If he could, he would demonstrate his loathing of monsters by acting monstrously! Behold his righteous savagery !

Or, better yet, don't.

Caught this little ad hanging on a wine rack at a local supermarket today.

Haven't seen the movie yet, but I did hear that Pinot Noir is a part of it somehow (I'll guess the title has something to do with storing wine bottles on their sides). Still, I was surprised to see this.

I'd like to pretend I'm insulted by it, since I've been a fan of Pinot for a long time (harrumph). And I learned about it the hard way - by buying and drinking lots and lots of different kinds of wine - not by being steered by something as crude and pedestrian as advertising. I like to think I'm not so easily led - but, I'm kidding myself.

When I bought my first Nick Drake CD, it had a little sticker on it with a Volkswagon logo that said "With Pink Moon, as featured in the VW Cabriolet commerical!" While I initially snickered at the blatant commercialism, I have to admit, that great commercial - where the group of pretty hipsters drive around what looks like the Florida Keys at night listening to Pink Moon instead of going to that rockin house party - nudged me into buying that CD in the first place.

So, maybe someone will see the sign, try a Pinot and say "Hey, yeah, this soft supple wine really is a nice change from the usual Merlot / Chardonnay routine. It's worth the extra two dollars a bottle!" And then there will be more Pinot Noir at the parties and get-togethers I end up at, and even better, maybe someone will buy a bottle as a gift for me!

Via The Panda's Thumb, an amazing discovery: Magi Astrology!

You see, these folks have proved that "Darwinism" is a hoax, because :

Darwinism is based on the premise that parents who have the greatest ability to survive have this advantage because of their genes and they will usually pass on this advantage to their children because the children inherit the parents' genes. But if parents cannot pass on such advantages to their children, then Darwinism cannot work.

We will prove on this website that our children's special abilities are not the result of the parents' genes but rather is due to the children being blessed enough to be born during special planetary alignments. Therefore parents cannot pass on their advantages to their children. This breaks the Darwinian chain of events necessary for Darwinism to work. Therefore, Darwinism is wrong and false.

Wow, Magi Astrology is sweet. But what are genes for, then?

Our genes determine that we are human beings as opposed to being a cat, dog or any other species. But our natal chart tells us how we differ from other members of our species, especially in terms of our personality, likes, dislikes, preferences and our relative abilities and talents.

To put it another way, it is our genes that make us human beings rather than dogs, cats or some bird. But it is our astrological natal chart that tells us what kind of human being we are most likely to be and what abilities we are blessed with. Genes will determine some of our personal physical attributes like the color of our eyes, hair and skin. But our natal chart gives us accurate signs about the type of person we are most likely to be - whether we will be submissive or aggressive, artistic or logical, etc.

Our natal chart will give us reliable signs about our special abilities and talents - for example, the stars can foretell if we can be great musicians or athletes, or math geniuses or great writers. Even though scientists claim otherwise, Genetics simply will not tell us what special talents we are blessed with.

Hmmm. I guess that makes sense. Sounds pretty powerful, this astrology stuff. Can it do anything else?

Of course it can! You can use it to do stock predictions! Wow!

So, where did this amazing science develop?

The Magi Society began as a secret society in China and remained a secret society until 1995 when it published its first book, Astrology Really Works!

Ah. So, Chinese astrologers can give me stock tips, personal advice and tell me how to improve my love life just based on the positions of planets? Yep. If only JFK Jr or Merck or John Kerry knew about this magical science !

Unfortunately, the special software required to do all this is not free, and doesn't even have a set price: it's available for between $43 and $350, and you have to send them email and discuss it before they'll even sell it to you.

Rats!

Two butterflies found a flower
And soon the mood turned sour
It's mine! cried the tallest
And pushed off the smallest
Such are the duties of power

And here are the first ten songs my iPod came up with this week, with commentary!

1. I Don't Know - Chris Bell. This is a little pop masterpiece from Chris Bell of Big Star. The song (and the album it comes from) never made an official release while Bell was alive. It wasn't released until 1992, 15 years after it was recorded. I have it on a Rycodisk promotional sampler A Little Big Star that showcases Ryco's releases of Big Star Live, Sister Lovers and Bell's solo album.

   Bandmate Alex Chilton gets most of the accolades for Big Star; but it's clear, after hearing Bell's and Chilton's solo stuff, that Bell contributed mightly to the overall Big Star sound. And, when Bell left, their sound turned from chiming Beatles/Byrds-like 70's power-pop to a strange paranoid and bitter version of the Velvet Underground. Bell deserves more credit, in my opinion.

   The chorus from Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun" brazenly steals the bridge in this song.

   Bell:
   I don't know what I'm going to do
   You don't know you're putting me through

   Aerosmith:
   What did her daddy do ?
   It's Jamie's Last I.O.U.

   Same melody for each.

