BillSaysThis

Tom Shales goes a little Hunter Thompson on GWB: Bush’s Wake-Up Call Was a Snooze Alarm with an analysis of last night’s press conference. I was thinking that the president’s long pauses were more likely due to him waiting for suggestions from aides. That is, either via an earpiece or a monitor on his lectern, our fearless leader was getting help with his answers and needed a moment to read before speaking. If you believe movies such as Wag The Dog, such a thing wouldn’t be out of the question.

For my opinion on Desert Storm II, I’m wavering but still on the have to do it side. Some on the anti side say it’s all about the oil but I think Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker effectively demolishes that argument. The economics of the situation argue against war or even longlasting sanctions. The French and Russians threaten to veto any Security Council resolution; what’s the rush, they ask. And then we find out that a Fench company is selling spare parts for helicopters and jet fighters to Iraq even now.

What about the big crowds turning out in the US and elsewhere to protest this war? I think most of them are scared about the consequences for themselves. There have been, after, press reports in the last week claiming that Iraqi agents are here in America ready to unleash terrorist-like actions on our soil should we invade. After all, some chemical agents (like Sarin) are easily manufactured from ingredients anyone can purchase at the supermarket, so it’s not like the agents would need to sneak material in with them.

But these reports are just rumors, of course, unconfirmed. I am not satisfied that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction or is particularly close to getting them; my government may have evidence but they haven’t shared it. And at the UN this morning, the inspection report stated that documents supporting allegations of a deal between Iraq and Nigeria for the sale of uranium were likely forgeries, though this conclusion is based on interviews with and information supplied by Iraqi and Nigerian officials. The same report explains away the aluminum tubes Iraq bought that were pointed to as evidence of their nuclear weapons program.

People will die if we go in and that is a bad thing. Sometimes, though, events lead down a path with no other destination. Much as I disagree with Bush and his administration over so many things, for now I will cast my vote to go.

Let’s see. The weigh-in. Breakfast, cheese omelette, couple slices bacon, couple slices low-carb toast, green tea, courtesy of the Sweet One. Read the paper, read the overnight email. Took TS1 to her train. Back home, surfed the news list, more email, shower. Coffee with Evan. Conversation: raid level zero, Andreeson’s ReplayTV setup, wedding preparation, Niacin. Home again, more surfing.

Guy from the carpet store, the sales manager, showed up. The bedroom door doesn’t stay open since the new carpet was installed. He tries to fix it. Nothing obviously wrong. Ten minutes, 20 minutes, nearly an hour. Finally Sean wants to give up. I’m not satisfied, and, see, they need to do something because I still have the second half of their payment in hand. He promises to send one of his handymen on Monday and I say fine. This is accompanied by much dialog on his part trying to get me to agree that this is not their problem anymore, but I do not. He’s almost out the door and then decides to try one more thing–stuffing little bits of paper into the hinges.

Ta-da! The paper, along with tiny bits of masking tape, do the trick. No need for the handyman to come. Door stays open yet still closes when pulled. Sean leaves, glad to escape. I agree to call tomorrow and pay. Well after noon now, I am hungry. Delicious leftover fried chicken from last night, courtesy of TS1. I eat it, along with a Chocolate Peanut Butter Atkins Advantage Bar. Nummy! Watch this morning’s episode of Lois and Clark: the Adventures of Superman–Tivo is great. This was the episode where Lois tries to respond to Clark’s proposal. Cool shot of Superman flying her up over the clouds. When she complains about being a bit chilly, he warms her by wrapping the cape around her. As if she wouldn’t freeze and choke to death for lack of oxygen at that altitude! LOL

More email. I send a resume to a recruiter in New Jersey who posted a couple of interesting jobs to KITlist-tech. Later he posts a few more and now they include the requirement that the candidate be local, no relocation available. I’ll be getting that phone call tomorrow, right? Take out a bag of catfish to defrost for dinner.

Time to roll. First stop is the party supply store on El Camino but they do not carry calligraphy pens any more. Odd. I go to Long’s, across the street, to mail Annie’s birthday gift to her in Hungary. Something nice, to be sure. While there, I check and sure enough, Long’s carries calligraphy pens. $6.59 for a pack of five but of course that includes several colors I have no need for. They do not sell single black pens. No matter, I buy the pack. Starbucks alert–it’s right there across the parking lot. Must have more coffee! Fortunately, their supply has not run out and they sell me a grande for only $1.55. Hey, it’s hot and it’s coffee.

