There are monsters in Montauk! On Tuesday, Gawker posted a photo of this amazing beastie that turned up on a beach in Montauk, New York on some undisclosed day in the recent past (or future):

I’ll agree that this is a strange looking thing. Is it a monster? I’m guessing it’s a dog who’s been bashed around in the ocean a little bit. Gawker, in their infinite insider wisdom, assumed it was viral marketing:

This is an actual monster, some sort of rodent-like creature with a dinosaur beak. A tipster says that there is “a government animal testing facility very close by in Long Island,” but unless the government is trying to design horrible Montauk monsters that will eat IEDs and fart fire at bad Iraqis, we’re not sure why they would create such an unthinkable beast. Our guess is that it’s viral marketing for something.

As I’ve noted before, I am entirely sick of the Internet. Why can’t a monster on a beach just be a monster on a beach? I think my generation, being raised on TV, is somewhat skeptical of ads. The generation below us, or maybe even the generation below that (I lose track of where we are at this point), sees marketing efforts everywhere. I don’t see how it couldn’t affect your view of everyday reality.

Or maybe it’s just Gawker, and by extension, the hip New York media world. I had some good times living in New York, don’t get me wrong. But the “I am not impressed with anything you do” attitude did get to me after awhile. In LA, people at least pretend to be interested in what you do. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I will take fake kindness over real rudeness any day.

Via Google News:

US President George W. Bush on Wednesday drew on surging fuel prices and growing public support for offshore drilling to reiterate his call for Congress to allow the practice in order to curb an energy crisis.

“There is now a growing agreement across our country that the government should permit the exploration and development of these offshore oil resources,” Bush said after a meeting with his cabinet to discuss energy.

So many things about this story drive me crazy. First of all, this has nothing to do with the story itself, but the way Bush presents his opinions as fact is a constant source of frustration. “There is now a growing agreement across our country that the government should permit the exploration and development of these offshore oil resources.” What that says to you, the isolated individual, is “everyone thinks this is a good idea but you.” It’s a classic bullying tactic to make those who aren’t of the same opinion feel like they’re weirdos, or they don’t know what they’re talking about, or it’s useless to fight against because you can’t stop the tide of growing agreement.

Meanwhile, the only place where there is actually growing agreement is that high gas prices suck ass. We don’t give a damn where the oil comes from, as long as our cars can continue to be propelled forward in the manner to which we are accustomed. No one is thinking, “please drill offshore! But if there’s more gas found in Texas, we don’t want it!” We’re thinking, “holy mother of god I just spent 25% of my income to fill up the tank! Where is there more oil? Offshore? Sure! Great! Give it to me!”

And this would all be well and good if we really knew that drilling offshore was going to give us cheaper gas or decrease our dependence on foreign oil. Not that it would be an optimal situation, but at least I could understand that somewhere in the back of his mind, Bush might have the best interests of the country at heart. However:

But analysts say that renewed offshore drilling would have little impact on gas prices anytime soon.

It would take at least a decade for oil companies to obtain permits, procure equipment, and do the exploration necessary to get the oil out of the ground, most industry analysts say. And even then, they add, the amount of new oil produced would probably be too small to significantly affect world oil prices.

This is not a political issue. It’s not a situation where Democrats say it’s going to take the oil companies at least a decade to obtain permits and procure equipment, while Republicans say they would be able to drill instantly. It is a fact that it’s not physically possible to set up these oil rigs in less than a decade. Now, how many members of this vast new swath of Americans who support offshore drilling do you think understand that even if we started working on it today, our gas prices would continue to climb for 10 mother freaking years?

So, obviously, offshore drilling is a crock, and the American people should know this information. How is it presented in our original, unbiased news story?

Earlier this month House Speaker Nancy Pelosi derided Bush’s offshore drilling plan as “a hoax,” stressing it would neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence, and instead urged Bush to bring some of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve stockpile to market, a move Bush rejected.

You catch that? Nancy Pelosi is deriding it as “a hoax.” She has her opinion, Bush has his. Who could say what the reality is in this situation? Certainly not the press!

And don’t even get me started on “clean coal.” If you want to know the facts, check out this fascinating article from Rolling Stone.

John McCain has a new campaign ad where he talks about Obama’s celebrity as if it’s a bad thing.

What the Hell are they thinking? There is nothing more American than the belief that celebrities are better than us. Calling Obama “the world’s biggest celebrity” sounds like an endorsement. Most people who see this ad are going to totally zone out after 10 seconds, and they’ll be left with the image of Obama addressing thousands of screaming fans, just like Larry the Cable Guy who was hilarious at the state fair last year. Who does McCain think he is, trying to say that celebrities aren’t cooler than us?

