If you're looking, you'll notice a few upgrades.

Like I said, bit by bit.

Patrick Ruffini and VodkaPundit are up soon. So is the original Brothers Judd site, and the Travelling Shoes webzine.

More to come, kids.

Wow.

Read the whole thing.

I've got a [bleep]-load of work, so one last thing:

I give to you proof that good things happen when we take a cue from the Israelis.

LATE UPDATE: It works for the Israelis, it works for us.

Damn MedPundit. I spend all morning getting worked up about cruddy doctors, and she has to go and post this.

There's a reason she's listed at the left, folks.

The quagmire continues:

U.S. Army troops and armored vehicles entered Baghdad in large numbers this morning for the first time, military officials said, probing toward the heart of an Iraqi capital now ringed by U.S. forces.

After armored Marine columns pushed to the eastern outskirts of Baghdad on Friday and Army troops seized full control of the international airport, the U.S. forces appeared to have Baghdad and its 5 million inhabitants in a vise by day's end, with Marines in the east, Army brigades to the south and west and Special Operations forces blocking the main highway leading north.

This morning, two task forces from the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, with at least 20 Abrams tanks and 10 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, entered the city from the south. The force moved as far north as the Tigris River, near the city center, then veered west to the airport, Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart said in a briefing at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar.

And no sooner do I finish saying that than this happens:

U.S. armored forces rolled into parts of Baghdad on Saturday, smashing through Iraq's Republican Guard to reach the ultimate destination of their two-week surge across southern Iraq. In one skirmish, Marines with bayonets battled Arab fighters from abroad in a marsh on Baghdad's outskirts.

While Iraqi television played patriotic music and soldiers and militiamen loyal to President Saddam Hussein vowed to keep fighting, resistance to the American onslaught seemed tenuous. The U.S. sweep left burning tanks and bodies of Iraqi fighters behind.

"American armored combat formations have moved through the heart of Baghdad, defeating the Iraqi troops we have encountered," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp, a U.S. Central Command spokesman.

Oh, yeah, we're doomed.

I would like to announce that I have received the most grotesque porn email I've ever seen, and yes, that says a lot:

It's titled "Bulimic Girls Getting Their Protien [sic] Injection..[sic]"

You can figure out the, pardon the pun, thrust of the text of the email if you try.

I used to have a more libertarian perspective on pornography. Give me a few more emails like this, and I'll make Andrea Dworkin look tame.

So I just got done listening to NPR for the better part of two hours. I've learned two things:

First, it's not the left-wing bias, worldview, commentary, or writing that gets to me. I can deal. It's the music. Michael Kelly died today (requiem aeternas), and the music that played after the memorial peace was more jingly and upbeat than the funereal dirge they played when announcing that U.S., U.K., and Australian forces were within twenty miles of Baghdad.

The music ranges from inappropriate to insulting to jarring.

The second problem is not with NPR. It goes like this: I think a significant percentage of the black community in this country is in the middle of a delusional psychosis. I don't think every black American is like Maxine Waters -- God forfend -- and I know NPR was looking to play up opposition to war in Iraq in the black community, but:

The sheer begging for socialism is insane. More money for housing! Right. Ever hear of something called "the projects"? My dad grew up in them (for a little while) when they were only government-built and funded slums ... before they went downhill. Always paid for and cared for by HUD, by the way. I wanna know how much a 21,000 pound bomb costs, anyway! They can find the money for that, and there are people starving in this country! In order: A Daisy Cutter, which is about one third the size of a MOAB, costs $27,000 per. As a rule, (conventional) bombs get slightly cheaper with size, but for the sake of argument, let's say each MOAB costs $81,000. So? Ten of those is $810,000. At one hundred, you'd have enough to seed the funding for an additional level of incompetents to oversee Social Security! Think the lines are bad, the customer service actually evil, and the outlays pitiable now? Let's see what happens when you drop a whole new shock team of bureaucrats in! If you think that money would actually go out in the form of classic income transfers, I have a bridge on Long Island I'd like to offer you. And anyway, starving? You gotta be shitting me. I watch my paycheck bleed every week so that the poor kids nearby (and far away) can get fat -- and rest assured, they do.

This, ladies and germs, is what I'm talking about. It's nuts. I can't bring myself to believe most black people are this crazy; it simply wouldn't make sense. I'm forced to conclude that either a small group of nutcases, who comprise the majority of these sentiments in the black community, showed up at one well-covered rally; or a sizable enough percentage of black Americans are nuts to give an impression of the whole.

Ok, this sucks: Jimmy's hanging it up.

I understand why -- believe me -- but it still sucks.

Let's hope he comes back soon.

You may have noticed that my page has changed several times over the last several days.

You're right. It has.

I'm trying to add, bit by bit, little changes, so that the whole thing doesn't go kablooey on me. Hence, I just now added Rachel Lucas. More to come.

I was having a really lousy day before I read this:

Incensed fans walked out of Pearl Jam's concert Tuesday after lead singer Eddie Vedder impaled a mask of President Bush on a microphone stand, then slammed it to the stage.