Next stop Safeway. Got to love a supermarket that always has a two for one special on an 18 pack of fresh eggs, given that we eat so many on the Atkins Nutritional Approach. Probably around 30 a week between the two if us. Plus some bok choy for dinner. Before this diet began I don’t think I’d ever eaten bok choy but now probably once a week. It’s good, you should try it, either steamed with a little salt in the water or sauteed with some minced garlic. The cashier must have just come on shift, she is all bubbly and energetic.

Home again, garbage has been collected from the curb but mail is in the box. Nothing interesting or useful. As if I have the excess cash flow to send to (certainly deserving) groups these days! Instead I whip up a batch of Atkins Blueberry Muffins. A little bit of elbow grease (and vegetable oil) and we have a dozen muffins, enough for about a week of breakfasts. Since I’m in a surprisingly good mood–must be the coffee–I wash the dishes too.

More websurfing. For some reason I did not make the Daypop Top 40 for the, let’s see, 720th straight day. Glenn Reynolds or Dave Winer I am not. But I play one of them in this surreal dream that garret has every once in a blue moon. Karl enjoys an article I send on Line 6. Mom calls to talk about the hotel situation in Mountain View. The President comes on the TV and tries to hypnotize the White House press corp but as best I can tell they resist successfully. I do my wrist weight work while watching, to avoid the hypnosis.

Finally TS1 come home from work and I get the hug that is so urgently needed. Phew! She admires the calligraphy pens and starts to play with one, writing my parents’ names over and over on a blank sheet of paper. She has much better penmanship than she realizes. The invitations look great, I made them the other day at Evan’s place. Are you coming? Then I smell dinner cooking, courtesy of TS1, fried catfish, the last few shrimp, steamed bok choy. First time we are having catfish but I like it. Fish is another thing I never ate before the diet but just goes to show what a well-meaning person can miss without even trying. Afterwards, I watch this afternoon’s episode of Roswell. Alex died, suicide or is it murder?!?!?!?! Brush the teeth and floss.

[censored]

Sleep time. Nighty night Internet.

This morning at the gym, one of the TVs on the wall in front of me was tuned to Good Morning America and so I watched a sad attempt by the new Treasury Secretary, John Snow, to promote the Bush plan for the economy. You know, the one with all the giveaways to the rich, including making dividend payments tax-free to the recipient (albeit only when the payments come out of actual profits), that most economists think is worse than ridiculous.

The one that will send our already-spiraling budget deficit through the roof, which is why so many CEO’s, who you’d think would generally benefit from the plan, are taking such a Dim View of it instead. Alan Greenspan and his pals at the Federal Reserve aren’t too hot on the plan either in light of the sad shape the economy is in.

Snow, formerly CEO of a huge transportation company who often spoke out against deficit spending when Clinton was president, tried to duck that hypocrisy while speaking with Diane Sawyer but could only come up with a non-responsive obfuscation instead. Particularly when she asked him about the effect of a war with Iraq on the economy. Later in the day, testifying at a congressional committee, Snow continued his claim that fears of deficits were way overblown and, anyway, it isn’t the fault of his administration since any surpluses people spoke about two years ago were fantasies of the outgoing administration. Sad what we got ourselves into based on a few hanging chads, isn’t it?

Giving to a charity? Wouldn’t you like to know that most of the money actually goes to the charity? I know I would. Seems like many charities don’t really want you to find out that they sometimes pay over 80% over the donated money to the firm hired to do the soliciations. And, in a case argued before the US Supreme Court this morning, apparently they have a First Amendment right not to tell us.

Yes, we all want to know about our givernment’s successes in the War on Terror. The more of them, and the sooner such events transpire, the better. Sometimes, though, I wonder about why information is released when secrecy, at least for a while longer, would make a big difference in the overall value of the victory.

This weekend’s capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi is such an instance. Along with the man who is allegedly the chief operations officer for Al Qaeda, the arresting team scooped up computers, cell phones, and other materials apparently containing a good deal of current information on the outlaw crew’s plans and resources.

In contrast, Attorney General Ashcroft only today announced that German authorities arrested another key terror leader, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad, back in January.

So why did the more significant arrest get plastered all over the world’s news media before the government could decipher and analyze, much less act on, what they found? I suppose the only real answer is that this arrest was not a quiet affair and those most directly affected by it would know anyway. Still, if the team tracking Mohammed was a little more clever, you have to think they could have arranged to take him in secrecy and make the arrest even more effective in the long run.