Their follow-up doesn’t seem much better:

Earlier in the call, chief strategist Steve Schmidt chimed in with his own take on the world of the rich and famous. “It is beyond dispute that [Obama] has become the biggest celebrity in the world. It is a statement of fact. It is backed up by his tour,” he said. “The question we are posing to the American people is is he ready to lead yet. And the answer we are offering to the American people is, no he is not.”

“ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!? IT IS BEYOND DISPUTE! BARACK OBAMA IS THE MOST FAMOUS MAN IN THE ENTIRE WORLD! JOHN MCCAIN’S FAME IS NOTHING COMPARED TO THIS MAN! IT WOULD BE AS IF ANGELINA JOLIE AND JENNA VON OY WERE COMPETING FOR THE SAME ROLE IN A FILM! WHO? THAT’S RIGHT, WHO! JOHN MCCAIN IS THE JENNA VON OY OF POLITICS, YOU IDIOTS!”

I was just doing some research on swing dancing, and I came across this tuh-RULY dope video of dancers with mad swing skills. I don’t know who these people are, but I could watch this video for hours. Man, I wish I could dance like this.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, my dancing is still pretty sweet.

The House Judiciary Committee voted in favor of citing Karl Rove in contempt of Congress today for refusing to testify in the Justice Department hearings. Don’t worry, fellow Rove-a-maniacs, I’m sure Papa Bush will swoop in and make sure nothing bad happens to the lovable lil’ scamp. One quote from the article stuck out at me:

Republicans who unanimously opposed the measure accused Democrats of staging political theater.

“Instead of conducting witch hunts, we should consider bipartisan legislation to reduce the price of gas, reduce crime and secure the borders,” said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the top panel Republican.

What kind of person is afraid of witch hunts except … A WITCH? Not knowing anything about this Rep. Lamar Smith character, I thought I should do some investigating. The picture I found sent chills down my spine.

The witch’s hat is one thing. I mean, I do believe in freedom of religion. But honestly, Congressman, you couldn’t have left the boiling cauldron at home on picture day?

I just moved my website to a new server. I read this on people’s websites and my response is generally, “who cares? What’s a server?” I’ll tell you why you care: because you no longer need to sit there like a dolt waiting for my site to load. Nice and fast now, just like the rest of the Internet.

If you come across any links that don’t work, please tell me!

LA just experienced an earthquake. I was in my apartment because I stayed home to get some laundry done. The building got very shaky for what felt like about 30 seconds. I didn’t know what to do. What I did was stand up and sort of pace around the apartment. After the shocks subsided, I went out in the hallway. My neighbor Honor was crouched in her doorway. I went over to make sure she was all right. “I just had flashbacks to China,” she said. I didn’t know what that meant. “Is it still shaking?” she asked me. “No, I think that’s just you,” I said.

Felix, the building manager, and Henry, the mute caretaker, came out of Felix’s apartment. “What are we supposed to do when something like that happens?” Honor asked Felix. Felix ignored her. “I’m so nervous,” he said, fanning himself. “I thought the whole building was going to fall down.” This didn’t do much to calm our nerves. Henry, the mute caretaker, raised his arms and pretended he was trying to catch his balance. Then he drew his hand across his neck in a slicing motion as if to say, “we’re all going to die.” I didn’t really know what else to say, so I went downstairs and checked on my laundry.

Okay, so now that Obama has proven himself to be an elitist dickhead who wastes his time caring about what people are thinking in other, less important countries like Europe, it’s time for the media to test his military mettle. McCain already passed the military knowledge test by being a prisoner of war. When countries take prisoners of war, they always choose the soldiers who display the strongest historical knowledge and aptitude for diplomacy, so the Vietnamese already vetted him for us.

The thing that’s really hurting Obama’s chances to become president today is his mistake in refusing to support the troop surge. The surge is working, and Obama didn’t believe it would, and therefore, Obama doesn’t know much about how to win wars. Everywhere he goes, he’s being asked the question, “Everywhere you go, you’re being asked the question, ‘do you regret your vote on the troop surge?’” Obama responds, “hey, I just kinda blew the mind of the entire world and single-handedly recaptured all of the goodwill that the Bush administration pissed-away over the last 8 years, can you cut me a little slack, maybe?” And the reporters say, “so how ’bout that boner on the troop surge deal, huh?”

Today I typed the question “did the surge work” into Google, because I’m not entirely sure at what point it was determined that George Bush’s decision to send more troops to Iraq in 2007 has solved the problems we were facing in that country. I remember when, just after Bush landed on the Mission Accomplished carrier, Democrats liberals were asked if they regretted their opposition to the war in the face of this obvious victory. That, I remember. I remember when Iraqiis voted for the first time, and Democrats liberals were asked if they regretted their opposition to the war in the face of this obvious victory. But I don’t seem to remember the moment when it was determined that this time, we are, without question, finally on the right track.

