I love the letters section in the NY Daily News, known as The Voice of the People.

Fore!
Ozone Park: There is no shortage of fools in America and, specifically, on Long Island. That became abundantly clear as I watched hundreds of simple life forms stand in the rain for hours while yet another grossly overpaid golf pro played at the U.S. Open.</p>

Now, this bedraggled clan of pitifully complacent wage slaves will undoubtedly rush off to Shea and Yankee stadiums, where their complaints about overpriced food and beverages will be lost in the irony of their continued, obsessive demand to purchase these items, as well as tickets with skyrocketing prices.

They will pay for the privilege of standing in the rain — wet, clueless and cold.

Even a dog couldn’t be conditioned to behave with such staggering loyalty.

Richard Iritano</blockquote>

David Beckham’s face appears on Jaffa Cake.

Bush’s handlers claim his speeches are influenced by his knowledge of the great thinkers:

On the morning of June 14, on the way to a college commencement address in Columbus, Ohio, Bridgeland, director of USA Freedom Corps, briefed reporters on a speech President Bush was about to give. It would be, according to Bridgeland, based on the works of George Eliot, Alexis de Tocqueville, Cicero, Adam Smith, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Pope John Paul II, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

“And we’ve actually discussed [Aristotle’s] ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ together,” Bridgeland said, apparently with a straight face. “Yesterday, he was talking in the Oval Office about how Lincoln had completed or addressed the concern that the founding fathers had when — Madison in particular, when he rejected Patrick Henry’s request to include a declaration of rights in addition, because of the concern that future generations would not remember that there are duties associated with protecting the country we love so much. He made that very case yesterday in the Oval Office.”

The article is worth reading for the comparison of Bush’s speeches with the words of Jefferson, de Tocqueville, etc.

Nice essay on Brian Ferry in Salon. As the photos show, he is aging very nicely.

I found this page after noticing his weblog in my referrer logs. It’s a very good first-person account.

Today’s mullet haiku, courtesy of Mark Morford:

Oh you hot mama
In your white jeans and teased hair
Come see Ratt with me

I won’t tell you what I was doing on this site. OK, I will. I looked at it because Choire linked to it in a very undertandable need for escapism.

Found via cursor.org:

In a press conference with Rumsfeld, the Georgian defense minister tells the press that there are basically no al-Qaeda in his country, and that the USA has been pumping huge sums of money into the country:

it’s very difficult to me to say how much billions were spent by the U.S. I wish to assure you that what was done during these years, and especially since 1998 up to this day, is much bigger than any millions you can count.

House Passes Mormon Land Deal

The House quietly passed legislation yesterday allowing the Mormon Church to buy more than 900 acres of federal land in Wyoming to commemorate a religious site.

Despite the controversy surrounding the bill, just two lawmakers — Hansen and Rep. Dale E. Kildee (D-Mich.) were present to say “aye” when the measure came up to a vote. The legislation will face a tougher time in the Senate, where both of Wyoming’s Republican senators, Craig Thomas and Mike Enzi, oppose the bill.

“The Martin’s Cove area is public land in Wyoming, and I feel that decisions regarding our public lands ought to reflect the will of our people,” Thomas said.