Most of Vedder's antiwar remarks earlier in the Pepsi Center show were greeted with mixed cheers and scattered boos. But dozens of angry fans walked out during the encore because of the macabre display with the Bush mask, which he wore for the song Bushleaguer, a Bush- taunting song from the band's latest album, Riot Act.

"When he was sharing his political views in a fairly benign manner - supporting our troops, opposing policy - that's OK," said Keith Zimmerman, of Denver.

"When he takes what looks like the head of George Bush on a stick, then throws it to the stage and stomps on it, that's just unacceptable. I love Pearl Jam, but that was just way over the edge. We literally got up and left."

Why did this put me in such a good mood, you might ask?

Because...

Pearl Jam sucks.

That's it! Finally, some moron left-wing entertainer whom I didn't like anyway, not named Streisand or Affleck, self-destructs! It's awesome!

[Pearl Jam has sucked, by the way, since the early Nineties. I've always been pleased with the way they flushed themselves down the toilet in the mid- to late-nineties with that string of (unusually) unlistenable albums. Now that their lyrics have ascended to lounge singer ridicule:

[T]he lyrics of "Bushleaguer," [] in part call Bush "a confidence man" and say, "He's not a leader / he's a Texas leaguer."

...I can be even happier!

"A Texas Leaguer?" What the hell does that mean? That he plays Class AA Baseball? That he's got a wicked slider, good heat, and a serviceable change, but they're trying to build up his endurance? That Eddie Vedder is blessedly approaching that mini-Eschaton I like to call "heroin overdose"? (Yes, I'm in a snippy mood today.)

To my friends from college who liked Pearl Jam, no matter how crappy the music got -- I'm looking at you, Matt -- HAHAHAHAHAHA!!]

Pardon the inappropriate outburst:

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sorry.

Ok, not really.

It's Called a Primary, Terry

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the face of the modern Democrat party:

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee said he is concerned about infighting among some of the party's presidential candidates.

"I don't like that," DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday. "We need to make sure we are monitoring that. The focus of this is beating George Bush."

Much as I hate to stand up for a bunch of people whom, were they on the side of the road on fire, and I had to go to the little boys' room, I would just as soon skip over en route to the nearest gas station, I have to stick up for 'em on this one:

The point is not beating George Bush. The point is getting to a position where they can try to beat George Bush. Primaries aren't sweet and sappy affairs, Terry. Ain't the nature of the beast. Deal with it, and hope they don't get too bloodied.

Anyway, serves you right for letting the loony left in your party.

Thbbt.

Third-String QB: Team Needs New Starting Quarterback After Current QB Wins Superbowl and Superbowl MVP

Or at least, that seems to be the thrust of Kerry's drivel:

Regardless of how successful the United States is in waging war against Iraq, it will take a new president to rebuild the country's damaged relationships with the rest of the world, Sen. John Kerry said Wednesday.

Right. Inevitably, successful prosecution of a war means we need to throw out the bum who won it, right?

The Massachusetts senator has long said Saddam Hussein must be disarmed and removed from power, and he voted to give President Bush the authority to strike Iraq. But he has strongly criticized Bush for his actions leading to the war, saying the president should have given diplomacy more time and his failure to do so has alienated America's allies.

Yeah, that 18-month rush to war musta turned off all of those countries whose TARDISes were broken.

I'm looking at you, France.

''Because of the depth of this breach, because of the anger that exists with many countries and their leaders ... I don't think they're going to trust this president no matter what,'' Kerry said.

This is a bad thing, right? We want them to trust us why, exactly? So they can roll us like they did Bill "The [European] People Love Me" Clinton?

Yeah.

Kerry said he would heal relations with other countries by approaching the United Nations with an aggressive plan to make the United States a leader on international, environmental and health issues without ceding its right to defend itself.

In other news, scientists are seeking a way to destroy a human being's brain while leaving the person capable of walking and making major foreign policy speeches.

It worked with John Kerry, one of the scientists said, on the condition of anonymity.

''I believe we can have a golden age of American diplomacy,'' he said. He also defended his support of the USA Patriot Act which broadened the government's powers to shut down terrorist financiers and money launderers and the resolution giving Bush the authority to go to war against criticism that the measures eroded American civil liberties.

Something for everybody. The modern Democrat candidate.

He also said he looks forward to appointing an attorney general who reads and abides by the constitution of the United States.

...thereby breaking precedent with every Democrat president since Kennedy.

Jim Grant, whose Peterborough company offers training for teachers, asked Kerry about Bush's ''No Child Left Behind'' education law, calling it an unfounded mandate that will open the door to widespread use of school vouchers.

Kerry agreed, saying that the solution is fixing public schools, not building charter schools or using vouchers to allow children to be transferred. ''You can't build charter schools fast enough for an entire generation,'' he said.

(1) On the contrary, yes you can. And anyway, who said anything about building new schools?

