le parcours des blogueurs

The Maximum Leader fêtes The King.

I also liked Mike's take on Democratic shenanigans in Congress. Instead of complaining about the Dems, he praises them:

Allow your Maximum Leader to award his Friday Villainy accolade jointly to Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for bringing all legislative business in our national legislature to a halt for a whole afternoon. Your Maximum Leader commends Rep. Jones and Sen. Boxer for causing Congress to do what your Maximum Leader likes Congress doing.

Namely do nothing but debate with no chance of [passing] a law.

In the spectrum of possible right-wing reactions, this strikes me as most consistent with classical Republican values, especially that of minimal government.

If you thought I was the only blog combining shit humor and religion, you obviously missed Thought Nuggets.

Joel finally posts something. Christ, man-- took you long enough.

The funniest dogblogging I've seen. Oh, yeah-- welcome back "home," Wooj.

Charlie points me to a blog by foreign service officers called The Diplomad. Of particular interest to Charlie is this post, which is highly critical of UN tsunami aid efforts. At the time I read the post, it had garnered 191 comments. Somebody struck a nerve, I guess.

Charlie also notes Yonhap News articles claiming that Koreans have been kidnapped in Iraq. Now comes the test of national will. I don't expect the public to pass the test: this scenario has been predicted for way too long, and a huge outcry (should people die) is a forgone conclusion. I have faith in only one thing: no matter what, America will be blamed. (Update is here. This threat might come to nothing. All the same, as long as there are Korean troops in Iraq, the probability of something deadly happening will go up.)

Captain Kirk at The Sheep has an interesting post on North Koreans in China.

The Nomad notes that North Korea is bashing Japan, and posts about... hair.

Rory's not just a musician.

Compassionate HIV awareness.

Giblets, uh, mourns the imminent demise of Crossfire.

Get a load of Annika's graphic re: the Bradifer split.

Jeff links to a blog post that makes light of the deadly serious (not to mention sacred) art of ass-shaving.

I saw the title of this post and thought I was in for a treatise on Jimi Hendrix, or a rant about the Sting cover of Hendrix's song. But no. It's better than that.

Glenn talks about black people in Star Wars. I've long believed that Hollywood is one of our most racist institutions, and nothing drives that point home quite like the Hollywood image of black folks. Either extreme sinner or extreme saint-- very little room for folks in between, very few opportunities for black actors to catch the truly meaty (not to mention lucrative) acting roles. This is changing, of course, but it's changing slowly.

In science fiction in particular (with the Matrix trilogy being a rare and notable exception), the rule is The Black Guy Dies. James Cameron is particularly notable in this regard. Watch the fate of black folks in "Aliens" and "Terminator 2," for example. In "Aliens," the black people are all gone before the movie's even half-done. In "T2," it's mostly white folks who get gutted, but there's a disturbing scene in which the Terminator attacks two men, one white and one black. He pulls the white guy's hair, but shoots at the black guy. Go figure.

All is not lost, however. Jamie Foxx and Don Cheadle are getting raves for their recent films, "Collateral," "Ray," and "Hotel Rwanda," the latter two of which I'm dying to see (assuming they get wide release in Korea!). Good roles and great actors are out there.

Oh, yeah-- speaking of black folks in Star Wars: Samuel Jackson's going to get his arm amputated and be thrown out of a high window by Force lightning (see Supershadow.com for details and tons of spoilers). That, apparently, is his miserable fate in the upcoming "Revenge of the Sith." If I were Mr. Jackson, I'd be mighty pissed.

KBJ writes an interesting post on torture (see Dr. Vallicella's comments here). I suppose I'm a consequentialist on the torture question: if you're in my custody and you've got my family or best friends captive somewhere, rest assured that I will gladly cause you maximum pain to find out whatever I need to know.

And on that happy note-- I'm off to my post-3AM slumber.


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