2. The Day It Rained - Smaller Animals. A five song track, featuring me and my guitars. All somber, minor-key instrumentals. They're part of the same track (CD track, that is) because the CD burning software I had at the time couldn't create CDs without putting gaps between songs, and I wanted these to all run together. The first part, The Day It Rained, is an acoustic guitar piece recorded during a strong thunderstorm on the back porch of our apartment. I don't remember what I called the other pieces.
3. Surrey With The Fringe On Top - Miles Davis. I knew this version before I ever heard the Oklahoma version, so it's possible for me to listen to this without singing along - unlike everybody else in the world, apparently.
4. Polka Dots and Moonbeams - John Pizzarelli. Not really familiar with this song. John Pizzarelli has a nice voice, but I like his guitar playing better, and this song is a slow soft piano ballad. It fits right in after that Miles Davis track, but isn't what I need at 10am on a Monday.
5. Toys In The Attic - R.E.M.. Ah, that's more like it. I knew this version before I ever heard the orginal Aerosmith version. It rocks. I played the record this came from, Dead Letter Office, constantly, when I was in high school.
6. SWLABR - Cream. Love this song. Learned how to play (something resembling) it recently. But The Rainbow Has a Beard ... love them Cream lyrics.
7. Play - The Cure. This is a B-side or an outtake from the Disintegration / Wish era. It sounds a lot like Letter To Elise, which means I don't care for it.
8. Car Radio - Spoon. A quick little thing, which would've been only half as long if not for a strange little Nirvana-esque insturmental break in the middle. Like a lot of Spoon songs, it sounds like a great idea that got sketched-out and recorded without any further thought. It's both Spoon's charm and their greatest fault. Maybe they could be huge, with a bit more polish, but then they'd lose the thing that makes them special. I prefer them this way.
9. Happy & Bleeding - PJ Harvey. I really liked PJ Harvey during her Dry and Rid Of Me period - from which this one comes. Then she dscovered drum machines.
10. Thank You Friends - Big Star. This particular copy actually came from the same Rycodisc sampler that the first song in the the list came from, but properly, it's from the final Big Star record, Third/Sister Lovers. Chris Bell had left the group during the recording of their second album, and by this album, all traces of Bell's sweet, optimistic power-pop had been scrubbed away; all that remained was Chilton's self-indugence, frustration and bitterness: "Thank you friends, for making this all so probable," he sings. One of my least-favorite tracks from my least-favorite Big Star record.

We were talking about it at lunch today. Sadly, I missed the trailer, cause there's no way I'm watching no O.C.. But I think I know the basic plot anyway - it's the stuff that has to connect Ep 2 with Ep 4. Duh. Someone asked the question "why are Yoda and ObiWan the only two Jedi to survive? and how did they manage it?"

Well, I think Vader spared Yoda and ObiWan so they could serve as living fossils, so that nobody could ever forget what Jedis stood for. All the rest were killed to physically intimidate other wanna-be Jedis, otherwise, they'd turn into outright traitors to the Empire.

Or maybe that's what I heard from Limbaugh and Coulter. I forget.

My cellphone's camera doesn't handle bright light very well.

Maybe driving down the middle of the road is just the thing to do in NC... ?

And just let me note again - the black spots on the side of the road (to the right of that Mustang, for example) aren't holes, they're fresh pavement. Three weeks ago it was a hole; now it's new road.

Ampersand writes:

It would be bizarre to claim that a CAT scan can accurately show that brain anatomy is essentially absent, but cannot support a claim that absent anatomy isn't functioning.

Indeed it would. Read the rest as Ampersand takes the legs out from under the medical affidavits filed by medical experts on behalf of Terri Schiavo.

And when you've finished that, go read Majikthise's expose on the qualifications of those "experts". For example:

• Not a single one of the so-called experts has even examined Terri. Generally speaking it is considered unethical for a physician to diagnose a patient without examining her. Only a handful of the "experts" even claimed to have reviewed her medical records. Most filed from outside the state of Florida.
• Two of the experts identified by the Schiavo Foundation website as "Dr." hold no doctoral degree of any kind (speech and language pathologists Hyikn and and Lakas), and a third claims to have a doctorate in "neuroscience" but admits under oath that his PhD is in clinical psychology (Dr. Hooper).
• Dr. Richard Neubaeur wants to treat Terri with hyperbaric therapy, herbs, and acupuncture. It should also be noted that Dr. Neubaeur is also the owner of the largest neurological hyperbaric clinic in Florida and that his affidavit reads like an infomercial.

Just for the record: if multiple CAT scans show that my cerbral cortex has turned to liquid, don't bother trying to keep my body alive. My cerbral cortex is the only place I exist, and my body isn't really worth preserving.

I suspect that the human tendency to find evidence of Intelligent Design in everything we see is probably genetic.