler is going to get a new Chevy Malibu today too! It seems like everyone is getting a new car but me.

I never considered myself a big car freak or anything, but lately it's all I can think about. To me, a car was always just something to get me from point A to point B; I would rather get the baddest-ass mac with a gargantuan LCD than a new ride. But that's not how I've felt lately. I just gave my poor Chevy Lumina a bath on the way to my dad's house yesterday, and it seems like a good car wash can't even make that thing look respectable anymore. There are all sorts of dings, scrapes, and little rust spots popping up on it all the time now. Sure, it still gets me from point A to pint B, but it's been dying a slow death over the past year, and I'm starting to get a little tired of throwing money at this thing, especially since it's looking worse and worse with each passing day.

Of course, the tightwad in me won't pony up for a new vehicle for probably another year or so. When I get a new car, I want it to be something nice and (relatively) new, not some piece of crap. So, that means I need to start saving my pennies.

Even though I would probably never do it, I would love to get some hot sporty car for my next ride. Seeing Racheal (who isn't much older than me) tool around in that little Crossfire makes me want one even more. If I had my druthers, I would probably get something slick like the Saturn Sky, or, my personal favorite, the Pontiac Solstice. DROOL. Those cars are so cool. SIGH.

Okay, I'm done whining for now. All that's left is for me to get on a plane to LA and find out how to appear on The Price is Right.

Karl Rove not out of the woods
[Raw Story]:

WHILE HIS SUPPORTERS CONTINUE TO PUT ON A GOOD FACE, SOURCES CLOSE TO KARL ROVE SAY THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR IS NOW MORE WORRIED, NOT LESS, THAT HE IS GOING TO GET INDICTED. THE SOURCES SAY ROVE WAS SURPRISED BY SOME OF THE QUESTIONS HE WAS ASKED AND BY THE FACT THE SESSION STRETCHED ON FOR THREE AND A HALF HOURS.

The slow simmer of the Plamegate case is suddenly starting to boil over again. Even if Rove doesn't get indicted by Fitzgerald and resign his post at the White House, this is still great news. The more time he spends cowering in the corner, peeing his pants at the prospect of winding up in prison, the less time he has to scheme up evil plots for this year's election. I don't think the GOP stands much of chance without the boy wonder.

Boring ol' corruption case, NOW WITH HOOKERS!
[Wonkette]:

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall “Duke” Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites, pursuing evidence that could broaden their long-running inquiry.

Besides scrutinizing the prostitution scheme for evidence that might implicate contractor Brent Wilkes, investigators are focusing on whether any other members of Congress, or their staffs, may also have used the same free services, though it isn’t clear whether investigators have turned up anything to implicate others.

I wonder how many of these pious holy rollers who were allegedly nailing hookers in DC are the same members of congress who voted to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob.

Perhaps the most interesting tidbit from this article though isn't just the story itself, but that this lovely little affair might've taken place at the Watergate Hotel! Oh, boy, I can't wait to see how this ball of yarn unravels.

In seven days I will graduate from Michigan State University. This thing is almost over.

People keep asking me if I feel sad about finishing college. Maybe I'm nuts, or maybe it just hasn't really hit me yet, but my answer is always a resounding NO. Was I sad about finishing high school? Maybe a little, but I honestly don't feel anything but excitement about closing out my time as an undergrad.

That's not to say that I didn't love my time at MSU, because I did. I had four wonderful years as a Spartan. It's amazing when you think about it how much my life has really changed during that time-span. I mean, I came in here as a James Madison student who wanted to go to law school, and I'm leaving here with a BA in English as a film studies major. Who'da thunk it?

The question I get asked even more than whether or not I'm sad about graduating is... what comes next? Well, no, I won't be making movies for a living. At least not anytime soon. I have been offered a very generous full-time position here at the Michigan Interfaith Trust Fund that I just couldn't turn down. The staff is great, my work is fun and productive, I'll be getting full health insurance out of the gates (which is a rarity for many new workers nowadays), should receive at least five weeks of vacation a year, and a fringe benefit package to start retirement savings.

