Sopranos Season Six

I'm finally starting to watch the final season of the Sopranos. All I can say is "Wow."

I wonder if they will be able to sell the Season Six DVD over the counter. This is one of the most powerful sleep aids that I have found in my life.

I'm really interested to find out how this incredible series ends. Will Tony Soprano have that third plate of pasta capellini? Will Carmela ever sell that house that nobody cares about? Will AJ stay with that woman that showed up at the end of last season? Doesn't she have a baby or something? Could I care less?

Will Meadow finish that whatever school she attends and embrace/reject her family's roots? When was the last time I cared about Meadow's story? Is it possible to make Christopher lamer? Maybe we could see him change some diapers. Or maybe make some toast. That would be poignant.

And what's next for Bobby and Janice? Another baby we don't care about? Maybe they'll go shopping for more board games. Dude, maybe they'll pick up Battleship. or Wheel of Fortune. Maybe they'll fix some lasagna.

I know that I'm not supposed to spoil anything, but I just can't help it. I have a source at HBO who did let me in on a few spoilers.

- "Somebody" makes a killer tomato sauce and leaves out the basil!

- Silvio hires three new strippers!

- Christopher gets back on dope, goes back into rehab, back on dope again, back into rehab, and then has a dream about Adriana.

- Carmela threatens to leave Tony until she remembers where her she gets her money. She feels guilty about it for a while, and then has a white wine spritzer and forgets about it.

- AJ learns all about tile grout!

- Meadow gets some new lipstick!

- And what happens to Tony? Well, I don't want to spoil it for you, but here's a hint... A magazine salesman stops by and gives him an offer that he can't refuse. Three for the price of one! But I'm not going to tell you *which* magazines he subscribes to.

And the big surprise? Well, you didn't hear it from me but they may come back for Season Seven. There's a story about some dental work that you really don't want to miss.

Conservative Iraqi Says "We Don't Want To Fix Our Own Problems"

You gotta love this...

Omar at Pajamas Media has been soiling his pants over the Democrats desire to leave Iraq.

I said it before and I say it again; this war must be won. If it is not the world as you in the United States know it today (and as we here in Iraq dream for it to become) will exist only in books of history. The forces of extremism that we confront today are more determined, more resourceful, and more barbaric than the Nazi or the communists of the past. Add to that the weapons they can improvise or acquire through their unholy alliance with rogue regimes, combined with their fluid structure and mobility… well, they can be more deadly than any forces we have faced in the past. Much more.

Yeah, this war is soooo important to the world that the people in Iraq REFUSE to come together and fight for their own smurfin' country. Of course, this is exactly what every conservative blogger believes. And that's why they are typing so hard to win this war! From a Starbucks... two blocks from their house...

In no time al-Qaeda and all similarly extremist factions will start boasting about how America is fleeing Iraq under the heavy blows of the “Mujahideen” planned by OBL himself.

The Democrats just offered al-Qaeda victory on a silver plate. For free. An imaginary victory for sure, for now, but it can still be used by al-Qaeda to promote their ideology of death and attract more recruits.

“America’s will can be broken, America is not invincible,” they will say in a thousand ways. Is this the kind of message you want to send to the enemy?

Ooooh. A guilt trip from an Iraqi. Yeah, I'm so sorry that we haven't spent every forking cent that we have in our Treasury to REBUILD YOUR COUNTRY. I'm so sorry that we haven't sent every healthy teenager in America to your sandbox to fight YOUR WAR.

How many Iraqis have actually tried to stop Al Qaeda? How many Iraqis have tried to track down Osama bin Laden?

Yeah, I hate to break this to you but America isn't invincible. It isn't indestructible. There's only so much we can do to protect ourselves against the treats that exist in the world. Al Qaeda isn't the only enemy that can strike America. Al Qaeda isn't the only group that can attack the ports and refineries that lay within breathing distance of my home. If I have to choose between saving you or protect me, then I'm going to choose "protecting me" every goddamn time.

How many Iraqis want to protect the refineries in Texas City against MS-13? Against Al Qaeda? Against crazy domestic terrorists that placed explosives near a clinic in the city where my sister lives?

