There's a really good article about stats in baseball that anyone who is a baseball fan should read. Quite interesting.

Make sure you get your phone number on the national Do Not Call registry to stop annoying telemarketer scammers from calling you in the middle of dinner. Telemarketers who do not remove registrants from their rolls by October 1st may be fined up to $10,000. I will note that the website has been flooded with folks putting their numbers on the registry, so it might take some time to get through.

Care for a Harry Potter take off? Here's an interesting view of the phenom by Slate.

What kind of idiots are running our search for weapons in Iraq? With this kind of nonsense going on, is it a wonder we can't find anything?

Just finished opening almost all the doors and windows in the house up to see if I can heat up the house enough to stop wearing a heavy blanket. It's a beautiful sunny day out, so I'm of course stuck inside working on the store's website. Hard to keep attentive when you want to go sit in a swimming pool somewhere. Yesterday was the same. Had to open the doors and windows, and the temperature in here jumped considerably from "frigid" to "comfortable".

Got our copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from Canada today. Review to follow soon.

Will Pfeifer (new Aquaman writer) has a new review up: King of the Hill.

Comic Continuum has a bit more on Aqualad in the new Teen Titans Animated series. Fun quote: "He's buff, charming and can breathe underwater."

I'm excited about the new Aquaman T-Shirt coming out, even though it doesn't fit most of my criteria for an excellent Aquaman design. I'm just happy to see any Aquaman T-Shirt.

I officially hate the "new" Blogger. There are a lot of problems with it that you can't see, and I'm going to extra lengths to make my blog look like it used to. And there's no way to go back to the old version, or change the settings to make it work better. I don't have the money to set up another website and use a good blogging tool like MT or something, but if I did, I think I'd ditch Blogger in an instant.

Green Lantern #166: This is more like it. Green Lantern is back out in space, having cosmic adventures. Although some of it is truly odd, at least it's better than it's been.

JLA #82: Eh. This is just passable. Not as confusing as other storylines, but still annoying.

Astro City: Local Heroes #3: This issue just didn't click with me. It was good, it was better than a great many comics, but I didn't connect with it. It was a *shrug* issue for me.

An aside, there was a letter in the letter column of this issue that made my blood boil. Some complete idiot seemed to think that comic book superheroes shouldn't be allowed to stop abortion clinic bombings (even incredibly feminist and liberal superheroes like Winged Victory). I don't care what your view of abortion is, if you support clinic bombings you are a terrorist and hypocritical scumbag. I'm surprised Kurt bothered to respond to the murderous loser. You can't stop abortion with more death, and those that bomb clinics are only hurting their own cause. Folks like me, who hate abortion and have respect for life are pro-choice because of those "pro-life" killers.

Right, enough of my own high-horse... next week I'm supposed to get Amazing Spider-Man, Batman: Nevermore, Superman: Birthright, Formerly Known As The Justice League, JSA: All Stars, and Justice League Adventures.

Comments (4)

Speaking of FKA Justice League-I just got a good look at the cover (Comics Continuum/DC/First Looks).

Look at what Ralph is doing with Fire's hair, while Sue is giving him the evil eye!! HAHA!! This is gonna be fun!

(I guess it's Sue. She's gained some wait but she looks good.)

Posted Fri 27 Jun 11:29 AM by farsider ( - )

Is he lighting a sparkler in her hair??

Posted Fri 27 Jun 12:10 PM by Laura "Tegan" ( - )

Spoiler

I think it's a marshmallow.

Posted Fri 27 Jun 12:29 PM by far sider ( - )

BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!

Posted Fri 27 Jun 01:06 PM by Laura ( - )

Empire #0: I had already read the two stories reprinted here, but it's been awhile. I recall not really liking the book when it first came out, and urging hubby to not order the rest, but hubby liked it and we ordered the next couple of issues... which never came out. These stories have held up well, and I like them more this time around.

Ruse #21: The plot thickens, even as one problem finds a happy solution. And we finally get some detecting in the story! Not bad. However, one spoilerish problem: Why didn't the spiders bite Emma when she found them? (if this works, highlight to read).

Birds of Prey Secret Files 2003: DC has done a great job with these books recently, giving us at least two, and sometimes three, really strong stories outside the normal book continuity. And the profiles are ok, too. This is a pretty good one.

Still to review: Green Lantern, JLA, and Astro City.

Comments (3)

Did you see Spoilers?

Just a quick poll. How many of you can see the spoilers in my Ruse review without highlighting (in either words, it didn't work on your computer)? And if so, what broswer/OS are you using (ie Mac with Internet Exploder)?

It worked on all the browsers I have installed, so I'm curious if it doesn't work on any.

Posted Thu 26 Jun 04:07 PM by Laura "Tegan" ( - )

Not me!

