Ugh, brought to you by the New York Times

True to its mania for secrecy, the Bush administration is leaving behind vast gaps in the most sensitive White House e-mail records, and with lawyers and public interest groups in hot pursuit of information that deserves to be part of the permanent historical record.

E-mail messages that have gone suspiciously missing are estimated to number in the millions. These could illuminate some of the administration’s darker moments, including the lead-up to the Iraq war, when intelligence was distorted, the destruction of videotapes of C.I.A. torture interrogations, and the vindictive outing of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

The deep-sixed history also includes improper business conducted by more than 50 White House appointees via e-mail at the Republican Party headquarters. Historians and archivists are suing the administration. We should be grateful for their efforts. Entire days of e-mail records have turned up conveniently blank at the offices of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Cheney, of course, retreats from sunshine with the wariness of Alucard; he is fighting to the last the transfer of his records to the National Archives, as required by law. He recently argued in court that he “alone may determine what constitutes vice presidential records or personal records.” As in: L’etat c’est Dick.

Modern administrations from Ronald Reagan’s to Bill Clinton’s typically tried to evade at least some disclosure obligations under the public archives law. But the Bush team, from day one, has flouted the requirement to preserve a truthful record, ignoring repeated warnings from the National Archives. In government agencies, the public’s freedom-of-information rights have been maliciously hobbled.

The National Archives is further burdened by the steady and inevitable growth in digital records — a mass 50 times larger than that left eight years ago by the Clinton administration. It will take years to ingest before historians can truly get a handle on what is missing.

History is truly the poorer for the Bush administration. President-elect Barack Obama must quickly undo the damage by ordering that records be shielded from political interference, by repairing the freedom-of-information process, and by ending the abuse of the classification process to cloak the truths of the presidency.

Happy 2009

Probably the quietest NYE I've ever had, watching movies and having a modest glass of champagne. It was wonderful. Nothing great to post, but I hope everyone's 2009 is better than their 2008.

In other news, this will hopefully be the last New Years that we have to see those year-shaped glasses. Yeah, I know they can put that 1 over the nose and... damnit. We're never gonna end this, are we?

It's gonna be a pretty sparse week around here, but I did want to point out that Eartha Kitt died. In addition to being the best Catwoman ever, she was an outspoken activist and general world-shaker. She will be missed.

Happy Festivus!

It's today, apparently.

Night in Moscow

Wow. (via EnglishRussia)

30 Rock feud?

I don't like the sound of this...

via riotclitshave

Dear Scientists,
If you're ever in a wax museum or something and find yourself staring at a representation of a human being that looks a bit too real... don't pull that waving your hand close to their eyes bit. that never works. Just jam your pointer finger into their eyeball. If it's a dummy, no foul. If it's not... well, everyone learns a lesson.
Love,
Cotton

For fuck's sake... (pt. 2)

Baz Lurmann is set to direct remake of The Great Gatsby.

Another one the greatest books ever written will be turned to shit.

Not that the 1974 version was any good either, but that's gonna look like goddamned Dr. Zhivago compared to what this guy does to it.

I was going to make a comment about why don't people just option the shit out of every great novel ever, but then saw that Pale Fire apparently has been in development or awhile. The end is extremely fucking nigh.

(wow. I'm cursing a whole bunch today. My apologies. I'm trying to get over that).

Oh, for fuck's sake...

The FCC reports it received 26 complaints from the public about Utley's language, which was heard live, in the late afternoon, on at least five television stations and one radio station.

Stephen Chow No Longer Directing Green Hornet

I've got many, many reservations about a Seth Rogan-scripted remake of the classic superhero TV show. For one, it was never really supposed to be all that funny. Also, Seth Rogan looks more like a yeti than Van Williams. Hey, I actually like the guy more than most, and I'm sure he'd agree with me. So why star in this?
But I have to admit that I was hesitant to see Stephen Chow direct it. I've thoroughly enjoyed every one of his movies I've seen, from God of Cookery to Kung Fu Hustle (still dragging my feet on CJ7 for some reason). But I'm not sure I'd understand how he'd fit with a project like this. I guess he isn't sure anymore, either. He's still playing Kato, which I'm sure he's doing solely as homage to Bruce Lee, who really made his reputation in this country in the mask.
So, I guess this is my roundabout way of saying I have no clue what's going on with this movie. I'm sure I'll see it, hell, I'll probably even like it. Comedy + Action is tough to pull off well, especially when you're writing and acting. That was one of the bonuses of having Chow direct this. I mean, there's a strong chance that this movie could be the next Casino Royale (obviously I mean the Woody Allen one and not the one with the hilarious ball torture scene). Wait, Edgar Wright is still busy doing that Scott Pilgrim movie, right? Goddamn I hope that's funny. Later, though, he's doing Ant-Man, which could very well herald a return of the comedy superhero movie.

holy shit. They're going to remake Greatest American Hero, aren't they? Mark my words, in 5 years, this there will be a development deal on this.

I scare myself sometimes with my chilling prophecies.

Edit: That's really, really green. It was probably time for a change anyway.

Mark Felt is dead. He was a hero and hopefully an inspiration to many, and I'm sorry for his family's loss. I can only hope that his actions will be remembered and appreciated for many, many years.

