By my count, 561 people have now claimed responsibility for the 16 words. At first glance it seems important that Bush would admit wrongdoing, but when you look at it for more than 6 seconds it starts to look like another clever ploy. We know that Bush just does what he's told. Same goes for any president - there are plenty of people below him who are responsible for gathering, analyzing, and ultimately reporting intelligence to the President. Bush taking responsibility is meaningless. It still doesn't answer the question as to whether or not the case against Iraq was, as our British friends have been saying, "sexed up" to make Iraq look like a bigger threat than it really was.

But what if no means yes, and yes means harder?

Not that it's a surprise, but now at least he's come out and said it so that I have another solid reason to hate this man.

Bush is such a fucking lying, ignorant piece of fucking shit that I can't even get in enough swearwords in one fucking sentence to express how fucking much I hate that goddamn cocksucker. Yeah, important to "respect each individual" my fucking ass.

CNN also has a poll up now, and currently, 62% of people are saying that marriage should only be between one man and one woman. What the fuck is wrong with people? Why are they so fucking retarded? Why does it matter to anyone what anyone else does? Why do these people give a shit? I hate Bush, but I hate a good deal of the populace just as much for being so fucking stupid. God damn it.

So I was reading in the paper today about some local libraries that were purging their records in defiance of the USA-PATRIOT act. Of course, I'm thinking that's great - anytime someone stands up against that fucked up piece of legislation is fine by me. But I got to thinking - what exactly do they mean when they say that records are being purged? If it's paper records, that's easy - just burn that shit. But a lot of stuff is computerized these days. I sincerely hope they're doing more than just hitting the delete key on stuff, which doesn't make data disappear like some people might think. I would imagine that libraries could tell the government "Oh, sorry, we deleted our records", but then the Feds say "Well, give us your computers anyway" and then use either simple methods or complex forensics to retrieve the "deleted" data. Hopefully these libraries are using some proper tools to truly delete records that they want purged.

The joy of love.

I really like this Krugman guy's columns. Yeah, I know I'm just preaching to the converted with these links, and not doing a good job of being anywhere near balanced or showing the other side, but fuck it. It's nice to see at least someone out there is asking these questions in a large public forum like the Times.

Wow, we actually said "no" to Saudi Arabia. It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out, because it's going to take some skills to balance things out. Right now, we've got the Saudis up in arms over accusations that people over there have been helping al Qaeda. But we don't want to piss them off too much by telling them who exactly it is that we have our suspicions about.

Let's get hypothetical for a minute. What do you think would happen if we found out that the Saudi government was helping the terrorists? Even if went so far as to directly fund the September 11th attacks? Look, I have my doubts about what the hell is up with that country, but I'm not saying that I think this is what happened - I obviously don't know. I'm just throwing this scenario out for argument's sake. By "found out," I mean it becomes public knowledge. Do you think people would finally get pissed, and start calling for an end to relations with Saudi Arabia? What would happen when you told them that gas might go up $.06 a gallon for even thinking about it? How far is the government willing to go to protect the Saudi-US relationship? How far are we willing to go?

So this is pretty fucked up. But you know, in an evil way, this may have been useful. Think about it - who's more obsessive than gamblers? I think that alone could have made this a decent tool. Also, in a screwed up way, the fact that they're coming up with ideas like this gives me some hope. After all, there's really no way that we can predict this shit. I'm sorry, but if terrorists really want to do shit, they probably will. I think the Defense Department realizes this. Yeah, it's kinda scary if they're punting on things, but I do like to see realistic attitudes. And you know, why not just bet it on a fucking horse?

In the end, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but Daschle and Dorgan make intelligent arguments against this system. I can easily see how this would encourage terrorist acts. Bet on the assasination of a leader... Then go assasinate the leader. Also, this would just piss other countries off. Of course, we don't really care who we piss off, so while that's a valid argument from where I stand, that kind of logic fails our government.

I guess Windows XP users can breathe easy... Maybe.

More industrious Japanese kids.

This has been getting the links for awhile now, but here it is in case you haven't seen it.

So we were having a discussion the other day on how mod chips for game consoles work. Well, here's an explanation.

It was pretty much like I figured - there's uncopyable data on factory discs, which of course won't appear on a copied disc. The modchip helps compensate for this using a microcontroller (which is typically a simple CPU packaged with other stuff like memory all on a single chip).

I don't know what the deal is with Playstations and black CD-Rs, though, and if they really do work or not. Seems to me like they shouldn't work without a mod chip, even if they're as black as the night itself, mayor.

I'll be happy if they can come out with some cool toys, but they don't use McFarlane's stupid fucking packaging that everyone else and their fucking dog has adopted.

