People I love forward me a lot of crap I don’t need to read — e-mails like one I received last week that told me how much the world loved me, and that if I didn’t forward the message to 20 of my closest friends, I would suffer a horrible fate.

Every once in a while, though, I get something that’s as cool as it is useless, like today:

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06! That won’t ever happen again… ever. You may now return to your “normal?) life.

EDIT: A reader just pointed out that this happens every 100 years. Dang. Well, for most of us that means it’ll only happen once in our lifetime, and this is it. Still cool, just not as cool.

First a court in Dover, PA rejects the religious indoctrination of students (on the taxpayer dime), then a school board that approved the teaching of ID gets their asses handed to them in an election. And now scientists believe they’ve found the most important Missing Link – the fish that learned to walk on land.

It hasn’t been a very good year for those who still believe the Earth is only 6000 years old.

It’s been a good couple months. Candorville is spreading like mad cow, and recently debuted in papers in Indianapolis, Muncie and Florida.

Today, Candorville also debuts in the Kansas City Star. What’s surprised me over the past 2 1/2 years is that Candorville plays just as well in the Heartland as it does on the Coasts. There’s just as much of a hunger for diverse points of view in red states as there is in the blue. Maybe Barrack Obama was right. Maybe America isn’t red or blue, it’s purple. Or violet. Whatever.

It’s been a good couple months. Candorville is spreading like mad cow, and recently debuted in papers in Indianapolis, Muncie and Florida.

Today, Candorville also debuts in the Kansas City Star. What’s surprised me over the past 2 1/2 years is that Candorville plays just as well in the Heartland as it does on the Coasts. There’s just as much of a hunger for diverse points of view in red states as there is in the blue. Maybe Barrack Obama was right. Maybe America isn’t red or blue, it’s purple. Or violet. Whatever.

Thomas Nast took down Tammany Hall. Herblock and Conrad helped take down Nixon (ok, along with a couple obscure reporters and the rest of the country) . Now Candorville has claimed its first victim: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

Of course, the White House will spin this to try and convince us all that McClellan quit for personal reasons. They’ll tell us he’s simply tired of toying with, and telling blatant lies to, an increasingly indignant press corps. They’ll say he’s tired of trivializing Dick Cheney’s tendency to shoot friends in the face, even while he knew that friend had suffered a heart attack as a result. He’s tired of rationalizing Mr. Bush’s non-response to Hurricane Katrina, of lying (or being kept in the dark) about White House leaks. He’s tired of lying about Mr. Bush’s record and ducking legitimate questions about important matters. He’s tired of having his ass handed to him over and over again by a woman old enough to be his grandmother (who happened to be the only reporter in the press corps who was never intimidated by the White House’s bullying tactics). He’s tired of demanding apologies from legitimate news organizations for their despicable tendency to have reporters occasionally report on the Administration, and their underhanded practice of reporting on how the President’s war is going.

McClellan’s frustration with the Media is understandable. They spoiled this Administration by not asking tough questions, by allowing themselves to be intimidated, by fearing that they’ll be called “liberal,” or even find their access to sources pulled, if they appeared too confrontational. Then, one day, the White House press corps woke up from its four and a half year coma, and without so much as a word from Scotty, completely changed the rules on him. From that point on, it’s been all downhill for the embattled Press Secretary. One bungled crisis after another, one scandal come to light after another. It’s enough to make a man want to spend more time with his family. And that’s exactly what the White House will tell us.

But obviously, all this is just a smokescreen. We all know McClellan resigned just to spite Candorville. This is a blatant attempt to rob a humble comic strip of one of its most effective recurring devices: Scott McClellan as the embodiment of the most hilariously mendacious White House in modern history.

What they didn’t count on was that the satire gods always step in to rescue columnists and stand-up comics, talk show hosts and even forsaken cartoonists: Fox News is reporting that Tony Snow, a Fox News reporter, is in the running to become the next White House spokesman. As Josh Micah Marshall put it today, “isn’t this more of an interdepartmental transfer?”

If our leaders are going to keep writing the cartoons for me, I’m going to have to send them royalties.

Thomas Nast took down Tammany Hall. Herblock and Conrad helped take down Nixon (ok, along with a couple obscure reporters and the rest of the country) . Now Candorville has claimed its first victim: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

Of course, the White House will spin this to try and convince us all that McClellan quit for personal reasons. They’ll tell us he’s simply tired of toying with, and telling blatant lies to, an increasingly indignant press corps. They’ll say he’s tired of trivializing Dick Cheney’s tendency to shoot friends in the face, even while he knew that friend had suffered a heart attack as a result. He’s tired of rationalizing Mr. Bush’s non-response to Hurricane Katrina, of lying (or being kept in the dark) about White House leaks. He’s tired of lying about Mr. Bush’s record and ducking legitimate questions about important matters. He’s tired of having his ass handed to him over and over again by a woman old enough to be his grandmother (who happened to be the only reporter in the press corps who was never intimidated by the White House’s bullying tactics). He’s tired of demanding apologies from legitimate news organizations for their despicable tendency to have reporters occasionally report on the Administration, and their underhanded practice of reporting on how the President’s war is going.

