I only watched bits and pieces of the Oscars presentation; I can never actually watch them from beginning to end anymore.  Ellen Degeneres, as always, is a safe bet and what little I saw was fun.  Al Gore had the funnies bit of the night.  As for the winners, well there weren’t a whole lot of surprises, except one:  Eddie Murphy’s loss for Dreamgirls.  I’ve seen the film, and while I think it’s OK, but not great, it’s very obvious why Jennifer Hudson overshadowed Beyonce.  She deserved her Oscar.  Murphy also have the performance of his career and I was a little surprised to see Alan Arkin win over him.  Little Miss Sunshine is a good film and Arkin is great in it, but this really was Murphy’s to lose; and lose he did.  He was probably the most disappointed of any nominee last night.

Taking a page from President Bush’s longtime playbook, presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani is only appearing before crowds he knows will be friendly.  Ah, nothing like no backbone in a man who wants to be president.  Of course, it certainly hasn’t hurt President Bush.

This may be the most un-PC thing to say, and someone may call me racist for saying it, but considering how far too many Americans feel towards Muslims, are they the new Black (and I’m speaking of race here)?  The recent example of a ninth grade teacher allowing a religous group to come into his class and hand out literature that says Muhammad was “demon-possessed” and instructs girls not to marry Muslim men just brings that point home.  This is the kind of bullshit you would have heard about fifty or sixty years ago in the deep South.  The old phrase is right, “everything old is new again.” 

This may be an unintended side effect of the new x-ray scanners being tested in airports, but considering what they will show, Americans may find more incentive to get in shape.   You gotta feel a little sympathy for the TSA employees who will have to man these machines.  Speaking from personal experience, not every body is going to be a nice view.

Well, at least someone in the NBA thinks Tim Hardaway is, quote unquote, “an idiot.”  Barkley makes some very good points in these clips.  It seems to me it is, as Barkley states, “stupid” for an African-American to talk about exclusivity.

Republicans are always good to remind us they are the only ones who can properly look after our soldiers.  Make sure they have enough equipment, are trained properly, are paid well, and are looked after when wounded.  Well, after 12 years we know what a load of bullshit that is.  Our Armed Services are stretched to the limit.  We are sending soldiers to Iraq without the proper equipment to keep them safe.  And now we can’t even bother to properly care for those who are sent back wounded.  There is no excuse — none! — for our soldiers to endure what this WaPo article reveals.  How can we allow our wounded soldiers to come home to an understaffed and ill-trained hospital?  How can we allow them to reside in buildings that are rotting down around them?  No matter your political beliefs this is wrong.

You could say this is a failure of government as a whole, not a Republican failure, but there are several problems with that flimsy excuse.  What group goes around telling Americans, and soldiers in particular, that only they can look out for the best interests of the military?  Who’s had control of the House for 12 years?  Who’s had unfettered control of every level of government for the last four years until American finally get fed up with them?  One answer:  Republicans!  Maybe if Republicans spent less time trying to give the ultra rich more tax cuts, or worrying about what naughty words are being said on television, or obsessing about gay marriage they would find more time to help those in greatest need.  Hell, if we’d just done a better job of planning for this fucking war our soldiers might be better off!

It’s says a lot about Conservatives these days that they are attacking Barak Obama for not being black enough!  They can’t attack his race outright so they attack the fact that he’s biracial.  Even more sad, pathetic, and disgusting is many African-American “leaders” are saying the same thing.  I think these so-called leaders should remember that it wasn’t so long ago that people like Limbaugh and Beck would have refused to accept him simply due to the fact that his father was black.  In fact, his father would have most likely been lynched for daring to touch a white woman.  African-Americans have their best hope in Barak Obama and it’s sad they choose to attack him for not being quite African enough.  Shame, shame, shame!

What is wrong with our nation’s system of food preparation that every few months we are saddled with yet another dangerous outbreak of salmonella?  Does this not strike the Food and Drug Administration as odd?

Tim Hardaway, former Miami Heats player, came out today.  No, he not gay; he “hate[s] gay people.”  I guess you can give him props for being upfront and honest.  Most people in his position would pretend not to be homophobic to the public, while privately being something different.  Not an unusual thing for celebrities, whether they being athletic or Hollywood. 

Quite frankly, I’m not surprised an African-American male would say something like this.  From my limited understand of the African-American community, which I understand to be mostly social conservatives, homosexuality is not accepted, not tolerated.  Gay African-Americans face an even stronger sense of separation simply because of their race.  So while I’m disgusted by Hardaway’s comments, I’m not surprised.  Perhaps he should give Isaiha Washington a call.  They seem to have so much in common.

According to Reuters, The Dixie Chicks received a “stunning validation” of their work since the whole Bush brouhaha bullshit because they cleaned up last night at the Grammys.  I’m not sure you can really say that.  While I think it’s quite an achievement what they accomplished last night, a stunning validation of their work will not happen until they can accomplish the very same thing with the Country Music Associations awards, where they’ve pretty much been in exile since Natalie Maines opened her mouth.  When that happens, when morons like Reba McEntire don’t make pathetic jokes about them to get cheap laughs, when they are welcome back on country music radio stations, then The Dixie Chicks will be vindicated.