In the extensive, detailed essay 2003 And Beyond, Andrew Grygus surveys the business computing scene and discovers that it’s all about Microsoft. PC makers such as HP, Gateway, and even Dell are on a death spiral: Microsoft is already showing the intent to sell MS-branded home computing machines with XBox, XBox2, and Home Gateway. Most software publishers are dead or will die within five years: Microsoft is slowly but surely expanding into all parts of the market. High end hardware and software and applications that require extensive customization may escape from the Redmond hug in the medium term but if BillG’s crew continues to succeed eventually they’ll get up there too.

All is not hopeless. Microsoft faces challenges in getting where this picture leads. There are Linux, Apache, and the rest of the open source packages which organizations are turning to in increasing numbers, enough that MS has now cited it as a top competitive threat in SEC filings. There is significant resistance to its latest licensing plan. There is even the possibility that stagnant core market growth and continued arrogant behavior will trip them up.

This is a very long essay and some parts seem pasted in from older essays, but probably worth the read if you want to look at our business from a different perspective.

[via Winterspeak]

John Belushi. I remember driving on Sunset Boulevard the afternoon he passed away, hearing the news when I was only blocks from the hotel where it happened. He was amazing with physical comedy and wordplay. But romantic comedy was just too much of a stretch for him, in the years when he was still hitting the booze and drugs so hard; maybe if he’d lived another 15 or 20 years he would have grown into it but we’ll never know. I always think of Bill Murray’s film from the same period, The Razor’s Edge, when Continental Divide comes up.

So 1981’s Continental Divide was not the great leap forward he probably hope for. Blair Brown was beautiful and well-suited to the part of the nature nut love interest. Belushi played Ernie Souchak, a Chicago newspaper columnist, who needs to get out of town in a hurry and heads to the Rockies to try and get the inside story on Brown’s ornithologist. He goes nuts in the wild, misses his cigarettes, comes on to her to a negative reception, but then charms her by hurting his back and getting attacked by a mountain lion. They fall in love but his time on the mountain is up and he returns to the city. Boo hoo. She comes to the city for a lecture, they have wild sex and can’t say goodbye. Woo hoo. Neither can stand living where the other does but they get married anyway and then go home alone. Huh?

Mildly recommended

Roger Corman made many forgettable movies. Many. But some were worth watching and 1979’s Rock ‘n’ Roll High School was surely one of them. Corman films never have any budget to speak of but in RRHS he got a terrific mix of the Ramones (the concert scene has four of their songs alone), PJ Soles, Clint Howard, Mary Woronov and Paul Bartel in a 20 years behind the times story. By the late ’70s, adults were no longer trying to ban rock music but that doesn’t matter to the three directors and six writers who put this farce together.

Bartel and Woronov are most notable for the indie classic Eating Raoul. The Ramones, of course, went on to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Howard appears in many of his brother’s films, and Soles never got the stardom she deserved, though she has been happily married since 1984.

Recommended

Ice Cube and Mike Epps make an attempt to step up in class in last year’s All About The Benjamins. An action/comedy about a bounty hunter (Cube) hooking up with a small time con man (Epps) who get in the middle of a $20 million diamond heist while trying to retrieve the winning ticket for a $60 million lottery. Other than the fact that the leads here are Black, I don’t see how the movie is any better than your standard Brian Bosworth/Julie Strain straight to video effort. And with Strain at least viewers get to ogle her awesome body.

Not worth the 90 minutes

Today marks six months on the diet for me and the Sweet One. I’m proud to report that we’ve both been keeping to the straight and narrow and that we believe in the Atkins as a healthy way to manage our food, so we will keep on it for a long time to come. Multivitamins, calcium, glucosamine and condroitin pills. Generally four workouts a week at the gym.

Mornings are pretty standard: two hard boiled eggs or two egg omelette plus an Atkins blueberry muffin, with two or three slices of bacon added on the weekends; occasionally pancakes or french toast instead, with low carb maple syrup. I make a batch of the muffins once a week. Lunch is leftover meat or lunch meat plus a salad. I usually have two Atkins bars a day, Chocolate Mocha Crunch or the new Smores flavors, while Vivian prefers the Endulge Caramel Nut Chews and sesame seeds.

Dinners are usually terrific. Meat runs every five or six weeks to Costco supplemented with the occasional fresh shrimp or piece of veal keep us stocked and we rotate chicken thighs, whole chickens, ground beef, steaks, pork chops, pork or beef ribs, steaks, sole, salmon, and, the newest addition, catfish. Plus visits to In’n’Out (like last night) for a double-double protein style and otherwise rarely eat out.

