An Unnumbered List

That post below this one has been there long enough.

"Next Blog" visitors here will think that I am using the internet to shop for sex. Heh, heh. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I am using the internet to shop for porn. But you have to admit, the person who wrote that ad (see the previous post if you must read it) was pretty clever. I thought about contacting her to tell her that I had used her ad as a blog post, and to let her know that I appreciated her writing. But then she probably would have sued me. Is plagiarism a crime? Even if I acknowledge it right in the plagiarism itself? But I guess you can be sued for things that aren't criminal. Look at O.J.Simpson: Not a criminal according to the court, but so sue-able. So if any of you were thinking about giving the ad writer a jingle, please don't mention me, OK?

I'm writing this to blot out the memory of my previous tawdry post, so I have to think of things to discuss, so as to push that other thing as far down the screen as possible. I usually don't do current events, because I have lived forever already and nothing much surprises me or outrages me, at least not enough to expose my thoughts to the world. Also, as I have mentioned elsewhere on this site, there are professional writers with press credentials and lots of access, not to mention their own personal fact-checkers, who are able to do a better job of punditry than I could, so mostly I stick to trolling for comments from naked women. Some of you have been obliging in that regard, and I can't thank you enough.

Nonetheless, because I am at a creative impasse, let me try a list of stuff:

• THE LONDON BOMBINGS. A lot of people hate us. I'm including the Brits and Americans in the group known as "us." There are other countries that are hated, too, sort of a coalition of the arrogant. Blowing things up and killing people you don't even know really pisses me off. Of course, it must really piss off the people who are blown up and killed. We've been doing it to whomever we want for centuries, so you've got to think they must be angry. So now they're blowing us up and killing us. Everybody in the West wants to know "Why do they hate us?" The real question is "Why did it take them so long?" Get used to it, people. This is not the kind of war you can win. In fact, the very act of engaging this type of adversary sort of guarantees that it won't end. The terrorists, who, let's face it, are fundamentalist Islamic radicals, don't have a political agenda, so we can't even surrender. We can't say, "OK, you win, we give up, you can have what you want." Because they only want to kill infidels. If we give up, they'll kill us all. So we have to take away their incentives to hate us. We have to treat the Arab and Islamic worlds with respect, instead of stealing all their stuff that isn't nailed down, installing murderous dictators in their countries and sneering at their culture and religion. It will take a couple of generations to pull something like this off, and the healing won't start until we in the U.S. dump our current crop of "leaders," who are, not coincidentally, fundamentalist Christian radicals.
• TOM CRUISE. What a terrible spot this poor guy is in! He is as queer as Rock Hudson. A gay Scientologist. You know The Church wouldn't approve. You know his twenty-million-dollar-a-picture career would take a nose dive if he came out. At least you've got to hand it to him for managing to get Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz and Katie Holmes to go along with the ruse. All he needs is to be married or paired off, and for that he could use anybody, but he went out and hooked himself three world-class babes. I'm trying to imagine being repulsed by doing the nasty with any one of these women. Not working for me, but I think I can simulate the feeling (of revulsion) by imagining myself with Tom Cruise! So not my type. One night with him and I'd be going on talk shows admitting my heterosexuality. And yet he has posed as lover or husband for these hot women for years! Has he won an Academy award yet? He deserves one for this ongoing performance. Maybe after a couple of years with little Katie he will cop. According to my calculations, sometime in the next 18 months he will have accumulated more money than God, and so who cares about the career anymore? He can "get back to his roots" and do some off-Broadway theater. But whoops! Here comes The Church of Scientology. They will have to lock him in a room and cure him, or else come out themselves. I can hardly wait.
• KARL ROVE. This is a non-story. But first, what kind of name is Plame? I've never known anyone with that name. It sounds made up. Is that the best the CIA can do? Making up names for their secret agents that sound made up? No wonder thay can't catch Bin Laden. Anyway, Bush said he'd fire anyone who leaked information about Valerie Plame two years ago, and now it looks like it was Karl, the guy who sort of created Bush and still pulls most of the strings. So there will be some awkward moments between George and Karl, the President and his mentor. Despite the fact that half the people in Washington already knew about Valerie Plame's job, if it can be proved that Karl did the leaking Bush will have to fire him. And the loyal opposition will grind on this interminably, so if there's any evidence it will be found, and even if there's no evidence the whole thing could bring the government to a standstill. Some of you will say "Good," and you are probably right, but Bush has to think of his legacy, such as it is, and so Karl must be canned. But wait - is this a bad thing? Certainly not for Karl. The Heritage Foundation or some other right-wing "think tank" will gladly pay Rove a million bucks to join them, and once he is free of the fetters of being a "public servant" he should be ble to make twenty grand a night in speaking fees. That's more than I make in a week. He doesn't strike me as a guy who cares if people like him, so even if he faces the public humiliation of an indictment and a trial, he'll still be able to laugh, especially when he is sentenced to six months in some low-security Martha Stewart clink (suspended, of course). Not to mention that he cannot do anything bad enough for the millions of ditto-heads in this country to lose their love for all things Rove. So this is a win-win: Joe Wilson is made an example of and Karl Rove becomes a millionaire. Because I don't have a fact-checker, I have to state here that I don't know if maybe he already is a millionaire. But either way I'm sure he won't mind getting the hell out of D.C., and getting started on his "civilian" life.
  
• THE PROTEST SONG. You thought maybe this was going away, didn't you? Well it's not. I won't bother to link back to the relevant posts about this debacle. If you were here, you know what I'm talking about. If not, you missed a great party. I am actually working on the protest song, using as much of what you sent me as I can, without violating the Hayes Act. When it's finished I will record it and post it here, as I have previously threatened. I only wish I could somehow invade all your computers, you lazy do-nothings who have not helped me with this project, and force you to listen. It will not be pretty, but it will be done.
• THE DA VINCI CODE. Yes, I am reading it. I was forced to. Someone at work bought the book and loaned it to me, against my wishes. But I have to read it now, because I refused to read Atlas Shrugged when this same woman forcibly loaned that one to me a few years ago, and so I owe her one. This book has swept America, and it has been recommended to me vigorously by so many people that I expected it to be, well, really good. I will say this: It is a classic page-turner. Every chapter ends in a cliff-hanger, and since there are three (or four) storylines, you often have to read a couple of chapters to find out the resolution of one of the cliffhangers. But while you are doing that, you discover a couple more cliffhangers, and so on. I am only half way through it, so I don't think I know enough to spoil it for anyone, so for God's sake, don't click away from here. For me the problem with the book is that the descriptions are dull and the characters are simply props. They don't feel like real people, and therefore one does not get involved much with them. I think the world likes this book a lot because it says many bad things about the Roman Catholic Church (hooray), and because it piles on a lot of little "facts" about history and language and philosophy and religion, and makes it seem as if you are learning something by reading it. This is an illusion. Still, I have to say I like all the stuff about Goddess worship, yin and yang, and the sacrament of fucking. In my big-budget blockbuster movie, which will be out late next spring, I will cast Keannu Reeves as Robert Langdon and Isabelle Huppert as Sophie Neveu. The film will flop, but I will get to meet Isabelle Huppert, and share a sacrament.
  
• I APOLOGIZE to any of my blogging buddies whom I may have offended in private email. I didn't mean to, I was thoughtless and crude, and I beg forgiveness.

As always, my heart is filled with love for you all, but tinged with vague unease.