The Sound of the Crowd

George W. Bush is the best thing ever to happen to American liberalism.

Discuss.

Bravo’s West Wing Viewers Choice Marathon.

Yes, I voted, though I honstly don’t remember for what. Ever try to pick just four or five episodes of your favorite show?

CNN is spreading the innuendo that Osama Bin Laden wants John Kerry to win.

What liberal media was that again?

Fairlight Children deserve better than to be the 666th entry in my blog, but there you are.

Interesting site purporting to list A Million Love Songs, of which these are the top 30.

Any such list that includes:
Book of Love
A song from Grease 2
A song written by Kirsty MacColl
An ELO song from Xanadu
and Pet Shop Boys

–I gotta give props. I’ll just ignore the whole Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds thing…

The influential and much-loved by the military author Tom Clancy has a new nonfiction book out about retired Marine General Anthony Zinni.

It’s part of a series of such books he has written, in part to counter his perception that:

“In the movies, military leaders are all drunken Nazis,” said Clancy, who has worked on books about retired General Chuck Horner, who led US Central Command Air Forces during the Gulf War, and retired General Carl Stiner, whose missions included the capture of Panama leader Manuel Noriega.”

For what it’s worth I think that perception is true, and that it’s good to have a little “equal time” out there.

What’s getting a lot of play in the press is the fact that Clancy and Zinni have joined the ranks of those critisizing the Iraq war. Zinni says of Saddam:

“He’s a bad guy. He’s a terrible guy and he should go,” Zinni said.

“But I don’t think it’s worth 800 troops dead, 4500 wounded – some of them terribly – $US200 billion ($286.8 billion) of our treasury and counting, and our reputation and our image in the world, particularly in that region, shattered.”

And it’s about time you got to know the powers that be.

“I used to say for years that story was the most important thing to us,” says Catmull. “Then I realized that all the other studios were saying the same thing. They say that and then they go and produce crap. What you say doesn’t mean a damn thing. It’s what you do that matters.”

Diode, Cathode, Electrode, Overload, Generator, Oscillator…Make A Circuit With Me!

Back in the old days, comedians like Jack Benny and Bob Hope used to exchange guest appearances on each other’s programs. They’d appear for less than their usual fee, in return for which the other star would make a similarly ratings-jacking, underpaid appearance.

I sometimes feel as if Mark Evanier and I are doing something like that. Here he very kindly gives this blog another plug (fun! He calls it.) while answering a question I e-mailed him about Michael Moore’s new film.

As you would expect, he makes some good points, including, “[in Moore] you have a real smart man who’s good at entertaining, good at socking home his points…but he won’t stop where the supportable facts leave off.”

Is particuarly good.