"The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad."

Analysis: tying the struggle for the right to gay marriage to racial justice. (I've always said that this was the best way to make the push for it.) NYTimes editorial here.

Analysis: China's response to its worst natural disaster in three decades has revealed a nation in the throes of political change.

( Saturday news... )

More strike fallout: trepidation at the television upfronts for the fall season.

A younger, more hip Freemasonry?

Attention bosses at the Aliens vs. Predator franchise:

I'm giving you the same advice I gave the Star Trek people. Don't feel you need to produce another film, just because you finished the last one. Take a break. Wait for a good script to come down the pike, or some really talented director wants to work with the material. It'd really help preserve what's left of the quality of the mythos.

Two fashion articles? Sure. Superhero costumes (with bonus Chabon quote) or steampunk (with bonus awesome.)

"Al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj, 38, has been freed after being detained at the U.S. military camp for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the past six years without being charged or tried for any crime."

Wait, a gay kid can't go to prom because the school is concerned about his safety? What about all the other kids there?

( The late news... )

Evolutionary insights from the platypus genome.

"I always say, 'Come to America, go to community college and marry a Kennedy. It's all very simple.'" -Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Trailer for The Spirit. Note the movie's been pushed up to 12/25 of this year, which is fancy.

I dig. Wish it was a little less Sin City-esque, but I will survive.

Oxygen-starved 'dead zones' continue to grow in the oceans.

'Voting rights are too important to leave to the states.'

"Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?"

( Friday news... )

Write your own punchline: Rob Liefeld signs on for new comic book based on the biblical Apocalypse.

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country." -President Bush, five years ago today

"To learn that such a document was classified had the same effect on me as waking up one morning and learning, after all these years, there is a 'secret' Article to the Constitution that the American people do not know about."

More than 4500 cameras: DC has an ambitious surveillance network plan.

( Thursday news... )

Heh. Residents of the isle of Lesbos want to reclaim their name.

'How comic strip Dan Dare inspired young Britons'

"This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country. When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit."

News analysis: With all the crises that the American people are facing, you'd think Washington would be, you know, doing something. Anything. Grr.

Under Roberts, the Supreme Court is rejecting many broad legal challenges.

( Some news... )

The schedule for the TV upfronts. Need to find time to do some homework...

This Saturday is Free Comic Book Day.

Hit your local comic book store and pick up some treats.

Tongue: mostly healed. Swallowing no longer hurts. Still can't whistle quite right.

Star Wars minis: Legacy of the Force figs lookin' sharp! Faith restored.

Cat: extra crazy recently. Always cute when she purrs while we're trimming her claws.

Comic book news: I'm so out of date. Haven't read any of the NYCC articles I saved to read later. Partially due to...

City of Heroes last night: quick and dirty good times. Ice blastin' still big fun in large groups.

"The Democrats are doing everything they can to blow this presidential election."

Abu Aardvark gives us some weekend reading on Iraq.

The Explainer on how to airdrop relief supplies without squishing refugees.

( Saturday news... )

Interesting. New movie discusses the controversy over cochlear implants in the deaf community.

Whatever happened to Generation X?

The Eisner awards nominations have been announced. Again, tell me what you see missing.

The fight for Captain America: creators continue to fight for a piece of their creations.

Good read: fighting the spread of violent extremism with comic books.

Can Iron Man save Hollywood?

"DreamWorks has acquired rights to the Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell with plans to adapt the futuristic police thriller as a 3-D live-action feature."

Again, blah with the 3-D, but man. First Alita and now this. It's like they're just going through my favorites list. Fingers crossed it doesn't suck.

A list of all Disney and Pixar animated features to be released up through 2012. I am not pleased by the proliferation of 3-D.

Hmm. Adaptation signed for Hack/Slash. Might work. Might not.

Date for the next Punisher movie pushed back. However, I *love* that pic of Ray "that dude from Rome" Stephenson.

A potential lawsuit is brewing around the popular Scrabulous online version of Scrabble.

The AVClub interviews the Mythbusters Jamie and Adam.

Wow. Want to put the state of the industry in stark contrast? Check out the bestselling graphic novels and tell me what's missing.

Oh, great: a 'Final Crisis' for the Legion? (Spoilers, if you care.)

Details on the new Batman and friends show coming up this fall. Art: suspicious.

"What's most striking about the newly declassified Yoo memo is how naked it is in its aims. The administration wanted to give itself the permission to commit felonies and war crimes. And it listed them."

So, why was the Yoo torture memo classified in the first place? I mean, other than to keep the American public from finding out what was going on...

"Authorities say they removed 52 children, ages 6 months to 17 years, from a West Texas ranch occupied by followers of imprisoned polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs."

( Saturday news... )

Hee. The AVClub presents eighteen fictional drugs.

Heroes returns on Monday, September 15th with a two-hour season premiere.

The Origins spinoff is apparently dead, though.

Long-awaited Superman ruling: "A federal judge here on Wednesday ruled that the heirs of Jerome Siegel — who 70 years ago sold the rights to the action hero he created with Joseph Shuster to Detective Comics for $130 — were entitled to claim a share of the United States copyright to the character."

This groovy Coilhouse article on Val Lewton notes that four of his movies, including Cat People, are being remade... by the company responsible for the Saw franchise. Color me dubious.

"Walt Disney, the man, is a singular character in American history."

'Mixed emotions grip the stars of Galactica as they enter the final season.'

YahooMovies names its ten most historically inaccurate movies. (Honestly, I don't think 300 made any attempts to be accurate, so I never think it belongs on lists like these.)

"The C.I.A.'s destruction of interrogation videotapes, a move intended to avoid legal trouble, may instead be adding to it."

A day in the life of a Guantanamo detainee. Bonus: Count Dracula?

So, uh, what are they fighting about in Basra?

( Friday news... )

Global warming: 'The American West is heating up faster than any other region of the United States, and more than the Earth as a whole.'

Tobey Maguire to bring comic book Afterburn to the big screen.

"...According to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, there are 277 confirmed 'extrasolar' planets, and quite a few more on the list of those suspected but not yet confirmed. This explosion in planetary discoveries is taking place at such warp speed that even those most intimately involved are often amazed - especially because their ultimate goal is nothing less than finding life elsewhere in the universe."

"Unlike soldiers of previous wars, who were only occasionally able to write letters, many who served and died in Iraq left behind an extraordinary electronic testimony."

TUESDAY MORNING NEWSDAY:
* Is Bush's reluctance to act on economic matters just a matter of principle?
* Andrew Sullivan on how he screwed up on Iraq.
* Good read: Abu Aardvark praises Obama's speech... on Iraq.
* Finances may force small towns in New Jersey to merge.
* Protesting the war at an Easter Mass? Unclassy, people.
* Richardson snaps back at Clinton's campaign.
* Interesting: NBC TV studios to split into two.
* A-Team movie? I refuse.

Top 20 kickass female genre characters.