This one (thanks to Dave Lartigue for pointing it out) needs no caption. I wonder if Jimmy used the "rub my magic totem and make a wish" line often?
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Alito Shuffle Here's our bit of Halloween horror from the White House. Well, the Miers confirmation hearings would have been fun, both as she stumbled through the process and in seeing the conflicted looks on GOP senators. With his second stab at a replacement for this slot the Shrub's chosen a pay-off nominee for the hardcore Right segment of his base. Now we're going to go through the ordeal with Samuel Alito . I don't have the time for details here on a Monday morning, and it's likely better to wait as the most detailed summaries of the man's judicial record will be coming later in the day; much of it's already spilling out, as this is a candidate reported to have been among the top three choices for at least one conservative Christian group. He's already being whisked off to shake hands with Bill Frist and begin his introductions around the senate, so "swift" is being underlined in the call for action from the White House on this nominee. T...
Remember the Last (Talking) Boy on Earth? In a post this past Friday on Highlander's fancy new blog , he recounts how the World's Greatest Girlfriend (not to be confused with the World's Finest Girlfriend, who was doubtless some tease who kept Batman & Superman at each other's throats) gave him the DC Archives edition of the first 10 issues of Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth . Truly, H is blessed among men! (This is something I'd considered buying when I saw it first solicited, opted to put off because of the expense, but may pick up for myself sometime soon anyway. Honestly, the color isn't so important for me with this, and one of those black and white Showcase editions DCs gotten into recently would be an ideal way to collect this series in probably two volumes. Still, full color and glossy paper is a great way to go.) Back at the start of the 1970s, Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics and started creating new properties over at DC, acting openly as wr...
Banzai Not a huge, ominous issue, but a couple news stories today concerning Japan and military forces help demonstrate how no decision is forever. First, there was the news on Saturday that the Pentagon has acceded to demands from Okinawan residents to shift 7,000 (roughly half of those present currently) marines off the base there and over to Guam . Second, news from Friday (although I heard about it after the above) is that the ruling party in Japan has approved a draft revision of Japan's constitution - the constitution forced on them by US occupation forces in 1947 - specifically to drop the prohibitions against war and to generally restore to them the ability to have a full, Japanese military. As I said up top, none of this is meant to imply anything ominous, but as someone raised by a generation who fought the Axis powers for world domination, a generation for many of whom the Japanese were barely considered human (the propaganda machine was highly effective, helping to l...
Money For Nothing Ah! Another ATM fee I didn't know about. ATM Denial Fees. Being charged for asking for money that for some reason - in the example given it's because he asked for $400 when the ATM daily limit for his account was $300 - strikes me as being charged a connection fee to a site for merely attempting to connect to it. The timing on this is apt, as I finally took the few minutes necessary to set up online access to my bank accounts just recently, and having access to the latest details of my accounts has me looking for fees. It's becoming obvious to me that it's important to know who one's dealing with and what the rules are. It's their game, we're at the mercy of their rules. Our only true defense is knowing what the rules are.
Boldy going where who knows how many men have gone before... Tammy passed along some special news from George Takei . Strangely enough, it was more of a shock for me to think of Mr. Sulu as 68 . I can't help but note that he came out with plenty of time for people to line up all the gag gifts for his next birthday...
A little news for fans of Stephen King's Dark Tower series... Thursday brought confirmation that the meaning of the "King" graphic Marvel comics used as a teaser at last year's Comic Con International was, indeed, a reference to " retired " author Stephen King as some had speculated. So, those who are interested in a new installment for the story will be asked to put their own visual imaginations on hold and let graphic artist Jae Lee handle that. The story is set to be first published as a (monthly?) comic beginning next April, then is set to be collected into a hardcover edition in the fall. On the bright side, ironically stated as that may be, Jae Lee's style may prove a good match for the subject. Presumably King's in a position to have approval over the work... but, then again, we made that presumption again and again when it came to his movie adaptations. I've included a black and white bit Lee did a while back which might be encouragi...
"He vas a vunderful dancer!" Cryptleak sent me word of German Director Dani Levy 's next project. It's a comedy titled Mein Fuehrer -- Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit ueber Adolf Hitler ( My Fuehrer -- The Really Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler ) and I have to say this sounds somewhat familiar ... I'd be especially suspicious if the guys canvassing for investors look anything like the guys seen here on the right. Beware of anyone offering to sell a specific percentage of the rights. If, however, the two you see are the ones seen below , the use of deadly force is authorized.
