Strange Development...

A lot of you have seen Stephen L. Anderson. Anderson is a very conservative pastor in Arizona who's best-known for his famed "him that pisseth against the wall" video on YouTube.

I saw this come through over at www.boingboing.net. Didn't realize it was the same guy until I looked at the actual YouTube page.

Check this out and let me know what you think:

Interesting stuff...

Love to know your thoughts on this one, gang...

GOOD THING IT WASN'T 2 ANGRY BADGERS

Okay, you're all an intelligent lot...

What do you make of this?



Is it funny?
Is it horrible?
Is there something to be learned here?

LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD!

John Knows Politics...

One of the perks of constantly saving posts is that you've always got a "plethora" of stuff to post during your downtime. As a little break from Hospital Watch 2008, I'll be throwing out some random stuff that I've been typing up these past few days.

Finally got the chance to read biographer David McCullough's John Adams. I'll admit that I wasn't even aware of it until I caught some clips from the recent miniseries adaptation.

The book is great. An in-depth look at the men who shaped the country's course as they struggled with the idea and the risk of independence. It's also filled with tons of great quotes from John Adams. I found this one particularly relevant to the cultural climate in which you and I live and breathe.

"This assembly is like no other that ever existed. Every man in it is a great man - an orator, a critic, a statesman, and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.

"The consequence of this is that business is drawn and spun out to immeasurable length. I believe it was moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and mathematics concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative."

-John Adams, speaking of the 2nd Continental Congress (McCullough, pg. 86; 2001 Simon & Schustter.)

Sounds familiar, don't it?

The T-Shirt That Will Never Be...

What are the chances this will happen?
And if so, what are the chances it will work?

You Guys Are Smart...

You're intelligent, open-minded, fair people...

So I'll ask you this...

What do you think?

Should America start digging into its oil reserves?

Lots of folks, lots of opinions. Where do you stand?

Charlie Wilson's War

Kristen and I watched Charlie Wilson's War on Friday night. I read the book awhile back and loved it. We never were able to make it out to the theater to see this one, but we've been trying and trying to find a open night to watch it together.

Tom Hanks is so good in this picture. As somebody who's seen Charlie Wilson in lots of different capacities over the years, I can say that Hanks nailed the character. I'm not one of those guys who thinks Tom Hanks is the best actor in the history of film, but he really did an amazing job in this one.

As much as it pains my wife to hear this, I'm not really a Julia Roberts fan. Her role was kinda' non-existent in my mind.

I AM one of those guys that thinks that Phillip Seymour-Hoffman is one of the best actors in the history of film. This guy amazes me. The role of Gust Avrakatos is a pretty tough needle to thread, but Hoffman does it. Plus, he's a portly gentlemen and you all know I like to see big brothers out there making good in Hollywood.

The movie did a good job of following the book for the most part. Certainly, movies are never as good as their bookish-beginnings, but the movie was still pretty true.

Until the end.

If you haven't read the book or know much about what happened, Congressman Charlie Wilson covertly smuggled weapons to the "mujahideen" in Afghanistan who were engaged in a war with the Soviet Union. It was all very Cold War and a big deal in Washington once the Afghani fighters began knocking Hind helicopters out of the sky.

The problem is that Wilson's effort essentially armed and trained the folks who would eventually fly jet planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The book goes into great detail as to how Wilson's armament and encouragement trickled down to those with anti-American sentiments and speaks openly about why we heard so very little about Wilson in the months immediately following 9/11.

The movie tries to fix that - it tries to paint Wilson in a better light, tries to make him the ultimate hero by showcasing his desire to stay in Afghanistan, educating the children of the mujahideen on America and freedom and such.

That might have happened in reality, but I think it's a departure from the book. That bugged me. I was content to see events unfold as they did. I don't need somebody to go off the text just to make sure I know who the hero is. I think folks are smart enough to recognize the flawed protagonist and to realize that life is rarely as "Cinderella" as the movies would have us believe.

If you're gonna' see it, be prepared to hear some creative cursing. There's also a little bit of nudity in the first ten minutes. (I wasn't prepared for that...)

If you've read the book, I think you'd dig it. If you're not familiar with the whole Charlie Wilson thing, I think you might find it boring.

However, he does mention Lufkin and Nacogdoches and there's a picture of the meeting room at Crown Colony, which is here in Lufkin.

