Also, Christmas on Wednesday totally messes up the ski trip plans

I'm actually quite curious to see which conservative pundit suggests altering one of the major aspects of one of the world's largest religions so as not to offend, you know, "real people." My money's on Bill Kristol.

Book reports

I just got my copy of War is Boring from Matt Bors in the mail. He's in Afgnanistan right now trying not to die, and for that I wish him only 100% success. Mostly it's becuase on the same day I got my copy of the book I also got confirmation that we'll be tabling together at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco in October. I'm excited because this won't just be my only public appearance for the year, it'll be my first since 2008. Imagine how excited Matt will be when he finds out... in September when he's back in America.

Also, I've got to get started on my next book myself. As I mentioned earlier, the tentative title is "You're Still An Asshole For Voting For Nader," but I'm open to suggestions over the next month or so of layout and printing. Feel free to email or Tweet any suggestions about your favorite articles, blog posts, etc. There's definitely going to be a lot of stuff about the 2008 election in there.

But back to non-self-promotion. Go buy a copy of War Is Boring right now. When I got the copy I thought I was going to wait until the weekend to read it. Instead I sat down and ended up reading the entire thing before I even changed out of my work clothes. It's awesome.

Look at those horrible, horrible vaginas. LOOK AT THEM.

The Parents Television Council (the organization responsible for 99% of all indencency complaints to the FCC- no, I am not making that up, ninety-nine percent of all complaints come from this one organization) likes to emphasize how much they don't like saying dirty words. Nearly a dozen times.

William Shatner, of all people, stands at the center of television's latest moral battleground.

He's the cantankerous lead character in a new CBS sitcom, "(Bleep) My Dad Says," that is scheduled to air on Thursday nights. Rather than "bleep," the title uses a series of symbols that suggest the expletive included in the book title on which the series is based.

The Parents Television Council last week sent letters to 340 companies that advertise frequently on TV urging them to stay away from the show unless the name is changed. The group argues that the title is indecent.

"Parents really do care about profanity when their kids are watching TV," said PTC President Tim Winter. "All parents? No, but something like 80 or 90 percent of parents. Putting an expletive in the title of a show is crossing new territory, and we can't allow that to happen on our watch."

Winter's letter to companies asks bluntly: "When you advertise on television, do you want your customers to associate your product with (bleep)?"

His letter uses the expletive, not the word "bleep." Winter uses the real word 10 times in two pages.

The PTC - totally reading Playboy for the articles.

"Insensitive Muslims"

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Not that relations were awesome before, but since 9/11 it's been pretty much standard policy for America to not really give a damn how Muslims are treated. It's important, rhetorically, to completely seperate them into an "other" group, because it makes it so much easier to dislike them as a collective entity that way, and pretend there are actual, logical, non-racist arguments for banning some of them from "building a mosque at Ground Zero," also known as "building a cultural center three blocks away from where lots of people, including Muslims, were killed by lunatics who were intolerant of religious diversity."

Of course, there is no non-racist way to say that it would be "better off for everyone" if Muslims just shut up and moved their pesky little freedom of religion somewhere else, any more then there's an unbiased analysis on the benefits of segregated drinking fountains. If 9/11 has done anything in terms of racial and cultural tension, it's making blatant racism a mainstream act that no longer gets you shunned from public discourse.

There used to be organizations-leagues, if you will- devoted to stopping defamation. They appear to have dropped the ball and then upset its grave with a bulldozer.

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