Month: July 2006

For anyone who’s worried about Al Qaida coming after you: Did you know that it’s much safer for you to live in the crown of the statue of liberty than by your neighborhood donut shop?

Also, be sure you stay away from your local bean fest. Al Qaida apparently hates beans. You’d be much safer going to the top of the Empire State Building, apparently.

Y’know, our current leaders operate with such brazen ineptitude and thievery that it’s almost as if they feel they don’t have to worry about elections…

I can’t help it, I’m addicted. In a few hours I’m going to see Superman Returns for the third time. I’ll probably see it a couple more times this Summer. Every once in a while a film comes along that makes you feel five years old, and for anyone who was blown away by the Christopher Reeves films as a kid, Superman Returns is it.

From the opening credits that show Moses’s — I mean, baby Superman’s perilous journey to Earth, to the moment Lois Lane spots a familiar blue and red streak flying to her rescue, to the moment at the end when… well, go see it for yourself — this film’s a time machine.

Of course, nothing’s perfect. Here’s something that’s been bugging me ever since I saw it in the theater at the age of 5:

What the hell was that? Never in my comic-book-reading life have I known Superman to have lame cellophane weapons that incapacitate villains for all of two seconds. Like me, you’ll be glad to know that Superman Returns is cellophane-free.

I usually delete cryptic e-mails that contain nothing but a URL. Especially when, as in the case of the one I got this morning, the URL is accompanied by a phrase like “Click here to be amazed and shocked.” You just know the next thing you see, if you follow directions, is likely to get you fired if you’re at work, or divorced if you’re at home. But for some reason, I just couldn’t help myself this morning. Something told me to click on that URL.

What I saw was more amazing and shocking than the three-legged amazon twin sister contortionists the Web usually offers you. Here it is (I’ve bold-faced and italicized the amazing part, to make sure you don’t miss it):

The Scrutinator: Dishonest Darrin Bell

Darrin Bell, author of the comic Candorville, makes this blatantly false claim about Condoleeza Rice:

In fact, she didn’t say “bracket insert name bracket.”

President Bush, 2002 State of the Union address:

“Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people’s hope for freedom. …

States like these [Iraq, Iran, and North Korea], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology, and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction. We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack. And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation’s security.

We’ll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”

Those words are as relevant today as they were then.

I suppose nobody claims Candorville is serious analysis. But at least he could be honest (especially with “candor” in the title). Alas, I ask for so much.

-James (Something-or-Other), a.k.a. “The Scrutinator”

This might be an incorrect assumption on my part, but I think maybe they’ve never heard of “satire” on this guy’s planet. It’s no thong-wearing, three-cheeked ass, but it’s as weird as anything else on the Internet.