It worked just fine on my iMac using Exploder...

Posted Thu 26 Jun 08:45 PM by Hubby-Eric (tiktok@eskimo.com - http://www.eskimo.com/~tiktok/)

Using Microsoft Outlook here.

"Why didn't the spiders bite Emma when she found them?".... did not show up unitl I clicked on the blank space. I guess that means it worked. But it looked funny with the sentence in parentheses just "floating" at the end of the paragraph..

Posted Fri 27 Jun 05:15 AM by far sider ( - )

Fascinating article on G. in Baghdad about the current Iraqi state of mind. Something to give you hope as well as worry.

And, Salam has also updated, with some truly sickening stories. He's also started a Fotoblog with his many pictures.

No, it's not just the Americans' fault. But there's a lot of stupid misunderstanding and bad judgement going on, and I don't blame Salam and G for being worried. Also keep in mind that US soldiers are still dying almost every day in Iraq, and in Afghanistan.

The Memory Hole now has video of President Bush doing absolutely nothing after he was told of the 9/11 attacks. His actions endangered all the people he was with, because his appearance had been previously announced. Had hijackers wanted to take him out, they knew exactly where he was, and he just waited for them... with a classroom full of children. Would it have panicked the children if he'd left? Hardly. He should have immediately left and gotten more information... but he didn't do ANYTHING.

There is a complete overview of what Bush didn't do on this page (read, particularly, the comments about a possible assassination attempt on Bush).

And the 9/11 reports are still not being released. Why? What is in them that the Bush Administration doesn't want us to see? Is it because the they completely messed up? Or something more sinister? The longer we wait for real information, the harder it will be to ignore conspiracy theories.

Hey, if you don't want to parent your children, just move to Arkansas and let the government do it for you. After all, why bother teaching your kids moral values when you can have a bookstore owner thrown in jail for displaying something that might possibly be considered obscene?

Comments (7)

I think you're reaching a bit to find something to criticize here. There was no evidence at that point to suggest that there was any airliner threatening the location where the Presidant was speaking.

Yes, it's possible that there was a hijacked airplane headed their way that hadn't been spotted yet, or some other sort of attack planned against that site, to wit "Were there two, three, four, eight more planes hijacked and on their way to crash into prominent buildings? Was one headed for the school, where anyone who checked the President's public itinerary would know he was located? Were other terrorists planning to detonate dirty nukes? Were they going to release anthrax or smallpox or sarin? Was an assassination squad going to burst into the school and get Bush? Was a suicide bomber going to ram a truck full of explosives into that classroom?" These are threats to the President and everyone around him every day of the year. The President makes publicly-announced appearances every day, and any one of them could become a terrorist target. Ditto for all of the ways in which ordinary people are permitted to tour the White House.

Besides which, had the President left immediately, I can't help but suspect that his opponents would now be criticizing him for needlessly frightening the children in his audience when there was no evidence that he was facing an immediate threat.

I do think Bush waited too long to address the nation that day, but this notion of five minutes' delay seems rather trivial.

Posted Thu 26 Jun 09:16 PM by Tom T. ( - )

Tom T is right. Hindsight is always 20/20. It seems to me the nit-picking and low-blows directed at the president continue to reach new lows.

Posted Fri 27 Jun 04:56 AM by far sider ( - )

Ok. Think about this. You are the president, and at the beginning of a pointless and well-announced photo-op you are told that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center in a possible terrorist attack. Do you:

A) Sit there and do nothing.

or

B) Politely excuse yourself and find out more information.

Anyone with half a brain would go find out what was going on. As president, it's is your DUTY to know what is happening. Sitting there reading a kids book in a photo-op is perhaps the absolute worst use of your time at that point. I don't mean he should've run screaming from the room, but he's the freaking president! He should've at least gotten more information before sitting down having his picture taken with the teacher and the kids. If it turned out to be nothing serious, he could have easily gone back to the kids. But instead he ignored the disaster happening right then to continue a photo-op.

Yeah, I think there's an awful lot to criticize there. I think his advisors are idiots (or were keeping him in the dark for some reason), I think he was irresponsible, and I think he unintentionally put those kids and himself in danger.

By the time Bush was told about the attacks, there was plenty of evidence that it wasn't a single incident as the other two planes were already being tracked. So anyone who thought it was just another routine day of threats as you imply is too stupid to work in the intelligence community. Hindsight may be 20/20, but we aren't talking about hindsight. We are talking about how Bush reacted in a serious emergency. He did nothing, and that's frightening.

Posted Fri 27 Jun 08:27 AM by Laura "Tegan" ( - )

The more things change...

