Ahmadinejad, aside being amazingly hard to pronounce correctly, is picking a fight with an octopus.

For some reason.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, says Paul the Octopus, the sea creature that correctly predicted the outcome of World Cup games, is a symbol of all that is wrong with the western world.

He claims that the octopus is a symbol of decadence and decay among “his enemies”.

I’ve been known to insist that Michael Moore, microwavable pork rinds, and America Has Talent are all symbols of decadence, decay, and exceptionally bad taste in the West, but Paul the Octopus just seems like harmless fun.

Maybe Mahmoud sees something in Paul the Octopus that has eluded me, but I think the answer is more simple that that: Ahmadinejad has gone all Oliver Stone on us and slipped a little further down the slope to outright insanity.

Read the story.

lolz

If we strike them down, she will become more powerful than we can possibly imagine...

I’m tempted to note that DC is a hive of scum and villainy. We should be cautious.

But that would probably be taking things too far.

Indeed.

I like beer. I want to try Batch 19 Pre-Prohibition Style Lager.

Yet, living in Denver, and not in one of a very few target cities, I won’t be sampling the old recipe brew.

MillerCoors is bringing back a taste of the old days--a beer as it was brewed before Prohibition.

But though Chicago-based MillerCoors is a joint venture between Denver and Montreal based Coors Brewing Company and SABMiller London based, drinkers in those three cities won’t get a taste of the stuff. The suds will only be served up...in Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, San Jose, California, and Washington, D.C., according to the Denver Business Journal.

Now, people in Colorado drink a lot of beer. Significantly more than folks in San Francisco, for instance. So the idea of not selling this beer in Coors’ own back yard is a surprise to me.

The only reason for such a crazy decision, in my estimation, is that they are trying to foist crappy beer off on those latte-sippin’, Volvo-drivin’ lefties in San Franciso, the so-schnockered-they-can’t-tell-the-difference drinkers in Milwaukee and Chicago, and a political class in DC that just doesn’t know any better. Because it’s obvious that they are trying to hide the brew from the real beer fans in Colorado.

It’s a conspiracy.

Read the rest. And rub it in if you happen to be in one of those six target markets.

Sadly, I have precisely zero first-hand knowledge of boobquake. Happily, had I any first-hand knowledge of boobquake, my wife might be cranky. She’s claimed those hands for herself, you know.

Anyhow, during my travels yesterday, I saw no more (and, happily, no less) immodest dress than on any normal day; boobquake was a big bust as far as I’m concerned.

Yeah. Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.

Those who know me know that I have little use for bumper sticker sloganeering. I tend to believe that if your political ideals or religions beliefs can be summed up in a bumper sticker, you’ve probably oversimplified. Take, for example, today’s bumper sticker which reads:

Which, apparently, they actually thought that was the choice. I can imagine the budget debate now. “We only have money enough for one more item in the budget this year. The way I see it, the choice comes down to either bombs or 250,000 of these finely crafted banjos.”

I should have seen this coming, though. I mean, there is no way you can play banjo with nuclear arms.

Darling girl and I have started haunting a little used book store here in Aurora. It’s run by an older couple and it sits in an anonymous little strip mall where the only real draw is the book and those two who seem to have been running the place for something close to ever. Anyway, when I was finishing up my run, I happened to spy a little hardback copy of Bill Mauldin’s Up Front.

I grew up with “Up Front,” which was Mauldin’s World War II infantry-eye view of World War II. Mauldin himself was an infantryman and his characters, Willie and Joe, were one of the most honest looks at the infantry that you could find, warts and all.

It may sound strange to hear that I, who wasn’t born within decades of WWII, grew up with those guys, but it’s true. One of my father’s friends had this same book and another (the name escapes me, sadly), and I read through not only the cartoons, but Mauldin’s commentary about the soldiers, the war, the cartoon, and the stories that inspired it all. I would still say that if you want to get an idea of who wartime grunts really are, this is a great place to start. It doesn’t sugarcoat the guys, but there is an obvious, gentle affection to the poor bastards who carry the load.

