Month: June 2006

Colbert has a thing about bears. He’s always listing them as a major threat to America. So then this article hits:

“WEST MILFORD, N.J. (June 10) – A black bear picked the wrong yard for a jaunt, running into a territorial tabby who ran the furry beast up a tree – twice.

Jack, a 15-pound orange and white cat, keeps a close vigil on his property, often chasing small animals, but his owners and neighbors say his latest escapade was surprising.

“We used to joke, ‘Jack’s on duty,’ never knowing he’d go after a bear,” owner Donna Dickey told The Star-Ledger of Newark for Friday’s editions.

Neighbor Suzanne Giovanetti first spotted Jack’s accomplishment after her husband saw a bear climb a tree on the edge of their northern New Jersey property on Sunday. Giovanetti thought Jack was simply looking up at the bear, but soon realized the much larger animal was afraid of the hissing cat.

After about 15 minutes, the bear descended and tried to run away, but Jack chased it up another tree.”

I think Colbert should have the cat on as a guest. Maybe give him a medal or something.

PAD

I first met Greg and Tim Hildebrandt at an exhibition a bunch of years ago of artwork they had done for a set of Marvel playing cards. One of the pieces was of Random, a character I’d created for X-Factor. I wound up buying the piece. Wasn’t cheap, but how many Hildebrandt originals with characters I’d created was I going to find?

I encountered them again on occasion at various conventions. Always gentlemanly, patient with the fans, and incredibly talented.

Tim passed away at age 67. He will be missed. The artwork hangs on my office wall to this day.

PAD

Okay, see, this is how my mind works. I was channel surfing, and one movie channel was running “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” and another was running “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” So I think they should do a sequel called “Mr. and Mrs. Smith Go to Washington.”

It pretty much writes itself. The assassins are hired with the understanding that they’re to test the Secret Service’s “secure location” where the President is locked down during times of extreme danger. They manage to penetrate it and make a mock hit, except they find the president already dead, and discover they’re now framed for a presidential assassination. Something like that.

PAD

DC has decided to go back to press with the long out-of-print Fallen Angel trade paperback. It will be available in August.

No word on any interest in collecting the rest of the DC run.

PAD

Naturally, from a justice point of view, I’m as pleased as anyone else that this brutal creature who has killed so many innocent people is gone. However, I’m moved to ask two things:

1) Considering Al Qaeda had no presence in Iraq before we invaded it, aren’t the chances pretty good that all of his victims would still be alive if we hadn’t attacked?

2) Correct me if I’m wrong, but I could swear the Pentagon just got done explaining why outtakes from his recruitment video showed that, militarily, the guy didn’t know his ášš from his elbow. So should we be worried that, if an incompetent yutz was able to give us this much trouble, whoever replaces him might be even worse?

PAD

I mean, honestly: How could any conservative with a scintilla of common sense not be?

With Bush’s approval ratings at lethal lows, with the GOP chokehold on government apparently threatened, with civilians and soldiers dying at a stunning rate in Iraq, gas prices through the roof, citizens being spied on, the courts and politicians finally taking a long hard look at Bush’s historic power grabs…NOW Bush et al suddeny haul out a marriage amendment? NOW?

I mean, yes, the ploy worked wonders in energizing the conservative base and getting votes out in 2004 in a dazzling, multi-state display of voting bigotry. But no one’s mentioned it in two years. Suddenly, NOW, they announce that “marriage is under attack” and start talking about adding the first amendment since prohibition (which, y’know, worked out so well) that would restrict freedoms rather than expand them. It could not possibly be a more obvious gambit to try and appeal to the many voters who have had buyers’ remorse ever since they voted for Bush and the GOP in 2004 and slowly came to the realization they’d been hosed. It’s genuinely insulting to conservative voters’ intelligence, that their leaders think they’re THAT easily manipulated. That they’re going to overlook the very real assault that our soldiers are under, needlessly, in Iraq, because of the fake assault that the institution of marriage is allegedly under.

Is it that Bush et al believe that conservatives must be monumentally stupid because the fact that conservatives voted for them proves it?

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: If politicians are really worried about marriage being undermined, the key is not to prevent people from getting married. It’s to make it difficult-to-impossible to get divorced. But they’ll never do that because Bush and his cronies aren’t REALLY concerned about marriage being under attack. They’re worried their numbers are under attack. But they’re clinging to the notion that conservatives are Just That Stupid that they’ll fall for this crap a second time.

The question is, will they?

PAD

I don’t know about you but that coming at me would put me off smoking.
Kath