You may have heard that I’m obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Part of my obsession has led to lurking in internet chat rooms. I know, I know, its not something that I’m proud of.

However, that lurking has led me to the verry interesting www.buffistas.org. They happen to be favored by some of the writers of Buffy, Angel, etc. Especially Tim Minear, who worked on Angel and Firefly and now Wonderfalls.

Wonderfalls is why I’m posting – I watched it last Friday and it was great. Apparently, lots of people think it’s great but not many actually watched, according to the ratings. So Tim posted this open letter – and I thought you should read it. You can watch the pilot repeat on Thursday night, and then watch the new ep on Friday! Do it for Timmy!

Yeah, I know that an article stating that France has received terrorist threats is real, serious news, and I’m going to be just as mad if any Frenchies get blown up or otherwise inconvinienced by ANY terrorist organization, but the following sentence:

Berthomet (a former anti-terrorist police officer) said France had already hiked its security precautions up to “red” level, the highest it could do without unleashing draconian measures in the top “scarlet” level.

Is that like double secret probation (Nice deconstruction of Animal House)

( More on France’s terror alert system. At Scarlet, they shut off the drinking water. No lie).

“I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” says candidate Kerry.

Apparently funds for the troops in harms’ way falls lower on JFK’s priorities list than taxing the folks who are trying to get rich. (H)e would have supported it if it had been financed by repealing a portion of the tax cuts implemented during the Bush administration.

But we shouldn’t fault Kerry for that: He’s already got his (wife’s) money in the bank). It’s not like income taxes are going to make him sell the shack on Beacon Hill.

(BTW – “You had a chance” is just a reminder that a moderate Democrat running on a platform other than “Always Bash Bush” could have cleaned up with voters like me.)

Play Word Descrambler against Eugene and he’ll smart off to you like a South Park geek.

Argue all you want about the state of America’s standing in the international community pre-Shrub, but there is little doubt that we’ve fallen in the eyes of most of the world.

A majority of people living in Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and Turkey say they believe the U.S. is conducting its campaign against terror to control Mideast oil and to dominate the world, according to an international poll released Tuesday. …

When people in the nine countries — including Britain and the United States — were asked if the campaign against terrorism was a sincere effort to reduce international terrorism, majorities in France, Germany and the four Muslim-majority countries felt it was not. Almost half in Russia felt it was not, while majorities in Britain and the United States said they believe the campaign is a sincere effort to fight terrorism. …

People in the surveyed Muslim countries remain angry about U.S. policies, and even supportive of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi terrorist who took credit for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Almost two-thirds of the people in Pakistan say they view bin Laden favorably — a significant finding because U.S. troops are trying to find bin Laden in the mountainous region on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. More than half of those in Jordan and almost half of those polled in Morocco had a favorable view of the Saudi terrorist. …

About half in Pakistan said suicide bombings carried out by Palestinians against Israelis and against U.S. troops in Iraq can be justified. Two-thirds or more in Jordan and Morocco say it can be justified in both situations.

‘Cept this time, it’s oppressed person attacking oppressed person:

The BBC’s covering a gun battle in Gaza, in which a militant threw grenades and opened fire on the Palestinian police when stopped for questioning. 17 injured, only one killed, thankfully.

But it’s good to see that the the militants are taking the PA as a threat. I expect more of this as Israel unilaterally pulls out of Gaza.

I’m hoping to hear more on South by Southwest from our folks down in the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold. In the mean time, my pinko frat brother Weldon, who, I kid you not, got his job through Americorps (Giving out small business loans in Central Texas), and who went to stump for Dean in Iowa, turned me on to this article in the AAS about hosting foreign bands for SXSW:

David Dart and Curry Lemon say they look forward to sponsoring overseas bands each year. “It’s fun to see Austin through the eyes of someone who’s never even been to America in some cases,” says Dart, a systems analyst at the University of Texas. “Last year Curry and I had a band from England called Coin-Op. She had half of them at her house and I had half of them at mine.” Dart and Lemon designated one day as “Redneck Culture Day” and took the band out to a shooting range to fire pistols, then over to the Moose Lodge in East Austin for bingo. The night ended at the Crazy Lady strip club. “The (band) started off pretty wary about the whole excursion, but ended up having a blast,” says Dart

And this for my long-haired friends: The Darkness drummer Graham, meanwhile, keeps a souvenir from last year’s SXSW — a Frisbee. “Mitch took us to play Frisbee golf. What a strange game,” Graham says. This from a man who lives in the land of cricket.

My favorite impression of America as seen through the eyes of folks weaned on US media: Some want to try crack cocaine … As for that Hungarian who wanted to find crack: He succeeded one night in an alley behind a Sixth Street club. “I told a couple of the other (band members), ‘Man, we gotta get him away from those crackheads’ “ Zurik recalls. “So we put together this plan. They went over and distracted him and as I drove by in the alley, they picked him up and threw him in the car and we peeled out.”

ESPN.com’s Cheerleader Challenge

Open the link in MSIE, download the ESPN Motion plug-in, and watch nubile teen and early 20-somethings shaking everything they got.

(Random text about exploitation here)

BTW – is it just me, or do the promos remind anyone else of the “Girls Gone Wild” tapes … I mean, infomercials that run late at night?

The Rev. Al Sharpton has endorsed Kerry, who wants to be the nation’s second black president. As the leader of Backporch Beer Republicans for Sharpton, I am deeply sorrowed.

ESPN.com’s annual Wacky Bracket starts off yesterday. Choose between Steroids and WMD’s or Baghdad vs. Athens ?

It’s been a crazy week – I haven’t had time to fill out my brackets yet. You, too, can play on Yahoo by selecting group number 80896 and password brewski.

• Rob Lowe – actor (and the original teenage love videographer)
• NFL Quarterback Randall Cunningham
• Brittany Daniel of “Sweet Valley High” and Club Dread (and twin sister Cynthia Daniel also of “SVH”)
• Jefferson Airplane/Starship guitartist and song-writer Paul Kantner
• International Ballet super-star Rudolf Nureyev
• Funny lady Vicki Lewis
• Gary ‘Lt. Dan’ Sinise
• Goldie-Hawn-doin’ Kurt Russell
• Nat ‘King’ Cole – singer extraordinaire
• Master Stooge Shemp Howard
• How-could-you-not-know-with-a-middle-name-like John Wayne Gacy
• Ben Cooke – stunt double to Anakin Skywalker
• Pop star Billy Corgan AND
• Bass player Melissa Auf Der Maur
• U.S. Women’s soccer star Mia Hamm
• Ironically Irish folk/pop drummer Caroline Corr of The Corrs
• WWE wrestler Andrew ‘Test’ Martin
• Weirdo mutli-slash musician Gene Ween
• Stormy who played Princess Hubba Hubba in the pornody Space Nuts of the parody Space Balls

…I know there’s someone I left off this list. If you know of anyone I should have included, be sure to send them an e-card today!

If you got up early enough, before I had a chance to clean up the site, you saw several non-sensical postings that all linked to a website pushing child porn. I usually let spammers’ detritus float by and I don’t get my ire up. However, most of the time a spammer hits us once or twice and they’re usually selling penis elargement or cheap prescriptiong drugs — things that are morally questionable, but not neccesarily reprehensible. Today’s spammer hit us seven times and was trying to sell something disgusting.

I don’t have the resources to track this person to the ends of the earth, but I’ve got a few items I’ll list here that attempts to expose this scumbag a little more than they probably want.