Anybody else see it? Anybody like it?

You're Welcome, John McCain...

(CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton said she "misspoke" last week when she gave a dramatic description of her arrival in Bosnia 12 years ago, recounting a landing under sniper fire.

Clinton was responding to a question Monday from the Philadelphia Daily News' editorial board about video footage of the event that contradicted her assertion that her group "ran with our heads down" from the plane to avoid sniper fire at the Tuzla Air Base.

Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for rival Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, said the Bosnia claim was part of "a growing list of instances in which Sen. Clinton has exaggerated her role in foreign and domestic policymaking."

Clinton told the paper's editorial board it was a "minor blip."

"I say a lot of things -- millions of words a day -- so if I misspoke, that was just a misstatement," she said.

In a radio interview that aired Tuesday, Clinton said she wasn't worried about the incident hurting her credibility.

"I have been in the public eye for many, many years, and this is something that I think happens to anybody," she told radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In a foreign policy speech last week at George Washington University, Clinton used the description of a dangerous arrival to bolster her argument that she has the foreign policy experience needed to be commander in chief.

She said when she arrived in Bosnia on March 25, 1996, "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

But news video footage of her arrival at Tuzla shows Clinton, then the first lady, calmly walking from the rear ramp of a U.S. Air Force plane with her daughter, Chelsea, then 16, at her side.

Both Clintons held their heads up and did not appear rushed.

The video shows Clinton spending several minutes talking with the group, including an 8-year-old Bosnian girl who presented her with a poem, and later greeting U.S. troops.

Clinton has mentioned the sniper fire at least twice earlier in the campaign, including in December in Dubuque, Iowa, before the caucuses in that state.

Clinton's campaign has made foreign policy experience a centerpiece of her effort to come back

against Obama, whom she is trailing in delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination.
During Monday's editorial meeting -- in which Clinton was seeking the Daily News' endorsement ahead of Pennsylvania's April 22 primary -- she was asked about the apparent discrepancy. The newspaper reported her response:

"Now let me tell you what I can remember, OK -- because what I was told was that we had to land a certain way and move quickly because of the threat of sniper fire. So I misspoke -- I didn't say that in my book or other times but if I said something that made it seem as though there was actual fire -- that's not what I was told," she told the newspaper.
"I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this 8-year-old girl and, I can't, I can't rush by her, I've got to at least greet her -- so I greeted her, I took her stuff and then I left. Now that's my memory of it."

Meanwhile, as Clinton backpedaled from the description of her Bosnia trip, the senator from New York was keeping her focus on the economy with a town hall-style meeting Tuesday in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Clinton also pushed back against recent speculation by pundits and Democratic insiders that her chances of securing the nomination are quickly diminishing.

"I know there are some in Washington, and some in the media, who want this race to be over," she said to a loud chorus of boos.

"There are some who think we don't need to hear the voices of people in Pennsylvania or Indiana or North Carolina or Montana or any of the other states that haven't had their chance to vote. Well, I disagree."

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, focused on the economy and the housing situation Tuesday, participating in a roundtable discussion in Santa Ana, California.

McCain blamed "rampant" speculation and "complacent" lenders for the mortgage crisis.
Vowing not to "play election-year politics," he called for more transparency in lending and higher capital reserves for lenders.

Obama had no public events scheduled Tuesday. The senator from Illinois was wrapping up a brief vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

I Don't Mean To Brag, But...

John McCain called me yesterday.

Mike Huckabee, responding to critics who complained that an TV spot running in Iowa should have said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"...

“I don’t know what else to call Christmas. Last time I checked that is what we celebrate. If somebody can give me a way to get around that and do it honestly, then perhaps that’s what Christmas is..."

HT: cnn.com

Isn't voting for Mitt Romney kinda' like hoping to elect a mayor who thinks he was abducted by aliens?

Thank you, Jeff Williford, for showing me this:

Big Brother Vs. Mom and Dad

Caught a story on NPR this morning while driving to work. I had heard that California was about to try to do some law-making about cell phone usage in cars.

What I hadn't heard is that legislators are also trying to pass a law that prohibits 16 and 17 year-olds from driving while using any electronic device (including hands-free equipment.)

Opponents of the bill say that teaching safe driving is the responsibility of parents, not the state.

What do you think? Would this law be an invasion of personal privacy? Does the safety of its citizens warrant the government violating what a person does in his or her car?