The technology and some of the terminology have changed, of course, and there is an old-fashioned feeling to the cartoons, but there is a reason that his fellow soldiers loved him, there’s a reason that he enraged Patton and the Eisenhower protected him, and there’s a reason that he won a few Pulitzers for his work. I have no idea what kind of a guy he was in the real world, but “Up Front” was as much a love letter to the infantry (and more authentic) as Heinlein’s Starship Troopers.

Of course, I picked up the fragile old book--pages yellowing and tearing in a few places--and brought it home with me.

Mauldin had a very obvious concern for his fellow soldiers and was concerned that the returning soldiers wouldn’t be taken back in by the country that sent them off to war. A bit that I read pretty close to the front of the book probably bears repeating today:

They don’t need pity, because you don’t pity brave men--men who are brave because they fight while they are scared to death. They simply need bosses who will give them a little time to adjust their minds and their hands, and women who are faithful to them, and friends and families who stay by them until they are the same guys who left years ago. No set of laws or Bill of Rights for returning veterans of combat can do that job. Only their own people can do it. So it is very important that these people know and understand combat men.

Absolutely right.

If you see a copy next time you’re in your local used book store, I highly recommend picking it up. It’s well worth the few bucks you’ll spend. Mauldin passed away a few years back, but he’ll be remembered as long as his doggies have to go to far off lands to fight wars on behalf of the rest of us. Mauldin told their story, perhaps, better than anyone else has ever managed.

---

I also picked up a copy of PJ O’Rourke’s wonderful Parliament of Whores. It might seem a little dated--the book is nearly two decades old at this point and some of the stories stretch back to 1988--but it’s still a fun romp at the expense of the political class (finished with a painful look in the mirror).

Anyway, here’s a quote for you. It’s from the opening paragraph of the chapter entitled, “The Three Branches of Government: Money, Television, and Bullshit.”

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

I grew up reading this stuff: is it a wonder that there is a streak of cynicism in me that rears up now and again?

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Lastly, we also picked up Crazy Heart since the local Blockbuster didn’t have one to rent.

No regrets on that. It’s a wonderful movie with absolutely stellar performances and surprisingly good music. It might be a little smaller than some people might expect--there are no grand gestures and no earth-shattering themes--especially given all of the Oscar talk. But it’s that tightly-focused look at one lonely, old, alcoholic that keeps the movie good.

No politics, no “brave” agenda about racism or sexuality or any supposedly hot-button issue of the day, and no overblown sentimentality leave it being a wonderful movie with more humanity, by far, than something like Avatar. Of course, I’m also of the opinion that District 9 was the best science fiction story last year, so take that as you will.

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I have to say it again: the music was surprisingly good. Jeff Bridges, as Bad Blake, actually made a credible country music artist. I didn’t realize that he sang so many of the songs in the film, but was pleasantly shocked by just how well he pulled it off.

That’s not my favorite song from the movie (that would be “The Weary Kind”, but that song isn’t sung by Bridges) but it has the bonus of featuring Collin Farrell, too. Again, surprising.

And here’s one more for the road.

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I hesitate to throw this story in the mix, but I can’t stand not mentioning it. I realize that not everyone is heroic in action or willing to sacrifice for others--although I hope that if I’m ever tested, I would would be both--but this story is not only one of the saddest things I’ve read in a very long time, but also one of the most shameful. Not shameful to me, of course, but to those people who saw, who knew, and who still did nothing.

If I were to say a prayer on this day it would be that I am never so callous, never so uncaring, never so low as to leave a man dying in the streets while I did nothing. I’m sure that some of the passers never noticed, never saw the blood, and never realized what had happened, but, just as surely, some of them did see.

This man deserved far better not only because he had acted with courage to save a woman that he didn’t even know, but because he was a human being dying in the streets. He didn’t have to die and he deserved far, far better than this.

A heroic homeless man, stabbed after saving a Queens woman from a knife-wielding attacker, lay dying in a pool of blood for more than an hour as nearly 25 people indifferently strolled past him, a shocking surveillance video obtained by the New York Post reveals.

