Monday, September 10, 2007

Recommended Reading

Fred Kaplan reports on today's testimony by Petraeus and Crocker. I agree with him. It was all about as predictable as me linking to a Fred Kaplan article.

• Posted at 6:54 PM · LINK

Today's Bonus Video Link

Okay, another Jack Benny clip. This is from a 1969 TV show hosted by Liberace. It's not a great bit but it's always interesting to watch Benny, even in a not-great bit. He takes his time. He works the pauses. He keeps his attitude perfectly intact. One of the things that makes it play is that the director wisely did it all in one take with no edits and so didn't monkey with the performers' timing. The minute anyone started to monkey with Benny's rhythm, it threw everything off. Even on his own show, they didn't always know that and there were some horrendous edits in the ones he did on film and in his later specials that were done on tape. Nice to see that someone was smart enough not to do it in this segment...

• Posted at 4:04 PM · LINK

Monday Afternoon

I started to write a post about today's Iraq testimony and then I came across this paragraph from the famed blogger, Atrios...

This has been said a million times in a million different ways, but the whole point of this exercise is to ensure that Bush's war continues until it's time for him to cut brush permanently. The surge can't have worked because then it could start ending, and the surge can't be not working because then it would a tragic waste of lives and money, so the surge is working just a little bit...but might work a little bit more soon!

That's it, really. The folks arguing what we should do there — especially the ones who want us to stay — don't really care that much what happens to Iraq. Most of them wouldn't know a Sunni from a Shia. George W. Bush decided we should be in Iraq and no force on Earth can get him to admit that might have been a mistake. So it's all about keeping us there until someone else gets us out and Bush can say, "It would have worked but my successor chose to cut and run."

• Posted at 2:48 PM · LINK

Monday Morning

The Phil Spector/Lana Clarkson murder case has gone to the jury. Spector has denied that he told a reporter that his fate was "in the hands of twelve people who voted for George Bush." I guess that means he's not too confident of the outcome.

In the meantime, I'm getting concerned. It's been a little over forty minutes and we don't yet have a verdict. I'm going to continue planning my killing spree. Just in case.

• Posted at 11:25 AM · LINK

Today's the Day!

General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before Congress and report on how things are going in Iraq and how they recommend that we handle matters in the future. I'll bet George Bush is worried sick that they won't say that The Surge is showing definite signs of progress and that we need to give it more time.

• Posted at 3:29 AM · LINK

Stuff Upcoming

It was revealed on a panel at the Baltimore Comic Convention so I guess I should post it here. DC Comics, as you may know, publishes a fine comic that continues the adventures of Will Eisner's The Spirit. Darwyn Cooke has been writing and drawing it but he's departing the book. That's all old news. The new news is that while its next artist has not yet been announced, the writing will be handled by Sergio Aragonés (the plots) and me (the words). I'll tell you more about it when there's more to tell.

Also, I recently completed the script for a new eight-page story of Crossfire, the comic that Dan Spiegle and I did for several years. Dan is currently drawing the story which will appear in a forthcoming anthology comic. I'll fill you in on it shortly.

And while I'm plugging my comic book projects: The 25th Anniversary Groo Special — the first Groo in quite some time — will be arriving in comic book shops this week. It will be followed in short order by a mini-series called Groo: Hell on Earth, which will run four issues. And then that will be followed by the long-awaited "Groo Meets Conan" mini-series. I don't know what we're calling it officially but that's pretty much what it is. Groo's going to meet Conan and may the best barbarian win!

• Posted at 3:00 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Robert Spina, who often sends me great links that I can pass on to you folks, called my attention to this video. What can I say? It made me laugh.

• Posted at 12:36 AM · LINK