We pick up fresh veggies for sides at the Mountain View Farmer’s Market on Sundays or at the supermarkets weekdays: spinach, bok choy, string beans, brocolli (steamed, sauteed, or even pureed), zuccini, or asparagus, once in a while sauteed mushrooms and onions. As the good doctor (Atkins, that is) says, lots of garlic.

How much weight have we lost? I shouldn’t–won’t–say about TS1, two things one doesn’t ask are a woman’s age or weight, but I’ve lost 39 pounds. Still a long way to go to 170 but I’m encouraged and motivated. Our wedding is only 70 days away!

You did watch Bruce and the E Street Army on CBS tonight, didn’t you?

Fresh off the amazing original movie version of La Femme Nikita, Luc Besson wrote and directed Leon (released in America in 1994 as The Professional), a film about a naive but effective Mafia killer and the 12 year old girl he briefly adopts. This has long been a favorite of mine, not only for the performances by Jean Reno and Natalie Portman as the title character and the child, but for the way in which Besson puts a huge amount of blood and violence on screen and makes you only pay attention to his characters.

Portman’s father is a slimy man, a minor functionary in the drug business, who runs afoul of dirty DEA Agent Gary Oldman. Michael Badalucco has tried to cut himself in on a bagful of drugs he’s holding for Oldman and when he refuses to return the missing portion, the DEA agent and his crew murder the family. Fortunately Portman’s Mathilda is out buying milk for Leon, who lives in the next apartment, when all this goes down. Reno has no desire, even seems to fear, getting involved by allowing Portman into his apartment while the cops are cleaning up their mess. But he does.

Leon is a naif, a grown man imported from Italy to do the bidding of a Don played by Danny Aiello. He can’t read and doesn’t realize that all the money he believes has been earned through his past wet work will never leave Aiello’s hands. But Mathilda awakens the human being inside a lifeless husk, teaching Leon to read while he teaches her his profession. All she wants is revenge for the murder of her sweet four year old brother. In the end, after she and Leon fight off and kill massive numbers of heavily armed lawmen, Mathilda gets her wish at a heavy price.

There are times when Besson seems to take the movie towards a paen to child love. Portman is clearly prepubescent while some of the looks Leon gives her are more than fatherly and this is echoed in the way the camera captures her as well. Yet he is too much the innocent to be guilty of more than simply forgetting his own age and just wants to protect this precious gift, someone who has offered him more affection than ever been given before.

Highly Recommended

[Interior. Late night. The only light comes from a computer monitor on a desk in the corner.]

[Sound effects] Faint helicopter blades, quickly growing louder, indicating imminent arrival. As they close in, sounds resolve into three separate choppers setting down. Followed by gravel crunching under a large number of black wingtip shoes spreading around the house.[/Sound effects]

Glass and wood explode into the house as dark suited men race in through the doors and windows. One of them slams a set of neatly stapled papers on the desk in front of a cowering man.

[Dark Suit] You thought this was acceptable? You thought we would just take your…your lies and swallow whole?

[Computer Man] I…I…I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… I just wanted to make sure my family and I got decent medical insurance

Hollywood loves to spin fantastic tales and we go to the theaters in droves to watch them. Sometimes, though, a film hits closer to the truth than anyone expected. As my father said after reviewing the information that prompted me to write this, “Sounds like Big Brother is already here.”

Just who is Big Brother and and why do I say that medical privacy doesn’t exist? Take a gander at an outfit named Medical Information Bureau, or MIB, The Insurance Buyer´s “Advocate” as they call themselves in big type at the top of their homepage. Of course, they do enclose the word advocate in quotation marks, which is probably a good thing since it is only responsible to the insurance companies that own, operate, and make use of it. And have for the 101 years since its inception.

What does MIB do? It collects data on doctor and hospital visits and prescriptions from the insurance claims made. The records are used to evaluate any application you make for life or medical insurance policies. Now that a bunch of Sun Alumni (including myself) have or are coming to the end of our COBRA coverage, we’re finding this comes into play. Allegedly the MIB report is not to be used as the sole means of evaluating applications but who knows if this is . Trying to sneak through the application’s requirement that you list your medical history in excruciating detail to qualify?