'Twas The Night Before Fitzmas Oh, I don't believe I'll allow myself to gloat until such time as not only indictments, but convictions are handed down, and I suspect the game's so rigged that there's little chance of that . Still, just to revel in the magical air of the moment and abandon ourselves to it, I wanted to share something spotted on the Internet and reported in The Progressive Review . It's a little clunky here and there - perhaps that's why it was reportedly left unsigned - but I enjoyed its spirit. 'Twas the night before Fitzmas, and in the White House Every one was scared shitless, and Bush was quite soused. The indictments were hanging like Damocles' sword As verminous oxen prepared to be gored. The perps were all sleepless, curled fetal in bed, While visions of prison cells loomed in each head. And Dick in his jammies and George in his lap Were sweating and swearing and looking like crap. When out on the web there arose such a clatter...
We're gonna miss her Harriet Miers has requested to be withdrawn as a Supreme Court nominee , and Bush has "reluctantly" accepted it. Now it's back in the hands of the neocons and the religious right. Miers may have been a partisan whackjob, devoted to Jesus and G.W.Bush (not necessarily in that order) but she was in her 60s and judging by her dubious grasp of the constitution she could have been handled. Besides, we might have been able to oust her in a few years through deeper investigations of that land deal and general fitness to serve. Instead, we're likely now to get someone the neocons will wholeheartedly approve of. Someone who can be rammed through on a straight, partisan vote. Someone younger and more directed, who will do more damage, more quickly, and for much longer.
Milestones & Moves I was on a 30-something hour push of increasingly unwanted activity before crashing for several hours -- if I stayed in bed I'd find myself back up by midnight and my Wednesday workday turn into another surreal stretch of forced consciousness. Come to think of it, that's what it feels like most times anyway. I have to note that I continue to be more easily productive between the hours of midnight and 6am than any other six-hour stretch I give a fair chance. Knowing one's almost certainly going to be free of interruptions helps a great deal. Also, I believe another of those character revelations is that I have a secret career wish of being one of the elves in the old story about the kindly cobbler. I'm happier being an unseen mover, evident only by what he accomplishes in the dead of night, than being in the human mix of the day. Still, while I've been otherwise occupied a few things have happened in the world. Before continuing, I do wan...
Wilma Alpha Bam-Bam So, those of us along the Atlantic coast could be in for the fusion of Wilma and Alpha ? While Alpha's dropped from tropical storm to tropical depression, it could hook up by Tuesday to dump on us . Oh, sure, Florida and the Gulf Coast, boo hoo hoo. That's what they're there for. Save all these up and send us several 18"+ snowstorms this winter instead. I'm sick of rain.
Character flaws on parade I can't be the only one who, in order to get anything done, has to have one or more things he's very much supposed to be doing for excellent and theoretically compelling reasons just so he can ignore them and do something else. Can I? I know more than a few very practical, goal-oriented people who set their minds to tasks and find themselves accomplishing things - sometimes almost completely overhauling their lives over the course of weeks and months. They should be shining beacons of example for me. Still, most days it simply fails to prompt me to any action. No matter how clearly I can illustrate to myself that my circumstance would improve and my future brighten if I simply hunkered down and got X done, almost without fail I'll fail to do it until either a conceptual gun's to my head or, more often, it's too late to act. If it's a task I, for some reason, don't want to do I will find almost any other trivial enterprise sudd...
Remembering the theft It was refreshing to read that not everyone's just rolled over for the supposed results of the 2000 & 2004 elections. Oh, I know, we're not going to suddenly undo the past five years, but ignoring what happened only leaves those vulnerabilities in place. The 2000 and 2004 elections are barns after the horses have been stolen, but looking ahead we're not looking at a barn, but a bank. Putting in a better alarm system and bringing in some dependable auditors is what we need.
