Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

DrugWarRant features a fascinating story.

Cops in Lisbon plan to crack down on drunk supporters while turning a blind eye to those spotted puffing on a spliff.

Pot-smoking fans have been assured they will not be arrested, cautioned � or even have their drugs confiscated.

Apparently, the decision is based on the fact that Lisbon will be playing England and England’s fans are known for… well, let’s just say that there are a lot of “hooligans” among the England fans. Drinking makes the fans violent, pot makes them… not.

Of course, such logic would never occur to American officials for such tricky crowd situations as, say, Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

CORRECTION: In my complete ignorance of world sports, I have made an error. The events listed above are taking place in Lisbon, but England will not be playing Lisbon. England will be playing France – Lisbon is hosting the game.

USA Today (All The News That Fits Between Our Coloful Graphics^TM) reports that frozen, batter-coated french fries now qualify as fresh vegetables.

Batter-coated french fries are a fresh vegetable, according to the Agriculture Department, which has a federal judge’s ruling to back it up.

But the department said Tuesday that the classification applies only to rules of commerce, not nutrition, and it doesn’t consider an order of fries the same as an apple in school lunches.

At the very least, they’ve learned from the mistakes of Reagan-era Republicans – the ruling doesn’t allow batter-coated french fries as a “fresh vegetable” when it comes to school lunches.

But how could it make sense to call frozen, batter-coated french fries a “fresh” vegetable?

Frozen fries are fresh simply because they don’t meet the standard necessary for them to be listed as processed, and adding batter to the fries does not change the classification, he [George Chartier – spokesman for the department’s Agricultural Marketing Service] said.

Well, I guess that makes perfect – hunh?

(Link via CarbWire)

We’re getting awfully prolific at the Anvil & Sprocket. Thud started it all with his reviews of Pitch Black and Finding Nemo, and then I had to follow up with my own reviews for Bubba Ho-Tep (featuring the immortal Bruce Campbell) and Wolfhound.

So you’ve got reading assignment. Go! Go!

Now available in PDF and Paperback! A selection of the 2004 Got Theater? Project’s Children’s Theatre Festival.

Ch-ch-check it out!

The Daily Record reports that Keanu Reeves is The One.

The actor stayed calm as windows shattered and people screamed in terror inside the supermarket, according to a US tabloid.

And Reeves reacted like it was a real-life version of one of his films as he hit the ground, yelling at panicked customers: ‘Get down.’

After the gunshots died away, Reeves crept to the front of the store to peak [sic] outside.

After scanning the empty street, he said to the store owner: ‘Call the police.’

Actually, that is fairly good action-hero stuff. Of course, the real capper would have been if Keanu had commandeered a passing car, sped off into the night, run the shooters off the road, subdued them, and dragged them back for the police. Yes, that would have been the stuff of action movies. Of course, since action movies are fiction and this was real, it also would have been highly stupid and his publicists would now be crowing about his heroics at his funeral, instead (and we would have Special Extended Memorial Edition DVD releases of Chain Reaction and Johnny Mnemonic).

I’ve said before that I honestly feel Reeves gets treated unfairly by the public at large. He’s a hard worker and he’s much better than a lot of people who have hit superstardom (Mr. Schwarzenegger – call on line one) – and if the reports about his conduct on the set are any indicator, he’s probably one of the most down-to-earth actors working in Hollywood today.

All of which has absolutely nothing to do with the events of the drive-by shooting—I just felt like saying it again.

On the freaky links watch, Neil Gaiman points us toward a website for ChristianExodus.org – an organization that plans to move Christians into South Carolina and then secede from the Union.

ChristianExodus.org is coordinating the move of thousands of Christians to South Carolina for the express purpose of reestablishing Godly, constitutional government. It is evident that the U.S. Constitution has been abandoned under our current federal system, and the efforts of Christian activism to restore our Godly republic have proven futile over the past three decades. The time has come for Christians to withdraw our consent from the current federal government and reestablish the sovereign Christian nation of South Carolina.