Don’t bother because they’ll find out anyway and just make you look bad. Of course, like any other human endeavor, the MIB is subject to errors. Until the government forced them, though, they wouldn’t admit this simple fact and allow plain old consumers a chance to review and correct their own dossier. Even if you could avoid this scrutiny, think about what that would say to a potential insurer (or other user of this data); consider the parallel situation of trying to get credit–a mortgage, a credit card, and auto loan–if there’s no file on you at Equifax et al. Just not gonna happen.

You think, Hey, the law protects me and my privacy! What about doctor-patient confidentiality? Movies and TV shows certainly use this plot point often enough to drive it into our collective consciousness. Guess what, you sign that right away nearly every time you sign up with a new doctor (the so-called blanket waivers) or apply for insurance. And whenever our beloved corporations deem it useful, they’ll get an exemption (from antitrust or privacy concerns) written in as a never-debated amendment during some dark of night, get the damn bill done already committee session.

And it gets worse. Even though MIB claims that only insurance companies have access to their data, increasingly insurance companies are part of a larger financial conglomerate and presumably the bank owned by the same corporation can get into the system this way. So when you apply for that 30 year mortgage the bank can factor in the risk of you not living that long. One story, possibly apocryphal, tells of a banker in Boston who called in loans on all his customers who had diagnoses of cancer. Pretty slimy, but not illegal yet, though one wonders how else, other than through the MIB (or another group just like it), the banker could know which customers have cancer.

Now the nice folks in the PR department at the Medical Information Bureau have their own spin on this and, since their professionals, the spin sounds good at least at first. The core rationale seems to be along the lines of “Why should honest people, who report all their illnesses, injuries, and prescriptions, pay more for insurance than the dishonest folks who want to sneak passed the underwriters?” Fair is fair, after all, and we all should pay–or be allowed to buy–insurance based on the truth of our medical history.

I have a feeling that most Americans (and Canadians, since MIB is at work there too) would not feel that opening their medical history kimono to all and sundry is justified on this basis. How about you? Are you comfortable knowing that for $9.00, anyone who knows a few simple facts about you can get a copy of your MIB record?

Lamont and Tonelli, the annoying new morning DJs on 107.7 The Bone, were commenting on last night’s interview of Robert Blake by Barbara Walters. The allegedly funny duo made a joke that Blake would be starring in the next round of The Bachelor, of course with large and dangerous men incarcerated with him as the potential mates. Terrific joke. Still, they did make me think and I realized that as far as I know, none of the many dating shows currently on air (Blind Date, Taildaters, whatever) has featured a same sex couple or competition. Why not have a gay version of The Bachelorette? I mean, I don’t watch any of these shows, they’re all just excruciating, but fair’s fair. Somewhere around ten percent of Americans are gay or lesbian and why shouldn’t they get a chunk of the humiliation TV is passing around to us heteros?

The skies are grey outside, I’m down in the dumps, but then something comes along to bring me up. On the last leg of the Morning Coffee Stroll, I see some odd motion off to the left. Looking over, I see a young (maybe late teens/early 20s) guy spinning a young woman around and around in the middle of the side street! He’s holding her around the waist and going around and around, they’re both smiling. Even when he stops, they are holding hands, putting arms around each other, even smiling as they notice me, 50 feet away, noticing them. I kept walking, didn’t want to intrude on their moment of happiness to ask, but I wonder what their good news was–did they just get engaged? As I moved out of sight, the last image was of them in a big passionate kiss. Brought a big ol’ smile to my face.

OMG! I don’t know which is funnier, this article or the “meal” it is about! Don’t read the article immediately before or after you plan on eating. And by immediately I mean, oh, 24 hours. And, as one of the commentators in the MetaFilter thread put it: “It’s probably even worse than pictured – most of those big hungry men put butter on their pancakes …” If there was such a thing, this product would be instantly entered into the Anti-Atkins Hall of Fame, no five year waiting period necessary.

I’ve previously mentioned William Gibson’s latest novel, Pattern Recognition, as a book I look forward to reading. Which is still an event that will occur in the future. But I do want to bring your attention to the latest Excessive Candour column by John Clute in Sci-Fi Weekly, titled The Case of the World.

Clute, an accomplished writer about science fiction, doesn’t just review the novel–he does give it high marks as a worthy read–but stakes a claim that Gibson’s novel is “SF for the new century.” Fiction acknowledging that change is so deeply embedded in our world that a writer can no longer posit a future based on an evolution from the present, as was possible until the last ten or 20 years. My take on this is that we must really be getting close to The Singularity as described by another great SF writer, Vernor Vinge, if life is becoming so unpredictable that the future is so opaque. Great essay!

