Tuesday, March 21, 2006

MY TOP TEN DVR SHOWS

1. The Daily Show - The only place for real news. May Jon Stewart and his merry band keep up their daily dose of "What the fuck?" for as long as it takes.

2. The Colbert Report - Rips O'Reilly and the other right-wing gas bags a new one every night in fresh and interesting ways. The best part of this show is the "try anything" ethic. One night, he's got no part in his hair. Another night, he's singing a duet with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. And watch out for bears.

3. NOVA - The theme song still gives me goosebumps. And now with Robert Krulwich!

4. Dinner For Five - See celebrities in their native habitat - eating free dinners. Jon Favreau's neuroses are on display as he noshes with his favorite co-stars and collaborators, many of whom are bat-shit crazy in real life. I love it when Maggie Gyllenhall fires up a stogie.

5. The Boondocks - Hilarious and often poignant send-up of race, class, pop culture and politics. My favorite character, aside from Huey, is the inept white gangsta-wannabe voiced by Samuel L. Jackson.

6. Later With Jools Holland - see here.

7. Pardon The Interruption - An entertaining way to catch up on the day's salient sports news. Tony and Mike can really bring the funny, too. That said, I'm getting sick of Duke, Larry Brown, the Yankees, Notre Dame, and Kobe.

8. The Office - It's different than the British version, but still satisfying. Since they have to do 23 episodes a season, the background characters are getting fleshed out far more than in the UK series, which makes it more of an ensemble cast.

9. My Name Is Earl - I probably wouldn't watch this if it were done in the studio with three cameras, but the indie-movie feel really makes this show. Jaime Pressley as Joy is a never-ending delight.

10. #1 Single. Lisa Loeb, marry me! Maybe she'll self-Google and see this. Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb Lisa Loeb. Seriously, though, e-mail me.

Monday, March 20, 2006

DAY 960 - A.B.B.

Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that ""Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis."

I completely agree. Except that postwar Germany had been purged of 6 million Jews and various millions of other minorities in a state-sponsored program of extermination. And the Nazis were agressors to their neighbors, having invaded Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, and Russia. And the Nazis were a direct threat to our allies Great Britain, having initated a bombing campaign of London. And the Nazis were a threat to the United States itself, having officially allied itself with Japan, a nation which had undertaken a devastating raid on our soil at Pearl Harbor. And the few Nazi leaders who had not been killed or had not killed themselves were being held for trial by an elite group of Allied jurists at Nuremburg. And there was relatively little war profiteering in postwar Germany, thanks to the Truman Commission.

Other than that, and probably about 50 other key points, Rumsfeld is right on.