Sorry, Omar, but the Iraqis had a chance to capitalize on the money that American tax payers invested in your country. You people squandered it in power struggles between ancient religious fundamentalists. That's your loss and my loss. You know that the surge isn't going to work. You know that the Americans can't stay there for twenty years, fifty years, one hundred years. One day we'll leave, and the people of Iraq will split up and support whatever religious group that makes them feel fancy. And then one day your oil will run dry and we really won't give a damn what you do.

So, why don't you do something to bring your people together instead of writing a blog post about how the Democrats don't care about you. Because Iraq isn't going to come together under General Petraeus. Or Maliki. Or Bush. Or the Republicans. Or the Democrats. Hell, I doubt there's a single damn thing that would unite the Iraqi people. You can delude yourself into thinking that it's the Democrat's fault. Hell, Pajamas Media exists for the sole purpose of assigning blame to the Democrats. But at the end of your day, you'll know that Iraq hardly existed at all except in the mind of Saddam Hussein and the British that drew the map in the first place. Just keep on cashin' those paychecks and pretend that this is the fault of the Democrat party. Keep on pretending that Iraq's problem is the lack of a reality show on NBC that features all your freshly painted schools.

Happy Fantastic News

I don't know if you've been following the news lately, but it's all good. It's beyond good. It's ultra-ribs. Let's recap:

Bush's AIDS czar didn't want to send condoms to Africa because abstinence is the only moral way to prevent the spread of STDs. He quit on Friday because he's been getting 'massages' from Washington DC's escort community. No word on how many 'massages' he received with his wife in the room. In his defense, he says that he's been using the services of Central Americans lately. The Republicans are blaming this on the scandal-hungry Mainstream Media BoogeyMan. In other news, they still want a restraining order against Bill Clinton.

Earlier this year Bush ordered a teensy weensy number of troops into Iraq for a tiny little fraction of time in order to make Iraq safe for Tony Roma ribs. Well, they need to stay for a teeny tiny little bit longer, but only because they need to keep searching for those elusive TEH AWESOME metrics that translate into Mission Accomplished 2.0. But don't you DARE say that we're losing. Successful Warfare in the 21st Century is measured by how long you stay!

How do you define success in the Republican Party's War On TEH TERRARISTS? Obviously an increase in the number of global terror attacks == VICTORIOUSNESS!!!!!!! If there are nearly 30% more terror attacks in the world, then sombody's been doing their job since 9/11, right?

Some commie pinko in the Army says that there is a failure in Generalship in our Army. Yeah, his title might say he is a Lieutenant Colonel or that his is a Deputy Commander, but he's obviously been watching too many Michael Moore movies. Even worse, he puts some of the blame on Congress. Hey you sick lefty, the Republican Congress confirmed the BEST people that Rumsfeld nominated. There's only a failure in Congressional Leadership for saying that we are losing this war!

A Christian Freedom Fighter left an explosive at a Women's clinic in Austin. It's not domestic terrorism. It's what Jesus would do... if Jesus knew how to make explosives. Thank God there are no hungry or sick kids on the East side of Austin that need any attention.

NYPost Not Happy With Harry Reid

Rubert Murdoch's NYPost put on a fresh pair of soiled pants this morning and regurgitated the same GOP talking points about Harry Reid. (If you're not aware, Reid said that the Iraq War is already lost. This caused Republicans to blow a few blood vessels.)

Is the war already lost? Of course not. This is probably the best war America has ever fought. Sure, we could have left in a few days, a few weeks, or a few months. But why stop when you're ahead? Right?

But what would happen if we decided to come home? The NYPost breaks it down for us:

* A rapid, al Qaeda/Iranian-driven descent into regional chaos.

* Most likely, a general war.

* And, almost certainly, a Mideast nuclear-arms race as Saudi Arabia, Eygpt and (probably) Turkey rush to arm themselves in anticipation of an Iranian bomb.

Wow, a "general war" really would suck. Let's avoid that. Fortunately, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran are not pursuing any type of nuclear program right now and they never will if we stay in Iraq. So let's stay. And there's no chance of regional chaos if we stay, so let's stay.

Now, some people might cry and complain that those are not the reasons we went to war. But those people miss the point. Rumsfeld's vision of the faster, smarter military didn't just apply to the boots on the ground. It also applies to the fundamental casus belli of the war. The reason for being in Iraq has to be willing to adapt to changes on the battlefield. We went to war over Saddam's WMD? Not anymore, it's all about the domino effect of democracy? What? That theory is retarded? Well thank God we didn't go to war over that. We went to war to prevent a war from occuring because of regional instability? What? Regional instability? We went to war to prevent a nuclear arms race! There's already an arms race? But we went to war to prevent al Qaeda from gaining a foothold in Iraq!