Such Teases All the legal chatter over the past couple weeks in particular - most recently today's issuance in Texas of a warrant for Rep. Tom DeLay on state conspiracy and money laundering charges - strikes me as such a tease. That I'd love to see him go down, along with a hog-tied Karl Rove and perhaps even Dick Cheney on various charges, I have too little confidence in the system and too much in the priveleges of money and power. Part of me could even see this as, in part, a calculated move to give the opposition enough rope to let them crow loudly about the coming necktie party, only to have the indicted officially cleared of charges and GOP hatchet men find charges to bring up against various Democrats. All of this has disturbing echoes of the "leak" of a trumped up document in Dubya's double-evasion of wartime service case which in an amazing feat of legerdemain (and another pitiful testatment to the rubishness of the average U.S. citizen) sunk Dan Ra...
Not Dead Yet! (Some Sunday odds and ends) Another busy, draining week left me making no updates to the blog, as you can see, and much the same's been the case with email and most other interaction. It was such a bleak, gray, wet week, too, which hardly helped the residual energy level. Still, the weather cleared up by Saturday and we've been enjoying a glorious breeze through the house since yesterday, all of which helps. Seeing a crime in progress, I'm going to point out the lack of attention a set of Avengers auctions is getting. These aren't mine - I'm a pack rat, and tend to hold onto originals even when I've since moved on to buy trade or hardcover collections. I just know the guy who's selling them. Anyway, in some very low-priced lots, this is someone selling volume three of The Avengers , divided into story arcs. I know the seller will genuinely combine the shipping on these, so someone could pick these up for a song and not get soaked on posta...
Death Ray Revisited As a fan of the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters I was interested to see an MIT engineering project look at Archimedes "burning glass" defense of Syracuse by using the sun to set invading Roman ships on fire, since the Mythbusters dealt with this during their 16th episode . Reading this account and revisiting my memories of the Mythbusters account, I don't believe that anyone in either process denied the power of the Sun to create tremendous, terrestrial temperatures, it was really just a matter of reflective area and control. The key to the failure of the myth in the Mythbusters attempt and the success of the MIT attempt is in the number of mirrors, the quality of the mirrors (from polished brass to the silvered glass mirrors we use) and the aiming. After all, solar concentrators have been used to produce temperatures as high as 3200°C (5800°F)as part of energy generation systems. To give you some sense of how high this is, table salt (so...
Possibly as close as most of us will come... ...to space flight and trips to The Moon and Mars outside of our imaginations is what the people at Zero Gravity Inc. are offering. It's $3,750 + tax per person, but if you want to experience a microgravity environment (what's generically called "zero gravity"), and the the 1/3rd & 1/6th gravities of Mars and the Earth's Moon it's the only controlled commercial opportunity extant.
Fast and Furious Nearly five weeks until Armor Wars is due to come out, and Wizkids is already promoting its next DC set, Collateral Damage -- and it's set to come out in February. So, I'm torn between that being only roughly three months between releases and how beautiful several of the pieces previewed are. Below are the details as they provided, with the additional clix they've shown us. Above we see Kalibak - wonderfully detailed, and surprisingly looking as if he was sculpted from a John Buscema drawing, then Clayface - looking as if he stepped out of a Batman cartoon, and below we have Kyle Raynor and Mary Marvel, followed by Dr. Midnite. Midnite seems the weakest of the sculpts, though that's a mix of going with the Owl on the arm and the smoke effect at his feet that just doesn't do the trick, at least not in this view. This isn't to say he looks bad - in some respects it's a more interesting sculpt than they gave Kyle. I'll note that word fr...
Masonic Zombies From Confusion Corner Coming Soon To Spread Flu & Herpes. Eat Brains (Alternate headers: "Delivery To Be 28 Days Late" and "From the Winnipeg Willies Files " ) I've seen too many movies to accept "The viruses were not hazardous..." as anything other than ironic foreshadowing. Nothing to see here. Move along. All is well. All is well. FEMA will save us in the final reel.
Looking around at all the important matters that have grown far beyond the immediate control of voters, I want to do my part to help spread the word about one of Pennsylvania's (my state's) greatest, politically active shames: Senator Rick Santorum . At the moment it appears we'll be able to comb this tick from the hide of Pennsylvania politics, but he's powerfully connected. Even if we get him out, he's likely to make a play for higher office, so find out a little bit more about him now and be ready to protect yourselves.