(2) More importantly, who says you need to? Send the kids who need it to private schools; if parents are happy with their kids' current schools, no one's proposing shipping the little tykes off against their parents' wishes. (That's the sort of thing Democrats do.) So, not to be too large a fly in the ointment, but, well, we're not talking about building new schools for an entire generation; we're talking about sending a sizable portion of a generation to better schools.

Gods above, I'm looking forward to the Democrat primaries.

Courtesy of MedPundit, I bring you this from Overlawyered:

March 19 -- $12,000 a bed. "Nursing homes [in some states] now pay close to $12,000 per bed annually on liability insurance, according to [a new] report [by AON Risk Consultants]." Nationally, liability costs per bed grew from an average of $300 annually a decade ago to $1,120 in 1997 and $2,880 in 2002, according to the study. Defenders of rising litigation say it provides long-overdue recourse against bad care, but the former administrator of the recently closed Gadsden Nursing Home in Quincy. Florida, doesn't buy the idea that only poorly run homes can expect to be sued. "'We were ranked 51st out of 668 homes in the state the day we closed. If you're ranked in the top 7.5%, you're not a bad home,' he said." (Reuters Health, "Legal liability costs surge for US nursing homes", Mar. 14).

You'll pardon me if I'm in no mood to sob for nursing homes right now -- in the last eight months, I've seen cases from six different ones that involved one or more of the following: (1) dehydration; (2) gangrene (and limb loss); (3) skin anthrax (and limb loss); (4) ignored, critical medical emergencies (as in, immediate surgery was required); (5) actual abuse (striking, starving, locking away); and, (6) death.

So if they're paying more for insurance, I'm thinking there might be a reason.

Hot damn.

Jessica Lynch, a 19-year-old private first class missing since the ambush of an Army maintenance company 10 days ago in southern Iraq, has been rescued by Special Operations forces, defense officials said yesterday.

Yes, that's the same Miss Lynch about whom I was lamenting earlier.

Deo gratias.

As my wife likes to ask, can we just nuke France now?

This, on the other hand, is a ... significantly more pleasant memory.

Hey, I saw this thing on Clash of the Titans.

Shiver. Not the best memory, in any sense.

Thanks for Nothing, Now Go Away

So -- for the sake of argument -- suppose that a popular music group’s fan base is made up predominantly of folks who didn’t, shall we say, pull the left lever in 2000. Suppose that group is under fire for anti-American anti-Bush remarks made abroad. Suppose that group wants nothing more than for the whole thing to go away.

You gotta ask yourself: Do the Dixie Chicks really want help from Al Gore?

And while we’re at it, Al is still off his rocker:

According to the Tennessean, Gore used recent attacks on the Dixie Chicks that followed anti-war comments by Natalie Maines as an example. Gore told the audience, "They were made to feel un-American and risked economic retaliation because of what was said. Our democracy has taken a hit," Gore said. "Our best protection is free and open debate."

So if I understand correctly, people -- for the sake of “our democracy” -- should not be allowed to criticize or boycott those with whom they disagree.

Sure. Makes sense to me.

I will skip ranting about how freedom of speech is freedom from government interference with speech, not freedom from being told you’re a moron by your fellow citizens. Let’s just say Al would be singing a different song if Maines had yelled, “I wish Hitler was our president!”

Sadaam Hussein, this asshole has pissed you off for
the last time.


What annoying Celebrity would you most likely wanna kill?
brought to you by Quizilla

Gee whiz, tell Mommy to stop babying you so much
and get out of the house once in a while. You
are the typical nerd. Congradulations, the
other kids walk all over you and make fun of
you, but you'll show them someday when you
develop the latest line of anti-depressants
that they will need when they are 35.


What kind of typical high school character from a movie are you?
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Some day my blog will come...

This is either worrisome or inaccurate:


Where do you fall on the liberal - conservative political spectrum? (United States)
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I mean, I'm not just one point out on the right, dangit. I'm a standing member of the VRWC!

Oh, I get it. Blogger's messed today.

So while I try to get my template sorted out, some light blogging:

I guess this means that the coke really went to Robin Williams's head all those years ago, after all. Because, you know, it's one thing to say shit like this when we're at peace; you have to be high as a kite to offer it in the middle of a war.

The thing I really like about Powell's speech warning Syria and Iran about a smackdown is not so much the content -- let's be honest, it was just a verbal rebuke, we lack the cajones to back it up -- as where it was given: AIPAC. I mean, is there a better way to tell off crazy Arab (and Persian) fanatics, be they religious or secular, than to do so in front of a bunch of Jews? And Zionist ones at that?

Good for Powell, and good for AIPAC.

One of my great confusions is how Blogger reads HTML. For example, although the HTML instruction may limit the space and size of a table, it is rare indeed that Blogger agrees with the HTML.

You're A Hero!
You live to save the world! You are honest, true,
and always victorious! You may not always get
the girls/boys, but all you really want to do
is battle the bad guys.


What Type Of Anime Character Are You?
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alt="Take this quiz!"
src="http://www.geegaw.com/archives/humor/blood.JPG">
Which Humor
Troubles the Disposition of YOUR Body?

Damn.