According to the Republican party, there isn't a bad reason to stay in Iraq. There are only bad people that suggest we should leave. I say the GOP should start calling itself the Iraq Republican Guard, because that's basically all they stand for anymore. In fact, they should just forget about the '08 election in the United States and focus on the next elections in Iraq. They should run Rudy Guiliani for Mayor of Iraq. Remember how he saved NYC on 9/11? It's time for him to kick it up a notch and save Baghdad. John McCain could be his market advisor. And they could bring the entire Bush family over to run the oil companies.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

Gay CPL

According to gaming news site ESReality, CPL has announced its official games for this year's world tour (drum roll please)...

F.E.A.R.

World in Conflict

Nevermind the lame fact that it's F.E.A.R. on XBOX and not the PC version. But it's the fact that Angel Munoz broke his promise to the Quake 3 community. He made a promise that CPL would relive the Q3 glory days by adding it to its official games list, since Q4 has all but flopped in the gaming community. Top players began practicing it again, and he even asked map designers to develop and test new maps. All for naught. Follow the dollars. Sierra Entertainment is CPL's new, big sponsor, thus explaining the shitty selection of games. However, if you happen to be good at either one of these games, that's a serious chunk of change to win.

Lots of people were disappointed with this decision, myself included. I guess it's just time to let go and move on already :)

Pictured above are the Condi Rice, Dick Cheney and Hilary Clinton skins.

NIN Year Zero - Websites

The new NIN album Year Zero was released last week. I want to discuss the album a little bit, but I think I want to cover a few topics related to the ARG (Alternate Reality Game) first.

The album is merely a component in a larger game that explores several paths our society is travelling down. The narrative is communicated via a series of websites that have been sent back in time from the year 2022 by quantum scientists. We are supposed to piece together the narrative told by these sites, and hopefully prevent ourselves from reaching this horrible future.

At present count, there seem to be 27 websites connected to the ARG. These sites have been revealed through several mechanisms. The first site was revealed on a European tour shirt after somebody noticed some letters were a different color. These letters formed a URL for the site www.iamtryingtobelieve.com. One of the lasts sites was revealed on the Year Zero cd itself. When the cd is heated up in a player, the black cd turns white with binary code written on it. This binary code led to www.exterminal.net. (For a list of all sites, visit this thread at ETS.)

The story begins in our present time. An artist creates a website called OpenAirResistance that encouraged people to subvert American values and document them. This was primarily accomplished via graffiti, podcasts, blogs, music, art, etc. A few years later LA is attacked by a dirty bomb and Anaheim is hit with a biological weapon. The government introduces perapin into the water to strengthen the immune system. Perapin decreases sex and bowel activity, and it also seems to cloud the mind. Another bio attack hits the northwest, but people are able to survive thanks to perapin.

After these terror attacks, anybody associated with subverting American values is considered an enemy to the state. We have gone to war in Iran, Syria, and Africa. It seems likely we have dropped a nuke on Iran, because the desert has been turned to glass. America believes that it is fighting with God on its side. At this time (January 2022), America is Born Again (BA) and we now enter Year Zero. A drug called "Opal" has surpassed cocaine as America's favorite drug. (Coincidentally, opal is produced in America.) Opal/Opel appears to be produced by the same company that created Perapin, and is probably similar in chemical structure.

So now the stage is set for the struggle of individualism versus compliance. Soldiers of the wars are now hunting down artists, political dissenters, and other "dead-enders". In February 2022 / Year Zero, the hand of God is literally coming down. It is called "The Presence", and it is a giant four-fingered arm striking down from the sky.

In addition to all of this, there appears to be some type of Ebola-like virus called Red Horse Vector. The government used it to clear out a group of dissenters. Government employees seem to have a vaccine for this called Copper. There are also Red and Blue pills used by former soldiers to combat the effects of perapin and allows them to become efficient killing machines.

There is no single website that tells this entire story. You have to go through the websites and read email, news articles, forum postings, and other detritus to uncover this narrative. This is a story told via personal stories of lost family members, soldiers, and underground artists.

It is within the context of all of the above that the actual album takes place. I plan on discussing the music/lyrics soon, but I thought it was prudent to set up the story.