So, is graduate school out of the picture? I'd have to say no, but I certainly don't plan on going back for a masters degree right away. To me, that's the beauty of starting off at MITF right after school ends, because I get to go through that post-college period where I mull over what I want to do with the rest of my life without being a bum. Will I be working here forever? No, probably not, but living in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, it's hard to turn down a good job when it's offered to you.

Anyway, there's obviously a lot going on over the next week or two (my party is on the 13th), but that's basically it for the post-graduation game plan for now.

$60,000 worth of iPods + dominoes = a colossal waste of money a funny commercial (from MacSupport):

Four years, about a bazillion papers later, and I'm finally done writing as an undergraduate student at Michigan State! It's too bad that the last thing I'm writing is a stupid COM 200 paper, and not something that I actually care about, but what can ya do? It's over, it's done, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Today is also my last day of classes as an undergrad at MSU. All that's left after today is an exam on Monday, and one next Wednesday, but it's safe to say that I'm in the home stretch now. Whew.

Tomorrow Stef and I are hitting the road for Bloomfield to spend the weekend housesitting at her parent's place. Tim is in Las Vegas with his buddies right now, and Terri is heading to Saugatuck for a shopping weekend with her sister tomorrow. I think Stef's parents are just a little worried that Zoey (the dog) will throw some big kegger with a bunch of other bitches while they're gone, so they want us around to keep an eye on things. It'll be nice to get away for the weekend though. The Spiro pool is already open and all heated up now, so I'm sure we'll spend some time in there relaxing on Saturday. Ahhhh, that sounds nice.

That's basically it for now. Enjoy the sunny weather today!

UPDATE: Okay, scratch all that stuff about Teri going to Saugatuck. Stef's poor mom is sick as a dog, so, being the good daughter that she is, Stef is going home tonight to take care of her. I'll still probably head over there after work tomorrow though. I hope Teri's feeling better soon.

From Slate, on why the GOP is screwed this November:

It isn't easy being a Republican these days, either. Bush's approval rating is at an all-time low, gas prices are near an all-time high, and Iraq continues to burn. Voters have an even lower opinion of the GOP-controlled Congress. Ideological disputes within the party make it hard for believers to pick sides, and incompetence at the top makes it difficult to follow through on the agenda items Republicans do agree on, like reducing the deficit. Bad news from Iraq and any number of scandals tied to the GOP erupt regularly. A month ago, the Republican political class was merely worried. Now its members are talking about "avoiding catastrophic losses." Conversations about the state of the party used to have two parts: all the bad news followed by signs of hope. I'm just hearing a one-act play now.

This is a really good read, so check out the whole thing if you can.

I still maintain that a big part of the equation is how well the dems are able to capitalize on all of these mammoth republican failures. Right now I think the wheels are in motion, and the party is starting to coalesce around a fighting strategy for the election, but it will be interesting to see how much the GOP continues to implode over the next seven months.

This is like my wet dream (from BWE):

Katie's birthday dinner was a lot of fun last night. We met Miss Dunn's entourage at Cheeseburger in Paradise out on the West end of town shortly after 7, after stopping by World Market to pick up a little birthday present on the way. Aside from seeing Katie and Annie for the first time in a while, it was also really nice to sit and chat with Dan Lash for the first time in forever. It's so crazy to think that all these old friends from high school and I are all graduating from college now. The reality of graduation season is finally starting to sink in.

Dinner itself was prety good last night, but we could tell that the wait staff wasn't too thrilled to be serving such a large group. The first sign was when they told us not to switch our seats, which had been our initial plan so that Katie could move around the table and talk to the different groups of people. Our food came pretty quickly, but they didn't make much of a secret about hurrying to get us served and out the door so they could break up the four tables we were hogging. Other than that, I thought it was a pretty fun place to go have a burger. It's definitely not as cool as a real Margaritaville though.

Well, I'm slowly but surely making progress on all of my end-of-semester tests and final paper. After dinner last night I spent a good hour or so going over my notes for the PLS 201 exam, and I feel like that really paid off. The final in that class was the first thing this morning, and was the easiest test my professor has ever given us. I don't know if she was just feeling generous, or finally realized how terrible the first two were, but I'm not complaining; I feel like I did really well on it.