Some of the passers-by paused to stare at Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax last Sunday morning and others leaned down to look at his face.

He had jumped to the aid of a woman attacked on 144th Street at 88th Road in Jamaica, Queens, at 5:40 a.m., was stabbed several times in the chest and collapsed as he chased his assailant.

In the wake of the bloodshed, a man came out of a nearby building and chillingly took a cellphone photo of the victim before leaving. And in several instances, pairs of people gawked at Tale-Yax without doing anything.

Shame, shame, shame on those people who let the man die.

I’m pretty sure I screwed the curve for everyone.

When it comes to buyers of Apple Inc. products, like the new iPad, the iPhone, the iPod and Mac computers, the Denver area ranks seventh among U.S. markets in terms of its percentage of Apple fans.

Read the rest.

Way to go, Heidi Montag! Your new plasticky boobs and surgically enhanced everything make you so much prettier than before. The world is a much better place with yet another gigantic, fake-breasted blonde who, apparently, was so desperate to look like a prostitute or porn star that she underwent 10 surgical procedures to achieve the goal.

Which is nice since men will certainly take you more seriously as you pursue your career. Even better, you’ll set a great example for young women everywhere who should know that their sense of self-worth should stem from their achievements and their minds instead of from their surgically sculpted asses. Unless it says the exact opposite.

Which, I suppose, is my way of saying: Heidi Montag used to be a beautiful woman. Now she’s a hideously distorted version of what a real, live woman should look like.

Sad.

Funny stuff and a funny site.

HOW WILL HEALTH-CARE REFORM AFFECT YOU?

YOU WILL NOT die. Your health-insurance company is now obliged to keep you alive forever.

If you have a pre-existing condition, such as asthma or clumsiness, your name will be entered in the Pre-Existing Conditions Registry, and you are eligible for free ice cream.

Read the rest. Then check out the rest of the site.

Giant Lego folk rising from the earth to enslave us.

And I had to go and put all my money on Zombies.

Darn.

I dunno. I think I’ve already seen that one.

Catchphrase. Laugh laugh laugh laugh.

What the world needs is more government officials micromanaging the war against the epicureandistrial complex. Which is why I’m so darned glad about this moment of brilliance coming to us from New York.

Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking.

“No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises,” the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation.

Mr. Ortiz, thank God there are brave Assemblymen out there like you protecting me from the hazards of table salt.

God be with you, sir.

Read the rest.

The funniest news of the morning comes to us from AdFreak:

This is awesome. The New York Post reports that Lindsay Lohan is suing E*Trade for $100 million, claiming that the boyfriend-stealing “milkaholic” named Lindsay in the company’s Super Bowl commercial...from Grey Advertising was clearly modeled after her. “Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E*Trade is using that knowledge to profit,” Lohan’s lawyer says. “They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”

I had been wondering where the insane little starlet had gone; it’s good to know that she hasn’t lost all her crazy.

(Okay, no, I wasn’t really wondering where the insane little starlet had gone. It just fit the flow of the narrative.)

My wife, the lovely woman that she is, has no appreciation for the classics. For example, after fifteen minutes watching Caveman streaming from my Netflix account, she stated flatly: “This might be the dumbest movie ever.”

Crazy talk. Ringo Starr has never been better (well, never been better as an actor, anyway) and neither has Shelley Long. Dennis Quaid, on the other hand, did go on to bigger and better things.

Maybe I’ll make her watch the Dudley Moore anti-classic, Wholly Moses later…

"Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi continues her promise to run ‘the most goat-rodeo Congress in history.’”

That’s the stuff.

...that’s probably my fault.

Sorry about that.

Hey, Democrats, way to walk a righteous path!

Great job, Charlie Sheen! The first step to PR rehabilitation is, of course, rehab.

No matter what you’ve done, no matter who you’ve done it to, rehab gives you that one-size-fits-all excuse for screwing up. Even when you keep screwing up over and over and over again.

We’re proud of you for taking this first step toward a healthier, happier PR life.