I'll just point out here that this is hardly the first time the actions (or lack thereof) of a President have been questioned and gone over with a fine-tooth comb. I'm sure this sort of Monday-morning quarterbacking goes as far back as Washington. I really don't see what all this talk can possibly accomplish. (Now, if anyone involved in this debate actually works in the current administration, that's a whole other kettle of fish...)

Posted Fri 27 Jun 08:34 AM by Hubby-Eric (tiktok@eskimo.com - )

Oh yeah, one more thing. The video is only five minutes. But we're talking about over a half-hour that Bush stayed at that school after he should have known to leave. I certainly think that wasting a half-hour is a serious offence.

Posted Fri 27 Jun 08:35 AM by Laura "Tegan" ( - )

A half-hour? That's nothing.

Monica would still be under Bill's desk.

Posted Fri 27 Jun 10:29 AM by farsider ( - )

Heh. Funny.

What was the Secret Service doing? I thought that in a situation like this they would have bundled him up and gotten him away as quickly as possible. Who overruled them, and why? Or were they just being idiots too?

This is still valid. This isn't picking at the past. There are tons of unanswered questions about 9/11, and they are relevant to our current state of security. If it takes the President of the United States over a half-hour to react to a crisis, what will happen if something even more serious occurs that needs his immediate response? Why didn't the Secret Service do their duty? Is our President in the hands of incompetent people? That's a very valid question to ask. These questions need to be answered. So far the administration is hiding every bit of information that might tell us what went wrong that day. WHY?

Posted Fri 27 Jun 11:24 AM by Laura "Tegan" ( - )

I'm glad I posted early yesterday, because I couldn't post most of the day. They were upgrading me. And it took a LONG time. So now I've been upgraded to the new blogger. If you notice any differences, congrats. It looks to me like the main differences are behind the scenes.

Comic book fans should definitely check out this review of Outsiders for an outsider's look at comic books.

Comments (1)

Thanks

Hi, I got the link to your blog from Frank Carreras blog. I read the review you suggested and found it informative, thanks.

Posted Wed 25 Jun 04:44 PM by Wendy (tender_in_the_night@yahoo.com - http://www.blurty.com/~moondrool/)

Inspired by a post on Neil Gaiman's blog, I went to see if I could find a pirated copy of Order of the Phoenix on-line. Sure enough, I found several different copies, and warnings of "fake" copies all over. Indeed, I downloaded a couple. And looked at the first lines... and realized I had absolutely no way of knowing for sure if they were "real" or not, since I won't have a copy of the book for several days.

Well, that was a pointless exercise.

Well, I mistakenly thought it was only an hour long, but I watched the whole thing anyway. It was... about what I expected, I guess. I would have liked more about indy comics, but as hubby pointed out, it was about the superheroes, not comics in general. It was generally even-handed about its topic, and while very little of it was new to me, I'm sure if you didn't know much about comics it would have been more interesting. Not much Aquaman, but then I didn't expect to see any Aquaman, so that wasn't a disappointment. I guess I liked it...

I probably should stick to comics. I'm not exactly the most eloquent of writers. Still, it's my blog, and therefore the place for my thoughts, and I've been thinking a lot about politics lately.

The horse is dead, and well beaten, and people are so firmly entrenched in their own opinions that nothing either side can say will change anything. So I'll beat some more, starting with this article which is a good starting point for discussion about the apparent lies of the Bush Administration. The money quote is this: "There were really two WMD debates. One was about chemical and low-end biological weapons. The other was about smallpox, nukes, al Qaeda and pretty much everything else under the sun." The article goes on to say that there was never any question of the first, but the war was sold to the American public using very shaky and even fabricated evidence of the second. I've already seen a counter-argument about how those chemical and low-end biological weapons were in fact in violation of UN Resolutions and thus justified the war (and now I can't find a link to that argument, which is more a testament to my bad memory than anything else). But the other UN countries disagreed on those, and the war was pushed forward thanks to the bigger threats of "smallpox, nukes, al Qaeda" which the Bush Administration was so absolutely sure existed that they even claimed to know exactly where those WMD were. They lied. Even in the fog of war, if they knew right before the invasion where those things were hidden, they would have found them by now.

So, does it matter? Yes. The folks in the Bush Administration who knew they were deceiving the public need to be punished. It shouldn't be ok to lie to start a war. Period. End of story.

Now I read a lot of Republican ranting about how the war was justified because (take your pick): The Saddam Hussein administration itself was a WMD that had to be destroyed, the people of Iraq were suffering and needed to be freed (just look at those mass graves!), Saddam was consorting with terrorists, Saddam was already violating UN sanctions and therefore had to be taken out... and so on and so forth. Some of those reasons are definitely good enough to justify going to war, particularly the one about freeing the people of Iraq from a brutal dictator. But the ends don't justify the means, and the "means" in this case were a pack of lies told by the Bush Administration. They never said they were going into Iraq just to free its people. If that was the case, there are quite a few other countries more desperately in need of an American invasion than Iraq was. No, they said that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction that would be used in the next three years. That was a lie, and those who lied need to be punished.