Just a little while ago I went out to the Indoor Tennis Facility to take my exam in that class. There were about 47 questions that I probably could've answered in my sleep, but it still felt good to get it over with so there's one less thing hanging over my head.

Today I have to go to my last COM 275 lecture, and afterwards I need to meet with my COM 200 TA to go over the draft for our final paper. Right now I have three of the four main sections, and the fourth one is coming later in the afternoon. While this was probably the hardest project to carry out, in terms of data collection, I feel like this was probably the easiest paper to write. Maybe it's just getting easier by the end of the semester. Anyway, I'll probably put the finishing touches on that bad boy later tonight, and then wash my hands of it when we turn it in during class tomorrow.

So, by this time tomorrow morning I will be about 3/5 of the way done with my exams/paper to close out the semester. All that's left is the COM 275 test on Monday, and my COM 200 final next Wednesday. I'm telling you, I absolutely can't wait for all of this to be over. The end is near!

Shannon Brown, I have two words for you: MARCUS TAYLOR. Just keep repeating those words when you think about hiring an agent and officially closing the door on your senior year at Michigan State.

Okay, so Downtown Shannon Brown hasn't done this yet, but after reading this story in the State News and this one in today's Lansing State Journal, I can't say I'm optimistic. Why? Because this is the exact same routine Marcus Taylor put us through four years ago. He declared for the draft without hiring an agent, and now he has a thriving NBA career... in his driveway.

Taylor was an overly-anxious sophomore who got high on himself after a surprising Big Ten scoring title, and had a pushy enough old man who convinced him to take the money and run. Brown is head and shoulders above Marcus as a player, but I'm not 100% sure if he's any smarter. Hopefully Tom Izzo learned a thing or two from the whole Taylor debacle, and can talk some sense into Brown this summer.

Being honest, I can't say I would blame Shannon if he goes down to Orlando this June and blows away all the NBA scouts, decides he's good enough to make it in the first round, and hires an agent. No one in their right mind would turn down a couple mil over three years for a shot to play with the big boys. But if he came back to State and finished out his senior year, he would be the focal point of the Spartan offense. Even if the 2006 team isn't as sharp as the 2005 squad, Brown will be THE star. His stock will rise if he plays another year of college hoops, and he is virtually guaranteed a top-tier draft spot (with a lot more money) in next year's draft.

I'm really not just being a whiny fan here, just a concerned Spartan. I've seen too many players bolt early from our team in the last six years, and go on to regret it. I just hope Shannon isn't another NBA casualty.

The last week of classes is always the worst. All the MSU profs get together and collude to make the semester's hardest assignments due this week, and some are sick and twisted enough to schedule exams during this week too. Okay, I actually like having finals before exam week, but still... it's worth bitching about.

My last (finally!) COM 200 paper is due on Thursday, and is slowly but surely coming together. Since this is the third go-around for one of these research projects, the whole process is getting a lot easier, but that doesn't make it any less of a pain. I finished writing my section of the paper last night, but can't write up the abstract until I have everyone else's work. Hopefully I'll have everything I need before my head hits the pillow tonight, but I suppose it's not the end of the world if I don't.

The biggest headache facing me right now is getting ready for my PLS 201 exam tomorrow. I'll spare you any more bitching and moaning about this class, but suffice it to say, I absolutely can't wait to wash my hands of Dr. Laura Reese. I also have a "final" in my tennis class tomorrow, but that doesn't really count. If I can't pass a test about the rules of the game, I don't deserve to call myself a player.

So, tonight is the start of crunch time. I'm glad I got so much done last night, but things will be pinched a bit more than I was expecting since today is Katie Dunn's birthday, and Stef and I are going to Cheeseburger in Paradise for her b-day dinner at 7. It'll be a lot of fun though, and should give me a couple hours to let my brain unwind before tomorrow's tests.

That's all I got for now. Enjoy the weather today. Stay warm and dry out there today.

Ted Rall is really good today (gracias, dad). Sad, but true:

The title basically sums up my feelings about my political science 201 professor. She is, without a doubt, the WORST professor I have ever had at Michigan State, and I don't say that lightly.