Considering that the majority of the founding fathers were actually Deists and not Christians, per se (they believed in a Prime Mover of the universe, but did not project any particular image or belief system onto it) and that they worked to guarantee the separation of Church and State in the Constitution, I can’t help but wonder where all of this talk of “Godly, constitutional government” and “Godly republic” comes from. Or the notion that enforcing the Constitutional separation of Church and State is actually abandoning the Constitution.

Among the other general nuttiness you’ll find is the Christian Exodus’ discussion of Right v. Privilege – for example, owning a gun is a right – getting an education is a privilege, as is voting.

ChristianExodus.org believes government exists to protect the rights and property of its citizens.� Rights are granted by God and may not be taken away by government.� However, government may establish and regulate privileges.� There is tremendous confusion today about the difference in rights and privileges.� A simple distinction can be made by asking oneself the question, �Is what I seek guaranteed to me by my Creator?�� Some examples of rights include: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, defense of private property, self-defense (bear arms), religious belief, etc.� Some examples of privileges, often misinterpreted as rights, include: public education, health care, public housing, public transportation, voting, etc.� Privileges should be granted on a fair and uniform basis with discrimination based upon circumstances individuals can change; no discrimination should exist based upon God-given traits received at birth.

Just what South Carolina needs. An illiterate, disenfranchised populace that has the right to be armed to the teeth. I guess ChristianExodus figures that without any public transportation, they won’t have to worry about armed insurrection (or street fights, or violent crime, or…). Or maybe they figure that without the “privilege” of health care (wait – I thought “life” and the “pursuit of happiness” were rights) they’ll only have to put down a few sickly insurgents and call it a night.

And it’s odd that their new Christian Constitution would establish health care as a “privilege” when they also want it to make provisions for “the protection of human life at conception.” So once you’re born, the free ride’s over?

And does anybody else find it odd that they would list “religious belief” as a right when their stated purpose is to stem the tide of other beliefs and to establish a specifically Christian nation with Christian morality and beliefs enforced by law? Or is this another example of that “Freedom of my religion” that I’ve seen so much of in recent years?

Ah, well. As long as they have to put up with other people, there’ll always be some folk who believe in the American myth of Christian persecution.

Having spent a few hours on an iStock hunt in the park today san insect repellent, I have to say – I really don’t like mosquitoes. In particular, I really don’t like mosquitoes when they try to land in your ear. Not on your ear, but actually in your ear canal. I don’t like that. It makes me do the not-so-happy, “Oh-my-Goddess-a-mosquito-just-landed-in-my-ear!” dance. It’s very simple. Jump five steps to the left and two steps to the right while hunching over and swatting at your ear. For added effect, take off your hat and wave it about like a maniac while ducking to avoid the camera swinging from the strap around your wrist.

Bleah.

I think that if there’s any politician who should not have had an airport named after him, it’s Ronald Reagan. After what he did to air traffic controllers in the 80’s, I felt it was in poor taste to name an airport after him – so I trained myself to simply refer to it as “National Airport.” Because the words “Re*g*n National” leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Which makes it a bit hard for me to reference the title of this interesting little piece from The Nation: 66 Things to Think About When Flying Into Reagan National Airp— Airrrpoooort.. Among them?

The firing of the air traffic controllers, winnable nuclear war, recallable nuclear missiles, trees that cause pollution, Elliott Abrams lying to Congress, ketchup as a vegetable, colluding with Guatemalan thugs, pardons for F.B.I. lawbreakers, voodoo economics, budget deficits, toasts to Ferdinand Marcos, public housing cutbacks, redbaiting the nuclear freeze movement, James Watt.

BBC News reports that a Pentagon report tells George W. Bush that he’s exempt from anti-torture regulations.

The draft argued that because nothing was more important than “obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens” normal strictures on torture might not apply, according to the Journal.

The report contended that the president, as commander-in-chief, has the authority to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogation, including torture, the newspaper reported.

Ahem.

What?