Let’s see, so far we have card stock for the invitations, a wonderful friend to perform the ceremony, a promise from my family to be here, and a possible date (in June). We have a best man and a maid of honor. Looking for a beautiful place to have our small yet elegant affair is next on the to do list. How about Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, Hornblower Cruises in San Francisco (actually in San Francisco Bay) or the Hotel DeAnza in San Jose?

I will even break down and buy a brand new suit since I don’t own even one any more, though I really dislike wearing them–that’s one of the great things about working and living out in Silicon Valley. Something dark and tasteful, of course, with a nice red stripe tie. Vivian is gown shopping a week from Saturday. Flowers and a photographer, hmm. She’s in the bedroom now, talking long distance to the maid of honor about all the details.

These and more must be investigated, planned, and put in place. The Sweet One is excited and anxious but I’m confident we can do this and do it well, have an amazing special day. And then spend the rest of our lives loving each other as much–or more–than we do today. Looby, hunnay!

The results were released at midnight EST. Sadly, they don’t appear to be very good. The key fact: “The reduction of infection among the entire sample of volunteers, including all racial groups, was 3.8%.” The effect apparently was much stronger on black and Asian minorities but you have to figure that the stock will open under $8 tomorrow morning. Damn!

Update, 7:40 a.m. PST: Current indications are that the stock, currently held by NASDAQ from opening, will first trade right around $5.80-6.00.

Even the tattooed rockers applauded for Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle after the duo opened the 45th Grammy Awards with The Sounds of Silence. A compelling performance, just their still sweet vocals over Paul’s acoustic guitar. Nearly 40 years since this song came out but it will never get old. Dustin Hoffman, though, will and has.

Conversely, No Doubt are not really good at all and their popularity simply escapes me. Gwen is hot (but flat, the Sweet One said her shirt was more like a band-aid!) but that can’t explain it. So of course they won the Grammy for Best Pop Song by a Duo or Group with Vocals immediately after I wrote the last two sentences.

Norah Jones kind of grows on you. Not really my thing but at least I can understand the appeal. And her dad is Ravi Shankar (I think, though her official bio doesn’t mention the word father), so she has the genes. Is this like a trend, performing then winning the next award? Is Faith Hill nominated in the next category?

Who is Vanessa Carleton and why is she playing now? John Mayer sounds like he swallowed Dave Matthews and burped out Matthews’ yodelish vocal quality; I certainly don’t find him any more interesting than DMB. The real deal, James Taylor, is up now and a treat dueting with cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Sweet Baby James: “Deep greens and blues for the colors I choose, can’t you let me go down in my dreams? Oh rockabye Sweet Baby James.” Mayer got the Best Male Pop Vocal award over James, stupid voters.

Eminem for Best Rap Vocal makes sense, he’s one of the few rappers I can stomach. Then again I’m not the target demographic for rap (or No Doubt) anyway.

We need to go into the bedroom and watch the rest now. Explain to me why CBS is not showing this program live on the West Coast?

Dixie Chicks–ain’t it cool the way the video water turned all kinds of purple?–and of course they won the Best Country Album right after. What would Lindsay Buckingham think (WWLBT)?

Why does throwing in a little dissonence make Coldplay’s music ambitious? Avril Lavigne, meet Alanis Morrisette, note that you have one more decent selling record to go before fading into the woodwork. And that mosh pit, please, how put on was that?

In listing the awards given off-air, Bruce Springsteen won the best rock song, best male rock vocal performance, and rock album awards for The Rising and the title song. Oh yeah. The performance of the song shows just how much like an army the E Street Band is nowadays. Army, get it?

Eminem, I liked that song. Really pounding, really creative. NSync, enjoyed the tribute to the BeeGees. But Aretha, what’s up with the dress? You and Harvey Fierstein should have a conversation on choosing what to wear to an awards show! The Joe Strummer tribute was wild and raucus, like Strummer, with Springsteen Steve Van Zandt, Dave Grohl, and Elvis Costello blasting away in front of No Doubt’s bassist and drummer. Would have really liked a second song from these guys (and another from Simon & Garfunkle as well)–could have easily skipped that dude from the Academy and Mayor Bloomberg.

Last but certainly outrageous, how did Norah Jones beat out Springsteen and Eminem for Album of the Year? Pap jazz against real rock and roll, who votes on this?