Posted on July 8 at 10:46 p.m.

Charlie,

thanks for blogging. It's interesting to hear things from your perspective. Your comment about the things feeling like a maze is mirrored in this recent story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25414317/

do you think overall the walls are helping or hurting? there are reports of them being used to split different sects and neighborhoods and your comments about the sound distortion and slowed traffic sound dangerous, as well. are they making things worse, neutral, necessary evil?

On T-walls, Trailer Parks and Desert Dust. (Baghdad Blues)

Posted on July 1 at 9:23 p.m.

it's interesting to note how he just _turns_ in the second call. i'm not sure where it happens exactly, but he seems to be coming to a stopping point, but then it just goes haywire and he flips.

oh, and if you haven't happened on these yet...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dZ83use8YE8
http://youtube.com/watch?v=j7epDIrJImU

not sure who the actor (?) is, but his facial expression are great.

On Worst Voicemail in History of Telephone (Makes Sense To Me)

Posted on July 1 at 11:53 a.m.

holy shit.

nice work, joel! you should be in journalism!

On Worst Voicemail in History of Telephone (Makes Sense To Me)

Posted on July 1 at 11:40 a.m.

i'm really hoping Dimitri finds out that this has spread this far and posts some sort of response to the internet.

On Worst Voicemail in History of Telephone (Makes Sense To Me)

Posted on June 26 at 6:22 p.m.

joel, i knew you were just explaining and wasn't directing that at you. just those evening frustrations, ya know. and i think you're just about exactly right.

but the reason to still vote for moore in lesser-evil-land - if you look at it like that - is that he's going to be better on some of the issues. ideally you get to throw out the people that aren't w/ you on the issues that matter and moore and boyda (i guess?) are thinking they'll be progressive on the stuff they can get away with.

i get the idea of picking ones battles, but at some point they're gonna have to fight to win one of the hard ones.

On Democrat$ and the FI$A Bill (Ten Million Pounds of Sludge)

Posted on June 25 at 9:40 p.m.

I completely see what Joel is saying, but I'm sick of it.

Stand for something or stand for nothing. Strategic or not, debate it, fine. But Congress is about to let a bunch of criminals off the hook and way too many people think it's no big deal.

Enforce the laws as they are written, don't just willfully set this precedent and don't fall over when the other guy pushes you, just because you think you'll _maybe_ get a punch in later on. Stand your ground. This is embarassing.

On Democrat$ and the FI$A Bill (Ten Million Pounds of Sludge)

Posted on June 24 at 2:14 p.m.

alm,

"The local climate is mostly desert, with mild to cool winters and dry, hot, cloudless summers. The northern mountainous regions have cold winters with occasional heavy snows, sometimes causing extensive flooding."

via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq

And I'd recommend the movie "I know I'm not alone" by Michael Franti (you'll have to tolerate some of his songs, if you watch it) but I found it gave a perspective of daily life there I had never seen elsewhere. http://www.iknowimnotalone.com/

On Living the Legacy of Abu Ghraib (Baghdad Blues)

Posted on June 24 at 1:50 p.m.

lazz, Into The Wild is a great soundtrack. (Better book than movie, but what isn't.)

i like Dazed and Confused soundtrack.

and strangely, my first CD purchase ever was the soundtrack to Coneheads. Magic Carpet Ride really got to me, i guess.

On Top 10 Movie Soundtracks (Scene Stealers)

Posted on June 22 at 9:40 p.m.

nice.

On Artist writes down what he said about his wordless short stories (Blank Canvas)

Posted on June 19 at 10:27 p.m.

i couldn't tell if one of those guys was Perez Hilton...

and not saying this will happen, but it could....and if it does this will def. be on the list of reasons john mccain ends up NOT being the GOP nominee.

how's that for some thread hijacking. :)

On McCain's '92 C-Bomb (Ten Million Pounds of Sludge)