For more information, check the following websites that are compiling this information:
NIN Wiki
Echoing the Sound

Gingrich : The Democrats Made Me Cheat On My Wife

Newt Gingrich accuses Liberals of causing the Virginia Tech massacre.

I'm assuming that Democrats also forced Newt to marry his geometry teacher. And then the Democrats forced him to have oral sex with another woman. And then the Democrats forced him to divorce his geometry teacher and marry another woman that he was having an affair with.

Those liberals are insanely powerful, right? And the liberals totally suck for creating gun laws in Virginia that allowed Cho to buy two handguns. And hollow-tip bullets from Ebay. Because you know how much liberals love hollow-tip bullets.

Hey, Newt... Have you had sex with any other Congress aides lately? Err... I meant to say: Have the liberal Democrats forced you to cheat on your wife recently?

Asshole.

Where Art Thou Atheists?

Conservative uber-mind, Dinesh D'Souza, wonders why the atheists aren't pissed at God about the Virginia Tech incident.

A blogger at DKos responds.

With or without a belief in a god, with or without your asinine bigotry, we will make progress, we will breathe life back into our university, I will succeed in explaining this or that point, slowly, eventually, in a ham-handed way, at risk of tears half-way through, my students will come to feel comfortable again in a classroom with no windows or escape route, and hell yes we will prevail.

You see Mr D’Souza, I am an atheist professor at Virginia Tech and a man of great faith. Not faith in your god. Faith in my people.

Virginia Tech : Unorganized Thoughts

I've had a bit of tequila tonight, and I thought it might be the appropriate time to talk about the Virginia Tech incident...

My heart goes out to the families of the victims of senseless violence. This includes the people in Iraq who face this type of insane violence on a daily basis. Larry Johnson posts more about this at TPM.

-Seung-hui Cho was definitely an English major. A CS major would've posted this material to Youtube or created a Flash website containing the manifesto. In addition, only an English major would write an 1,800 word manifesto that says absolutely nothing.

-Virginia is for lovers. Specifically, it's a great place for gun lovers. Evidently you can still buy a gun there if you have been interviewed by the police for stalking and have been sent to a mental health facility and labeled a threat to yourself and society.

-According to experts, this is clearly a reason to call for more guns and less guns in our society. Thank God for experts. Maybe we just need one BIG gun...

-NBC obviously shouldn't have shown the multimedia manifesto. I guess we should have been seeing pictures of that freshly painted school building.

Call me crazy, but I kinda suspect that you can't really stop crazy people from doing crazy shit. We can't be American without access to weapons and hollow-tip bullets. We can't be American without access to powerful legal drugs. And we can't be American without a few people exploiting the loopholes that allow for crazy shit to happen. Fortunately we live in America where this only happens a few times a decade. It would totally suck to live in Iraq where this crap happens a few times a week. Fortunately, they have access to good weapons and good drugs.

Imus : The Saga Is Really Over

Don Imus is now officially fired everywhere that he works. At least I can watch MSNBC in the morning. Hoorj!

Unfortunately, I haven't really learned anything in this situation. I already knew that Imus was a total asshat. I already knew that white people are walking on a thin line whenever they use phrases from Spike Lee or Dave Chappelle movies. I also knew that Al Sharpton has waaaay too much time on his hands.

At least the Rutgers girls accepted Imus' apology. That's so very important.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court hasn't apologized for selecting George Bush to be our President in 2000. Dick Cheney hasn't apologized for hijacking our foreign policy and crashing it in the middle of Iraq. The Republican Party hasn't apologized for supporting an idiotic war policy and accusing dissenters of treason.

The media hasn't apologized for whitewashing radio and television and supporting insensitive, racist jerks like Imus, Limbaugh, Savage, Hannity, et al.

Hey, at least Imus isn't going to be on my television in the morning. Mission Accomplished.

Imus : The Saga Won't Be Televised

MSNBC fired Imus today. This is a good thing, because MSNBC is the only cable news channel that I watch. Now I can start watching this channel in the morning.

Meanwhile, MSNBC is probably interviewing some very attractive white people for Imus' timeslot.

And nobody seems to care that his producer called these women 'jigaboos' on television and radio.

Imus : The Saga Continues

The Rutgers Woman's Basketball team speaks out!