Armor Wars: Another update & some rethinking. Okay. So, this afternoon they debuted the details for this set's remakes of Ultron... and I'm not impressed. (This was another post of likely no interest to non-players, so pass it by as you wish.) That's truly a shame since this was one of the characters I was looking forward to in this set. When I saw the different levels in the titles I became more interested, but then I saw the dials and costs, but I'm getting ahead of myself. In early summer of 2002, when Infinity Challenge (and, with it, Heroclix as a whole) debuted the game was in its conceptual infancy, and a variety of powers weren't part of the game yet. The mechanics back then were different and even the designers of the game didn't know what would play and what wouldn't once everything went into the fans' hands and they started to road test everything with vigor. Part of that debut set of Marvel characters was Ultron , a Frankenstein's mo...
Sunset for the Budget M Looking vaguely shapeless and froglike in the shot above, inviting inclusion as a character in something from the final decades of Jack Kirby or maybe something by Keith Giffen, Ron Popeil cashed in by selling his company back in August. Here's a retrospective and click-through slide show of the man's 40+ years of gadgeteering and huckstering. Relive the glory days of the Dial-O-matic, Mr. Microphone and the inside-the-shell egg scrambler! (Thanks to Tropical Storm Tammy for this alert.)
The days fold and flow ... one into the next. I seem to be in another of those stretches where - despite appearances the contrary in the previous post - I'm left with little time and less energy. There's no shortage of comment-worthy items in the news, but I'm not interested in just noting them and making no comment. If you're interested in other aspects of the Miers nomination , here's a collection of pieces of possible interest. I simply couldn't countenance listening to Bush's "press conference" this morning , as I was at work and feeling the urge to shout back at the speakers and get up to pace and rant would have adversely affected my productivity. It was my understanding going in that he would be trying once more to put a positive spin on the Iraq situation, and I steadfastly maintain that no possible outcome will prove to be worth the waste of human lives in this invasion and occupation. Things will undoubtedly get better for the people ...
Another Armor Wars update Pure clix (and comics-related) geek material. Nothing to see here. Move along. More information on Armor Wars has been emerging, the next Marvel Heroclix set coming up November 9th -- 4 weeks from tomorrow. (As ever, click on an image for a larger view, which will pop up as its own page.) One of today's revelations was the details on Quicksilver , whose sculpt I decided to cap this entry with, from the 52 pt. rookie member of the Brotherhood of Mutants, the 62 pt. experienced Avengers member, the 105 pt. veteran X-Men affiliate, and the Sir Pietro Maximoff LE . Here, on the right, is the vet's dial, which leads with Energy Shield instead of the Super Senses the rookie and experienced versions do. While, apparently, the Quicksilver of today is operating some two magnitudes or more above the speed levels those of us who followed the character a decade or more did, set designer Seth Johnson decided to amp all of his stats, so we're left with someon...
The People's Court (With a link added on the 4th) The National Review's David Frum has been quoted as saying that Harriet Miers once told him that the president was the most brilliant man she had ever met. There's something to mentally chew over as we consider in the weeks ahead this woman being installed in the Supreme Court. Speaking of Frum - not someone I find particularly palatable and worth my time - I'm nonetheless interested in gauging how much his comments on this nominee will end up reflecting the conservative mainstream... whatever that is. While I'm sure it rflects the thoughts of many, part of me can't help but wonder if some of this is a little public grumbling meant to appease Liberal elements who will hear this and relax with "well, it could be much worse" in mind. While the Supreme Court begins a new session, the first with John Roberts not only on the court but in the head seat, everyone's running around trying to make heads an...
Black & White Fun (A long and trying week, much of it not seriously interrupted even now. For the moment I'm sticking to something light.) My latest shipment of comics arrived Saturday, and in the mix were two B&W volumes from DC. Wisely taking a page from Marvel's wonderful Essential series (I've been picking those up despite having all of the original comics), DC's begun to do their own, 500+ page thick, black and white reprint series of silver age comics via a Showcase Presents series. At least to kick things off, they're going it one better than Marvel by pricing these at $9.99. Given that one of my usual criteria for deciding on whether or not to buy a collected volume is the "10 cents per page or less" rule, something that's coming in at less than 2 cents/page and is of any interest is a shoo-in. The two that arrived feature Superman and Green Lantern . The Superman volume covers Action Comics #241-257 & Superman #122-...