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The popular right-wing talking point of the moment: " Spain did what Al Qaeda wanted." This is all very well and good, except that Spain is not pulling out of Afghanistan and that Spain is willing to stay in Iraq (original) under certain conditions — mainly a Security Council mandate. This actually looks like pretty smart diplomacy to me. To the degree that Bush needs Spain to stay in the coalition, he needs to bend to their demands. This would mean giving more say to the UN than he’d like, but those are the breaks of the game, right? ...

Another mashup from Kirt “Loki” Dankmyer today: “Hotel California”, by the Eagles. Read the lyrics (original), remember the times when they seemed like the deepest thing in the world, and… mash!

Mark Schmitt makes an excellent catch over at The Decembrist. Bush is using photos from the FY 2005 Federal Budget in his campaign material. This may or may not be illegal; it seems to me like it might be, but Schmitt knows better than I and he doesn’t think it is. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t think government documents are protected under copyright, so Bush has the right to remix those photos however he likes. Kinda shady of him to get the government to pay for the photos if he intended to use them later, though. And if he had his own private photographer pay for them and give them to the government, well, why is the government publishing campaign photos? No matter what happened, though, it’s definitely a slight erosion of the barriers between the campaign and the government. Not a scandal, but definitely an indication of character.

There appears to be a small uprising in Northern Iran. A little more information can be found here (original). The first link is to a site on the right side of the ideological spectrum, by the by, so you have to discount the people who are under the impression that this will immediately turn into a vast popular uprising supported by US troops. (Via Tacitus, whose commenters suffer in part from the same optimism. Ah well.)

So while my mother was in the hospital, I got her a NetFlix account. Since she’s not always into the technogeeky thing, and because I wanted to make her life as easy as possible while recovering, I manage the queue. It’s worked out really well — she gets the fun of opening a surprise in the mail every few days. And I have a pretty solid idea of her tastes. But I’m feeling whimsical, so now I want recommendations from y’all. What would you rent her? The list of movies rented to date is in the extended entry — she claims to have enjoyed everything so far.

I just read the last issue of Cerebus. That’s it; ain’t any more. For an insane guy, Dave Sim sure draws a pretty comic. It never stopped being gorgeous. I wish I could say kinder things about it; I am staggered by the weight of it. Thousands upon thousands of pages. There have been few such extended achievements. When both he and Gerhard are dead, Cerebus will enter the public domain. He has arranged for the negatives to remain with trustworthy custodians, and they will be available to those who wish to reprint any portion of it. The attentive will notice that those two statements are not entirely congruent. Who knows? I’m going to spoil the end now.

[That was odd. Sorry about that.] I rarely have many objections to Mamet, or for that matter to Val Kilmer. Keep that in mind. Still and all, Spartan measured up. Twice I saw the wires on which the god was lowered from the machine, but the tense taut moments more than carried me through. And who knew Mamet could direct an action movie? It is an action movie. It’s also a spy movie. ...

President Roh of Korea was just impeached (original). He’d been tagged " the world’s first Internet president", mostly because his victory was driven by Internet activism. Don Park has another take on the impeachment (original). He’s a smart guy and I trust his insights on the situation. KoreaTimes talks about what happens next (original). Aside from the obvious “old school tears down the Internet generation” angle, I’m a bit concerned about the “tumult right next to North Korea” angle. Dunno how worried I should be, though. It’s not as if the opposition politicians hadn’t managed to handle the North Korean situation for quite some time before Roh came along. It’s mostly the uncertainty of not knowing who runs the country right now that bugs me. ...

Here’s the cliche: This week’s Wednesday Weird isn’t about just any old hedge Wizard, but the classic wize old wizard that is a staple of the fantasy genre. Although Merlin is a heck of a lot older than Gandalf, I’m not sure if he started wearing the pointy hat before Tolkein’s wizard. However, since D&D and most fantasy fiction has (for better or worse) been heavily derived from Tolkein’s work ever since, we’ve seen a lot of wizards in the Gandalf/Merlin mold. They’ve been dispensing sage advice and assisting heroes for ages. Sometimes they have the hat. Sometimes they don’t. ...

Celestial Pictures is restoring and rereleasing 75% of the Shaw Brothers library on DVD (original). Alas, they’re all region 3 DVDs. If only I’d just purchased a region-free DVD player… Oh, wait. I did.