“Unless they’ve given ‘ho’ a whole new definition, that’s not what I am,” said Kia Vaughn, the team’s sophomore center.

According to the Urban Dictionary, there are at least ninety definitions for the word 'ho'. The best definition is:

(noun): Anyone who dehumanizes themselves by selling their soul to others. The term can be applied to either a man or a woman or--as in the case of --both.

Anne Coulter: You two ladies look awfully interesting. Are you Indians?
Woman #1: Yes, I'm a Navajo.
Woman #2: I'm an Arapahoe.
Anne Couter: What a coincidence! I'm a right-wing ho!

OK. Maybe that's not the definition Imus was referencing. (And yes, I want to apologize to the she-males that were offended by this post.)

Should Imus be fired for his remarks? Should a shock jock be fired for saying something shocking and abrasive; for generating ratings and attention to his show? Probably not. Should Imus be fired for saying something that runs off his fans and advertisers? Of course, but that hasn't happened over the past twenty plus years that Don Imus has spent offending people.

And I'm still waiting for somebody to explain what this controversy is about. One of his producers called this team "jigaboos" earlier in the show, and that doesn't seem to be part of this conversation. Is it the slang word 'ho' that's so offensive? Is there some type of age cut-off where it's no longer cool to use the word? Would it be OK for Rappin' Granny to use the phrase?

There is so much in life to be outraged over. People who play by the rules aren't flourishing in this country. Our President pledges our troops to fight in a sandbox until somebody else has his job. Minorities and women have a harder time finding work than white men, and they end up working for less money. Energy, food, education, and communication costs continue to rise, while wages remain flat. Condi Rice is a nappy-headed lying bitch, but it's impolite to say so. George Bush is a two-faced liar, but it's too much trouble to do something about it. Does this really require so much of Al Sharpton's attention? Is this really the biggest crisis facing the black community? If so, then I guess things are pretty damn good in that community.

Enough! Imus apologized. Life goes on. The word 'HO' will flourish and will be heard in half of the songs played at the parties these fair-haired women will attend at Rutgers. Life goes on, just like it did after Kramer yelled the "N Word" last year. Life will go on, and all of the alleged news channels will continue to feature vanilla white people on all of their programming. (And these beautiful white people will be shocked, shocked(!) the next time one of their ilk uses this language in public again.) Lame, lame, lame.

Free Speech : Less Free in Imus Country

So, the safety helmet crew wants us to start self-censoring our blogs in order to create the appearance of safety. They haven't won that battle yet, but those people have their fingers in a lot of pies. Now, they have succeeded in taking Don Imus off the radio and television for two weeks because he called a female basketball team "nappy-headed hos". (This *might* make MSNBC bearable to watch in the morning over the next two weeks.) And then it will be back on television because a bunch of important rich white people think that he's irreverent, urbane, and wears a cowboy hat.

Give me a break. Imus comes back in May and makes another racist/misogynist joke within a few months. Or maybe he is replaced by another Glenn Beck / Tucker Carlson / Brit Hume clone who will say something similarly offensive. Is there really a difference? Mainstream cable news is squishy, homogeneous, and white. It's like pasteurized milk. What's the point of taking off Don Imus? To punish him? To punish anybody who says "nappy-headed hos"? Would it be OK to say "well-coifed, tattooed she-beasts"? Or what if we made the ultimate derogatory remark and said they looked like a carlos mencia in drag?

Have a good vacation, Mr. Imus. Maybe you can get your nappy hair cut while you're gone.

Free Speech : Now More Free!

Feel like groaning out loud? Then check out this NYTimes article about the rising call for blogger civility. Evidently, it's time for bloggers to edit the comments left on their site and to engage in civil discussions only. Even worse, we need to place a logo on the site indicated whether anonymous writing is allowed or if the author seeks confirmation for breaking news. The article ends with this sweet quote:

Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.”

(It should be obvious that this is not coming from Bill O'Reilly from Fox News.)

Is free speech enhanced by civility? No. A pleasant conversation is enhanced by civility. Free speech can't really be enhanced by anything. It's either free, or it is censored. Occasionally you have to set restrictions to free speech in order to create the perception of safety and civility. That's why we don't have completely free speech at work or at a baseball game or on the radio. But, Thank God!, it is more civil...

I promise my loyal reader(s) that I won't be censoring comments or fact-checking or confirming stories. This blog will remain completely uncivil and irrelevant.