Dear scientists,
I know you don't know me very well, and I'm sure you're sick of my letters. But can you please stop giving drivers more shit to look at? Seriously, it's hard enough to convince myself that the wacko in the car next to me isn't going to lose control of their* vehicle while texting or drunk dialing or trying to open a bag of Cheetos or whatever. There is no need to add more stuff to the dashboard for drivers to look at. You just know that the people that buy these cars are the same idiots that try to show it off to their friends while they're driving. So please do us a favor. Try to develop a device that forces people to use handsfree headsets. Or maybe some sort of automatic turn signal. I don't know, you're the guys in the lab coats. But try to help us out maybe?
Love,
Cotton

P.S. That is pretty cool, though. Is that made out of the same technology that used to adorn Slurpee cups?

*I don't want to label either gender a bad driver, no matter how Asian they are**.
**Kidding! I know a lot of you guys are Asian***, and that you're bad drivers is a stereotype and unfair. Besides,
***What? That's a good thing, right? Scientist? Who doesn't want to be thrown in with that lot? I don't get you people****
****I should probably just stop now, right?

Goat #10

Dear scientists,
Please start genetically engineering goats 1-9 so that this guy can have some friends to race with. Otherwise, what's the point?
Love,
Cotton

P.S. Is there a way for goats to not have devil eyes?

I actually had no idea the strip was still being produced...
Here's a fun interview with Greg Pak (writer of the Hulk and Hercules books that I've never read) and David Rees, who still says he's going to stop when Bush gets out of office. I wonder if that's what happened to the video show...

MORE PLACES I AM SCARED OF

... THE MEKONG DELTA

It's not enough that any trip to the Mekong Delta would probably trigger all sorts of latent 'Nam visions*. They've been finding an average of two new species a week in the region, which is pretty much grounds for evidence that I will never, ever set foot there. While I find the idea of unchartered territory as romantic as the next person, I've also developed -through decades of wilderness mishap- a wild fear of any non-mammalian creatures I see in the wild. the creepier and crawlier, the more likely I would be to bash it with a stick in the woods out of fear. And I shouldn't go to a jungle where all I'd think to do is kill stuff. Hey, those things might have valuable medicines or aphrodisiacs in them, right?
Anyway, a trip to the area today might yield sightings of Gumprecht's green pit viper (sounds cute!), the shocking pink dragon millipede, and oh, the world's largest spider (Heteropoda maxima).
Did I mention that the shocking pink dragon millipede secretes cyanide? I hate it when mother nature uses all these superanimals.

"Some of these species really have no business being recently discovered," WWF's Stuart Chapman said.

*Playboy bunnies in helicopters, acid trips, and R. Lee Ermey. Right?
Thanks to BoingBoing for ensuring I don't sleep until 2009



And if you're about to tell me that all of these are land creatures and there mustn't be anything to fear in the water, think again. I give you:

The Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas)

The giant barb (Catlocarpio siamensis)

The giant freshwater stingray (Himantura chaophraya)

Yeah, no thanks.

Oh, and check out the Mississippi paddlefish for some domestic horror.

Hey, you Liberal Democrats. You may have won the election, but you're getting CREAMED in the transition.

Greg Palast on Obama's new Secretary of Education
(the last comment is actually more interesting than the post)

More Bad News

"I am very excited to be working with Bob Weinstein again and returning to the world of 'Halloween,'" Zombie says in the press release. "The remake laid the groundwork, now it's time to really take Michael Myers to the next level. I believe we've just barely scratched the surface of where we can take this series."

So, I guess that they announced last night that Rob Zombie would be helming the sequel to his Halloween remake. Now, I'm still getting over how unhappy I was with the last one. Zombie took any suspense or character out of the film, replacing it with a near-constant stream of tits, gore, and bad cameos.
Sure, all of these were in the first film, but Zombie was just so ham-fisted with his approach that I really just stopped caring after ten minutes. And that weird back story with all the masks on the wall? Ugh.
Anyway, I can't imagine he's going to stay too true to the story line, so I have no idea if the sequel will be set in the hospital like the last one. It does, however, make me kind of excited at the idea of him making a remake of Season of the Witch. Ugh.

A family is Holland Township is angry at ShopRite for not writing their child's full name on a birthday cake.
The child's name is Adolf Hitler. Little Adolf has a baby sister named Aryan Nation.

Why oh why can't I be making this up?

(it says in the caption that they went to Wal-Mart to get the cakes? So... Wal-Mart went for that?)

Just in time for the holidays...

After all the Y2K busts, I figured that we would have to wait forever to get some good old-fashioned doomsday predictions:

"I think that you should hear what my opinion about the Obama election is: that he will not be the next president. I said on my home page in August that if he lost to expect to see the 'riots' that 2 Peter 2:13 tells us about. He didn't lose. But the story is not finished yet. I still think they may begin the riots before Christmas 2008, as I said."

These riots, according to his prophecy, will encourage the "old, hard-line Soviet guard" to seize the moment and rain down nukes on the United States, killing at least 100 million of us.

"Prepare now," Freeborn's letter concluded. "We are downwind from Las Vegas. I hope you can survive."

So we have this idiot's backpedaling to look forward to.