McClellan’s frustration with the Media is understandable. They spoiled this Administration by not asking tough questions, by allowing themselves to be intimidated, by fearing that they’ll be called “liberal,” or even find their access to sources pulled, if they appeared too confrontational. Then, one day, the White House press corps woke up from its four and a half year coma, and without so much as a word from Scotty, completely changed the rules on him. From that point on, it’s been all downhill for the embattled Press Secretary. One bungled crisis after another, one scandal come to light after another. It’s enough to make a man want to spend more time with his family. And that’s exactly what the White House will tell us.

But obviously, all this is just a smokescreen. We all know McClellan resigned just to spite Candorville. This is a blatant attempt to rob a humble comic strip of one of its most effective recurring devices: Scott McClellan as the embodiment of the most hilariously mendacious White House in modern history.

What they didn’t count on was that the satire gods always step in to rescue columnists and stand-up comics, talk show hosts and even forsaken cartoonists: Fox News is reporting that Tony Snow, a Fox News reporter, is in the running to become the next White House spokesman. As Josh Micah Marshall put it today, “isn’t this more of an interdepartmental transfer?”

If our leaders are going to keep writing the cartoons for me, I’m going to have to send them royalties.

If you understand the phrase “like Spock rising from the dead on the Genesis planet,” read on…

After a three year break, Star Trek will return in 2008 with a new film directed by J.J. Abrams, and written by his same team that cranked out “Mission: Impossible III.” I would be thrilled about this, if it weren’t for the fact that I saw a ten minute clip from Mission Impossible III at Wondercon in San Francisco. I’m not exaggerating here when I saw that nearly the entire clip was one long string of crashes, gunfire and explosions, none of it particularly interesting. It felt like a ten minute parody of an action movie, which I’m almost sure was not the intention of the creative team. At the end, I was left wondering why they didn’t show us the little things — things like plot, character development, etc… Things that would appeal to anyone over the age of eight.

Don’t get me wrong, I love action as much as the next red-blooded Star Wars-raised American male. Deep Space Nine was my favorite Trek, and it also happened to be the most action-packed, devoting its last few seasons to a major interstellar war that almost destroyed the Federation. But if I were to go through and pick any 30-second battle sequence from DS9, I’m absolutely certain it would demonstrate more heart, innovation and story than that 10 minute explosion they showed us from Mission Impossible.

On the other hand, Abrams is responsible for two of the best TV shows (supposedly — I haven’t watched either) in recent years: Alias and Lost. Hopefully he’ll forego the emptiness of that MI:III trailer and stick to the intrigue and mystery that have made those shows work.

If you understand the phrase “like Spock rising from the dead on the Genesis planet,” read on…

After a three year break, Star Trek will return in 2008 with a new film directed by J.J. Abrams, and written by his same team that cranked out “Mission: Impossible III.” I would be thrilled about this, if it weren’t for the fact that I saw a ten minute clip from Mission Impossible III at Wondercon in San Francisco. I’m not exaggerating here when I saw that nearly the entire clip was one long string of crashes, gunfire and explosions, none of it particularly interesting. It felt like a ten minute parody of an action movie, which I’m almost sure was not the intention of the creative team. At the end, I was left wondering why they didn’t show us the little things — things like plot, character development, etc… Things that would appeal to anyone over the age of eight.

Don’t get me wrong, I love action as much as the next red-blooded Star Wars-raised American male. Deep Space Nine was my favorite Trek, and it also happened to be the most action-packed, devoting its last few seasons to a major interstellar war that almost destroyed the Federation. But if I were to go through and pick any 30-second battle sequence from DS9, I’m absolutely certain it would demonstrate more heart, innovation and story than that 10 minute explosion they showed us from Mission Impossible.

On the other hand, Abrams is responsible for two of the best TV shows (supposedly — I haven’t watched either) in recent years: Alias and Lost. Hopefully he’ll forego the emptiness of that MI:III trailer and stick to the intrigue and mystery that have made those shows work.

The media have been buzzing the past two weeks about rocker Neil Young’s upcoming album. Now there’s a blog about it. Pretty soon, we’ll see talking heads on Fox, and other people who think certain citizens shouldn’t be allowed to voice their opinions, telling us how artists & musicians aren’t qualified to comment on politics and should just shut the hell up. I hope I’m wrong.

The media have been buzzing the past two weeks about rocker Neil Young’s upcoming album. Now there’s a blog about it. Pretty soon, we’ll see talking heads on Fox, and other people who think certain citizens shouldn’t be allowed to voice their opinions, telling us how artists & musicians aren’t qualified to comment on politics and should just shut the hell up. I hope I’m wrong.