The first article that comes up is this one. It’s very interesting, but it’s on a site called “antiwar.com,” which leads me to believe they might have some sort of a bias. I went to the New York Times to see what they had to say about the matter, and all I got were two articles (here and here) talking about how McCain and Obama are “sparring” over whether or not the surge worked. If it’s a he-said, she-said sort of deal, than this does not help me understand why Obama has been asked about his wrongheaded position with the sort of incredulity reserved for Holocaust deniers. The Washington Post was equally useless — all I could find were opinion pieces where writers claimed the surge was working and offered little in the way of facts.

The only real fact I can find is that “levels of violence are at a 4 year low.” I don’t know how many attacks there were 4 years ago or how many attacks there are today. I don’t know if that means attacks on Americans, attacks on Iraqiis, or both. I don’t know if an “attack” includes all forms of violence, or if it only refers to bombings or shootings.

I do know that in addition to the troop surge, part of our strategy involved paying Sunni insurgents money to join our noble struggle:

September 9, 2007 — American forces are paying Sunni insurgents hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to switch sides and help them to defeat Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The tactic has boosted the efforts of American forces to restore some order to war-torn provinces around Baghdad in the run-up to a report by General David Petraeus, the US commander, to Congress tomorrow.

Petraeus will tell Congress that there has been great progress at a local level in Iraq following a surge in the number of troops this year, but little sign of political reconciliation.

So that strategy has seemingly worked pretty well. I also know that the “al-Qaeda in Iraq” that we’re fighting over there didn’t exist before the war started, that we still have about 8,000 more troops in Iraq than we did before the surge began, and that just a couple of months ago, General Patraeus said the Iraqi government was still not ready to stand on its own.

I guess the answer to my question, then, is that the surge has (probably) succeeded in not necessitating another surge. As long as our goal wasn’t to make the country safe, rebuild its infrastructure, withdraw our troops, or win the “war,” the surge was part of an excellent strategy that is meeting with great success, and I, for one, am ashamed that the Democratic candidate doesn’t have the guts to admit he was wrong.

In case you haven’t heard, Oliver Stone’s next picture is about George W. Bush. In case you don’t remember, he’s the guy who was president before Obama. The trailer just came out, and it’s weirdly fascinating:

After spending what feels like the bulk of my adult life with this bunch of clowns, watching people imitate them on film feels like coming home from school to find a bunch of actors playing your family. Still, if it’s even half as funny as the 5 1/2 hour* extended director’s cut of Alexander, we may have a winner!

Note: This joke is coming from a slightly dishonest place, as I have not seen Alexander. But that’s okay, because neither have you.

*5 1/2 hours?!? Really?!? I quote Rotten Tomato critic Jorge Avila Andrade when I say, “Como obra cinematográfica, no es la pésima cinta que han destrozado!!!” Oliver Stone is so bad-ass that when his 3 hour epic was unanimously hailed by critics and audiences alike as an overlong disaster, his solution was to tack on 2 1/2 more hours. “You think this movie’s hard to sit through, bitches? After I bust out my director’s cut, you’re gonna be begging me for the 3 hour version!”

I just did a search for myself on Cuil.com, the new search engine developed by some ex-Googlers. I did not figure as prominently in the returns as I should have, and for some reason, this image comes up as the cover of my book I, An Actress:

I did find one link I hadn’t seen before, though. This website was kind enough to link to a post I wrote awhile ago that I totally don’t remember writing. And if I do say so myself, it was hilarious! I had to follow the link to prove to myself that I was the one who wrote it. Somewhere in time, another version of me is chuckling to himself, thinking about how much of a nice surprise the future me is going to have when he stumbles upon a link to this post and realizes he was the one who wrote it. Thanks, past me! Good job!

Some super classy behavior was on display today in the Senate:

Today was a historic first for religion in America’s civic life: For the very first time, a Hindu delivered the morning invocation in the Senate chamber — only to find the ceremony disrupted by three Christian right activists.

The three protesters, who all belong to the Christian Right anti-abortion group Operation Save America, and who apparently traveled to Washington all the way from North Carolina, interrupted by loudly asking for God’s forgiveness for allowing the false prayer of a Hindu in the Senate chamber.

Hindus … aren’t those the guys who worship elephants with twelve arms and stuff? Well, guess what, pagans … YOU JUST GOT SCHOOLED BY THE POWER OF JESUS. Freedom of religion does not give you the right to believe that elephants have twelve arms. It just means that you can worship Jesus anyway you choose.