Speaking of toys, which I so rarely do, has anyone been to Toys 'R' Sucks lately? There's one in my area that has started re-organizing their shelf space. The new additions can best be described as miniature aisles. That's right, aisles. With the new stupid organization they put in place within the last couple of years, it's been that fucking un-navigable setup of all those stupid fucking 'X' shaped units, with some small four-sided islands and some larger two-sided ones. Well, at least in the action figure area, which really is one of the most important places. Anyway, they're now extending those two-sided ones by adding more units to form what look like little mini aisles. Maybe they got a clue that their new store organization is total shit and that linearity and orthogonality are the keys to designing a good store? At least a store where people can find this thing called 'product'? Yeah, I know, they're probably not, and their so-called product is mostly shit. But if I'm going to go into a store and break down crying because it's never going to be good again, I at least want to be able to to do so on nice, straight aisles.

Here's the other side of the FCC and media ownership debate from Michael Powell, chairman of the FCC (and also Colin Powell's son).

"By what logic would we support a cult that is trying to kill us?" Oh, I don't know, maybe the logic stemming from the fact that 15 of the 19 Highjackers were from Saudi Arabia?

I'm by no means surprised that a bunch of stuff was pulled from the report (Allah forbid we should piss of the Saudis), but I'm impressed that someone in government actually stood up and said shit is fucked in the Kingdom.

Also, while looking up some info on my own about Gillespie, I came across what may be a very interesting page: Disinfopedia.

The new GOP chairman is a "former lobbyist" indeed. Here's a sampling of a few of his clients from the past couple of years:

- Enron: helped Enron get the ear of Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force for around $700,000, and helped influence the House's August 2001 energy bill on behalf of the "21st Century Energy Project," a coalition of some of Gillespie's clients which included Enron and Dailmler-Chrysler (who both contributed $50,000 to the project).
- Daimler-Chrysler: in addition to lobbying for the Daimler-Chrsyler as part of the 21st Centrury Energy Project, also lobbied to have higher fuel efficiency standards pulled from Bush's energy bill in March 2002.
- Big Steel: helped convince the Administration to impose a tariff on imported steel, which were declared illegal by the World Trade Organization in May.

He was also one of the primary writers of the GOP's "Contract with America" back in '94.

Gillespie, was referred to by The New Republic as "the most important operative you've never heard of in the Bush presidency." Although they say he was a "senior communications advisor" in the first CNN article, he was much more heavily involved with the campaign than that humble title implies. He did work with many of Bush's top advisors, and was program chairman of the 200 Republican Convention, which was responsible for trying to promote the Republicans as a party of compassion and inclusion by doing such things as putting entertainers like Chaka Khan on stage,

Most of this info comes by way of Arianna Huffington's book Pigs at the Trough.

You may not need a reminder, but be sure and check out this week's Onion. I particularly enjoyed this week's What do you think?.

Yup.

Put on your shoes and go to work, you shallow cunt.

Seriously, wearing them for comfort is just fine. But if you're paying $85-$145 for flip-flops, you are this week's poster child for "Why they hate us." Also, what is with bullshit statements like "The more dressy styles make the statement that you are credible, yet still accessible"? Can you believe that people say shit like this and actually believe it? Yeah, I can.

But what's gonna happen to all their porn?

Lucky timing for the Administration. Probably not long before people are like "what 16 words?"

Genius? Huh? You mean liar? Bottom line is, there's a big fuck up here. The President said something that turned out to be false. No, we didn't go to war over the 16 Words, but those words were part of the fabric that was our justification for war. Okay, so one thing has been proven false. Does that call in to question all of the other reasons? You bet your fucking ass it does, because a lot of us were questioning this shit from the get-go. Also, I am as yet to be convinced of a "present danger" from Saddam.

Then there's this nonsense that if there was any substance to the claims that the justifications for war were shaky, Bush would be in impeachment trouble. Yeah, that might be the case, if it wasn't for the fact that we have a republican controlled congress and a press that treats presidents differently. Clinton faced a republican-led congress, and the press latched onto a sex scandal like ravenous wolf high on angel dust. Meanwhile, Bush enjoys a republican led congress that is more interested in protecting its party's leader than protecting the country as well as a subdued press corps that asks bullshit scripted questions like "how is your faith guiding you?" when we're about to start fucking bombing people.

I do agree with at least part of one thing Kristol says, that the Democrats need to be "acting as an intelligent, loyal opposition." I don't care for the word loyal, because I'm getting sick of the implications that if you're not with Bush, you're with Saddam. But the words "intelligent" and "opposition" are spot on.

You know shit is fucked up when Michael Jackson is the voice of reason.

Fuckin' A. I knew my propensity towards bitter beers would pay off someday.

Okay, I swear to god, next fucking year I'm going to ComicCon. In the meantime, here are some pictures of new toys being shown at ComicCon. Nothing too exciting, except for the Playmates "Stonecutter Moe" figure. Of course, it's an "incentive" figure (don't you hate those marketing fucks?), which means I'll have to go out and buy like 4 other figures to mail away for it. Also, it's about time that Ron Jeremy got his own action figure.