JayFublerHarvey.com

Since Merriam-Webster has announced that ‘Blog’ was the most popular search word in its online volumes this year, it seems only appropriate that someone took some time to search for the real truth behind the word.

Enter: Accordion Guy. AG has discovered that DC comics was actually using it way-way back in 1959 in a hilarious Superman comic. It seems that Blog was a complicated man…

Blog….a web journal or an unmarried caveman heathen…you decide! :)

[Nod to OliWil for the link]

For those of you still grumbling about cheaper US manufactured drugs not being allowed (by the FDA) to be imported from Canada, get a load of this…

Uber-blogger Michelle Malkin gives note of the FDA’s double standard when it comes to the new experimental (not FDA approved) flu vaccine:

“So, if I understand the FDA’s argument correctly: it’s safe for the federal govnerment to buy 4 million doses of a German-made flu vaccine that hasn’t been approved by the FDA, but if a consumer wants to buy a U.S.-manufactured FDA-approved drug from a Wal-Mart in Canada, that’s unsafe.”

You betcha. But it does lend itself to an interesting compromise…

Give all those who want to get drugs from Canada the option of signing the same consent form that is being offered for the experimental flu vaccine. Anyone game (or would that be everyone game)? ^_-

Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with troops today in Kuwait and encountered something that he wasn’t expecting: Criticisms from those same troops.

A question asked by Army Spc. Thomas Wilson:

“Now why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles? And why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?”

(This question was met with cheers by the whole of 2,300 soliders in attendance.)

Now, while Rumsfeld did admit that “not every vehicle has the degree of armor that it would be desirable for it to have”, this was his end-all answer for the Specialist:

“As you know, you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

“If you think about it, you can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up. And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up.”

Funny…the folks in the government damn well knew they were going to war for what, more than a year? And now we’re closing in on 2 years since the beginning of the war. That’s 3 damn years. For their vehicles to not be properly armored now is friggin’ unexcusable.

And as for that last comment…thank you for explaining the true reality of combat in Iraq, Mr. Rumsfeld. These aren’t the so-called ‘liberal media’ or ‘intellectual elite’ who usually ask such questions. These are your American troops…in the actual killing zone. Treat them with respect and stop feeding them bullshit.

Or say nothing at all and get them their damn armor!

(Coming soon to MTV…A special straight from the Iraqi front: “Pimp My Humvee!”)

Steve Martin and The Pharaoh Tutankhamun have been linked at the hip ever since one remarkable night on Saturday Night Live when Steve introduced his King Tut song to the world. They’re so linked together that even 26 years later, the New York Times asked Martin to write an Op/Ed piece to complement the new exhibition of artifacts from Tut’s tomb…

And what a delightful piece it is:

“I stepped over the backs of many Egyptologists who wanted to write this article, but it’s better that they learn their lesson now: silly song writers are powerful and vicious people who will stop at nothing to write an article about subjects they have treated in a silly way.”

He coulda won a grammy…buried in his jammies…

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the very few animators that has kept me interested in the anime game for so long. Regardless of what popular crap was being produced in bulk or how burnt out I felt about anime in general, I could always count on a Studio Ghibli film to slap me across the temple…”This is why you’re still in it”.

There was always a certain joy…certain magic…certain intelligence…certain power…to all of the studio’s films. Let it reach you once…you know you’ll never starve for animation again. :)

For those who’ve seen any of the following: Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Grave of the Fireflies and Castle of Cagliostro…the magic is about to return to the states.

Fortunately, America will get another large dose of Miyazaki in 2005:

• With “Howl’s Moving Castle” breaking box office records currently in Japan (even better than the Oscar winning Spirited Away), there’s almost no doubt that we’ll see the film here in the states before the end of the year.
  (For those who recognize the title, yes, it is based on the Diana Wynne Jones book of the same name)
• Two of Miyazaki’s most famous films are being released in the states for the first time in February (on multilingual, subtitled and dubbed DVDs)
  • Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Even More Info)
    (Was his most famous film for a very long time….)
  • Porco Rosso (Even More Info)
    (”I’d rather be a pig than a fascist”)

The true joy of animation in the world today comes from Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli. Even the genius people at Pixar watch Miyazaki films from time to time whenever they need inspiration.

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If you’re interested in finding out more about Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli in English, there’s only one place to go: Nausicaa.Net!
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