It finally struck me as I was sitting in class today. Our last lecture was meant to be a review session for the final exam on Wednesday. Dr. Reese posted a piss-poor study guide on Angel over the weekend, and let kids ask questions about the topics today.

That's all well and good, but as a result, the whole "review session" was just a big confusing jumble of different subjects we covered over the last six weeks. She jumped from topic to topic, never fully explaining anything, and kept getting sidetracked the whole time with pointless examples from her own personal experiences.

About halfway through the class it finally clicked for me that she is the worst professor I've ever had when I realized that I haven't learned anything from this hag. Everything I know about research methods I learned from Dr. René Weber, my COM 200 professor. If I wasn't taking both classes at the same time, I would be completely failing PLS 201, because Reese is such a TERRIBLE teacher. When she left Wayne State and came to MSU, the collective pool of knowledge increased at Wayne, and took a dive at State. She's just a magnet for dumb.

What made me hate this woman was when she stopped for a second in the middle of this review session today to marvel at how well she was conducting the exam review without the aid of a cheat sheet. She was totally serious, too. Reese was just so proud of the fact that she was leading this totally haphazard test-prep, not getting how much she was confusing kids along the way. I mean, talk about being a naive, self-important boob.

She's just one more reason I absolutely can't wait to graduate next week.

This is really interesting/funny/cute/sad:

"Can you imagine a speech given by president Bush that would convince you that he has had a change of heart and could actually be the president of your dreams? It is all too easy to criticize our president and his administration. Life changing events (often of the extremely painful variety) force us to reevaluate our values and actions. What if something like this happened to our president. What if he were humbled in some way which caused a profound change in his outlook on life and his role as the leader of our country - turning the aggressive posturing of an all-attack-all-the-time leader into a gentler, wiser soul determined to demonstrate the power of honesty and vulnerability."

With this idea in mind I put out an open call for people to write speeches for President Bush, offering a $50 cash prize.

A group of five students, ages 7-10, from Rooftop Elementary in San Francisco accepted the challenge. Upon receiving their humorous and thoughtful contributions I had the speeches recorded by Jim Meskimen, a professional impersonator based in Los Angeles. The prize money was used to throw a cake party for the kids and their classmates.

This one is probably my favorite. Go check out the site though to listen to these kids read some of their submissions:

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, from ThinkProgress:

Tonight on 60 Minutes, Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, revealed that in the fall of 2002, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others were told by CIA Director George Tenet that Iraq’s foreign minister — who agreed to act as a spy for the United States — had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program. Watch it:



BRADLEY: According to Drumheller, CIA Director George Tenet delivered the news about the Iraqi foreign minister at a high level meeting at the White House.

DRUMHELLER: The President, the Vice President, Dr. Rice…

BRADLEY: And at that meeting…?

DRUMHELLER: They were enthusiastic because they said they were excited that we had a high-level penetration of Iraqis.

BRADLEY: And what did this high level source tell you?

DRUMHELLER: He told us that they had no active weapons of mass destruction program.

BRADLEY: So, in the fall of 2002, before going to war, we had it on good authority from a source within Saddam’s inner circle that he didn’t have an active program for weapons of mass destruction?

DRUMHELLER: Yes.

BRADLEY: There’s no doubt in your mind about that?

DRUMHELLER: No doubt in my mind at all.

BRADLEY: It directly contradicts, though, what the President and his staff were telling us.

DRUMHELLER: The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.

Hey, who's ready to go to war with Iran?

Wow! A full 24 hours with no update on iBZP. What is this world coming to?!

Anyway, the weekend was a lot of fun, in all of its low-keyness. On Saturday we decided at the last minute to attend the Coalition of Indian Undergraduate Students "SATRANG" event at the auditorium. I know that sounds kinda random, but Stef's good friend Sayee was performing in two of the show's dance numbers, so we wanted to go show some support. We met up with Sayee's roommate (and Stef's other good friend) Rae beforehand, and got relatively good seats up in the balcony.

The whole point of the program was basically to showcase Indian culture onstage, mainly through choreographed dance numbers. The best way to describe it is that it was like watching a big Bollywood movie performed live. I think everyone felt a little bad about the first part of the show, because while there was no problem seeing the dancers up there doing their thing, it was really hard to hear the music and the emcees introduce the different numbers before each performance. Thankfully though, the technical problems got sorted out during the intermission, and the rest of the show went off without a hitch.