Was the war in Iraq a good thing in the end? Well, it's hard to say. There's a lot of hope, but then we seem to be going backwards in our last imperial conquest (Afghanistan), so it's hard to judge yet. I suspect it will be easier to help Iraq rebuild than Afghanistan because the infrastructure and education are better in Iraq. But in Afghanistan we're already negotiating with the remains of the Taliban, how soon before the Bush Administration starts consorting with the remains of Saddam's administration? Or will the Bush Administration go haring off to battle another foe before completing the job in Iraq, like they did to Afghanistan, leaving the people even worse off than before and good candidates for terrorist groups looking to recruit? And it's hard to say that any operation is a success when we are still losing an American soldier every day.

Then there is the looting story. No one agrees on the numbers, and they are constantly being revised, but that hasn't stopped folks like Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan from making fun of anyone who believes that the number was higher than 33. Tough to say if they'll be eating their bytes later on, but I keep hearing "33 priceless artifacts from the main collection, and a couple of thousand from lesser collections". Hopefully all will turn up, but I can't help but think Instapundit and Daily Dish are hurting their credibility by harping on the topic. For the record, I think the looting was a shame, but I can't really blame American troops. The battle plan they were given seems to have fallen apart once they hit Baghdad, so the proper blame goes to the looters.

Speaking of battle plans, was there any actual follow up plan for troops? It seems from, reading first-person accounts (and hearing from wives of soldiers) as well as news and blogs, that troops raced into Iraq and "secured" a few places, and now are sitting around wishing they could either help the people or go home. We've got thousands of highly trained and highly capable men in Iraq sitting around doing nothing. I'm not impressed with the leaders who put our people there.

Ok, enough about Iraq. On to politicians themselves. I've already spiked Orrin Hatch, but he's made himself a target from nerds everywhere, and more dirt is being dug up on him every day. Then there's Howard Dean's unwise son. Again, I'm more annoyed by Dean's aggressive and impersonal on-line campaign than in his son's stupidity. You want stupidity, look at Bush's daughters. Then there's Gephardt's mistaken belief that Executive Orders can undo Supreme Court decisions, a belief apparently shared by Dennis Kucinich. Whoops! Speaking of Kucinich, I've already made fun of his comparing his campaign to Harry Potter's battle against Voldemort. Again, the politicians are staying true to politicians, and there's very little good to say about any of them. Gary Hart continues to blog, and has some interesting things to say, but since he's not running, he'll be ignored as just another liberal voice.

Visit Hoder.com for Iranian news. And now there's the Baghdad Bulletin for news about Iraq. Thanks to BuzzMachine for the links.

Here's a strange little summary of political parties and the economy. I'm not sure, but reading it I feel like there is something missing. Well, you know what they say about statistics.

Dennis Kuchinich compares his campaign to Harry Potter's fight against Voldemort. Please try not to laugh too hard and burst a blood vessel.

One of my favorite artists, Phil Foglio, is doing a stand-alone story at Sluggy Freelance this week. Check it out!

There's a superhero show on the History Channel tonight. I plan on watching it, if I don't forget.

I haven't yet mentioned anything about Harry Potter. That's because I don't yet have a copy and haven't yet read it, nor do I want to hear any spoilers. Hubby-Eric and I ordered our copy from Canada in order to get a non-Americanized version, and it'll be a few days before it arrives.

You must check out these great parody Comic Book Ads done by Rich Johnston of Lying in the Gutters fame. Trust me, these are worth looking at. I particularly like the Shaq one, but they are all good. Link courtesy of The Captain.

Super Friends TPB Vol 1: This reprints stories from the original Super Friends series from issues #1, 6-9, 14, 21, and 27. The comic book was much better than the TV series. It brought in more heroes, and had generally better writing as well as art. In fact, Ramona Fradon did most of the pencilling job, which makes this book pretty collectable as it is. The only problem with this collection is that the first story ends on a cliff-hanger, and they didn't bother printing the resolution.

Super Friends TPB Vol 2: This reprints stories from the original Super Friends series from issues #10, 12, 13, 25, 28, 29, 31, 36, and 37. Again, most of the art is classic Ramona Fradon. And Aquaman comes out as quite strong in these reprints, something you didn't see much on the show. This is a great collection.

No sooner do I do a shout out than I've got another link to add... this one is to a Justice League page/blog by Captain Custard. Looks fun, comprehensive, and appropriate for an Aquaman fan to link to, so he's in.