The two dances that Sayee performed in were both great. She was in the third-to-last and the last dances, which were two of the best ones, in my opinion. The whole show was really just a lot of fun to watch. It's not the sort of thing I would've ever gone to if I didn't have the connection through Stefy, so I'm really glad we decided to attend. It beats the hell out of going to see another mediocre movie like American Dreamz, and you can't beat the price either... free.

Sunday started out with all sorts of ambition. I was going to dive into my section of the COM 200 paper. I was going to clean up the apartment. I was going to finish my Uncle Tom's promotional DVD that I've been slowly chipping away at. By the end of the day, I made some modest progress on all of this stuff, but never finished anything. The COM 200 paper just never caught my attention since I still have four days to tinker around with it (maybe I just need that sense of urgency to get rolling on a project like that). Cleaning the apartment never really happened either... no excuse there. I was able to make a small dent in the Toro DVD, but couldn't finish it off because I lost some of the information I needed to stick into the video. Ah, well. Everything will come together one way or another. It was just nice to have a sort of lazy, low-key day before my crazy run-up to graduation.

President Bush gets a MySpace profile:

I know that Earth Day is basically over by now, but I thought this was an appropriate post. Do yourself a favor and hop over to Apple's movie page to watch the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth. This is easily the scariest film promo I have ever seen.

Maybe Al Gore will never get his chance to be the president, but he's doing a great service for America, and the world at large, by speaking out about global warming. Let's just hope that the right people are listening.

Stefy and I couldn't make up our minds last night whether to see Thank You for Smoking or American Dreamz. The timing worked out better to see Dreamz, so that's what we finally settled on.

You'd think for a movie that has such great material to poke fun at (American Idol and George Bush), this thing would be hysterical. While there were a few funny moments, this movie just tried to do too many things, and never really hit its stride.

Hugh Grant plays a successful prick, a-la About a Boy, but his character never really anything to redeem himself this time around. I always say that I enjoy movies where the main characters aren't necessarily good people, but I do think it's essential that you actually like them. There's just nothing likable or funny about Grant in this film. And come on... as much as we all know that Simon Cowell is a prick, you still love the guy.

Dennis Quaid's President Staton is basically Bush by another name, and for a person as rife for satire as G.W., the gags all felt lightweight and never cut deep enough to really make this film a great piece of satire. Yes, Bush portrays himself as a simpleton, but I feel like simply reproducing his dimwitted mannerisms lets him off the hook for all the problems his administration stirred up in five years.

What disappoints me about American Dreamz is that the filmmakers clearly understand how f#cked up America has become, but doesn't have a clue how to do anything about it. By the end of the film, nothing has changed. The TV show is still wildly popular. The president is still running the country into the ground. And everyone seems to be okay with that. It's one thing to be cynical, but if you're just going to buy into your own cynicism, then what's the point in making a movie like this in the first place?

Well, we did it. Five consecutive episodes of NBC's Days Of Our Lives. And a 30 minute survey about the show. Holy crap, I feel like my IQ just dropped 30 points after doing this project. Can you believe that I got about 10% of my final grade in COM 275 for doing this?

I mean, the show really wasn't as horrible as I was expecting, but it does definitely get monotonous after a while. There was this continuing storyline throughout the five episodes where a woman has amnesia, and is trying to choose between three different men (all of whom she was married to at one point or another). I mean, this plot was interesting at first, but just kept going on and on, and getting more and more ridiculous.

I will admit though that the guy who plays John is hysterically funny in his role. This dude is the most ridiculous over-actor on television. You can tell that he's made an entire career out of squinting his eyes and talking with a raspy voice. What a cushy job.

Anyway, at least the whole thing is over with. Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Well, it's official. Check it out (if you can)... page 7A of the State News today, yours truly gets listed as one of the new members of Phi Beta Kappa.

It's funny that I had never even heard of this organization a few weeks ago, and now I'm a member. For those who don't know, here's a quick rundown of what PBK is:

Phi Beta Kappa was founded on December 5, 1776, at the College o