Well, shitfire, man. We really haven't had a lot of WAR NEWS on the ol' PDJ of late, what with it being so mind-bogglingly insane and incomprehensible and wrong and foul. But the OSCARZ, well, y'know, that's a WHOLE NOTHER ISSUE, man. Whole nother deal indeed.

I mean, the Oscars dudes, like, the guys who put on the Oscars? There's been all this news and stuff over the last few days about how they're trying to keep politics and shit out of the event, which, like, that's the only decent part of the MIND-THROTTLING FIASCO anyways, is the insane shocking inappropriateness. Like, when somebody's boobs are showing. Or when someone makes an incomprehensible and disjointed protest speech, or makes out with next-of-kin.

Anyways, the news lately has been all about what the WAR is going to do to the OSCARS. Like, is this MASSIVE EXPENSIVE DESTRUCTION ten thousand miles away going to INTERRUPT my FLOW of SOMA, nurse? What impact does the INVASION of UMM ASSOR have on OHIO's chance to make it to the FINAL FOUR? If the KURDS open up a SECOND FRONT, will there be a moment of silence on the FRIENDS SEASON FINALE? Will MC HAMMER and CORY FELDMAN have a FALLING OUT over further UN humanitarian aid to Baghdad?

I'm watching all this shit from the tumultuous participant country of SPAIN, where there's all these riots in the streets and trashcans burning and people demanding the balls of the Prime Minister roasted on a stick with sundried tomatoes and nacho chips, and from this vantage point the total moronic introspectivity of the newsertainment biz is just sick.

[As an aside, if you come to Spain, check out Donostia-San Sebastian, in the Basque Country. It's real pretty, and everyone drinks like fricking cod people. Gargle-gargle-gar! It's great. And the pintxos are real good. Mmm.]

Anyways, what was I ranting about? Oh, yeah: this is fucking wartime, folks. Meaning: people are dying, children are crying. Much more important than quality seafood, or even the Oscars, which even in times of non-war are RETARDED SELF-APPRECIATION AWARDS by OVERPAID NINNIES, and have NO BEARING on the fucking price of tea in Tikrit. War is not a screenwriter's strike. War is not a hurricane in Alabama. War is purposeful massacre for political gain. War is American kids with bullet holes in their foreheads. War is not a brief interruption for this brief word from our sponsor.

So all these well-groomed CNN folks asking what the effect of WAR is going to be on Grandma's petunias need to be BALL-THWACKED. It's about time somebody got on national primetime TV and made a gibbering madhouse speech about the total and complete weirdness of the situation. Preferably using the words "SHAME" several times in a row.

CASE IN POINT: one MICHAEL MOORE, who won the Oscar last night for best documentary. It was a real good documentary by the way, all funny and shit, and it had good cartoons about white guys. And Canada. But anyways, Mike went on TV, and he invited all the other nominees for best documentary onto the stage, and made this crazy-ass speech, which I quote in toto:

Whoa. On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this. I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to -- they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction. We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times. We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons. Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you. And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up. Thank you very much.

I gotta say, the man didn't make a whole lot of sense -- what's fictional duct tape, anyways? Not to mention that he's REALLY FUCKING WEIRD LOOKING, even when he's dressed in a tuxedo. He waddles all funny and his face is crooked and he sneers and he never shaves or combs his hair, and his eyes look in like six different directions at once. He makes Billy Bob Thornton look straight-up normal, is what I'm saying. And, like, in his speech, he made all these disturbed POINTING JABBING GESTURES at the audience, like he was on drugs, which, y'know, being a peacenik hippy bastardo, he probly was.

But you have to admit that he's got the FIRE IN THE BELLY. He's PISSED OFF, and he shows MORAL OUTRAGE, which is a lot better than a lot of the stars who won Oscars last night. I mean, Nicole Kidman, she said she wasn't going to even show up for the damn thing, and then there she is, looking like SAMANTHA STEVENS, and not even saying poop about the war, except that it makes her saddy-sad. Awwww. Poor Nicole. I'm pretty sure that the Scientology set got to her, and she had to back down or they'd activate her brain chips and make her nose stay that way or something. Fucking running-dog scientologist bastards.

And Chris Cooper, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor in "Adaptation", and Pedro Aldomodovodomar, who won the Oscar for best original screenplay in "That Softcore Spanish One with Subtitles", they both got up and gussied around and prayed for peace and shit. Fuck that. OUTRAGE is the APPROPRIATE RESPONSE, you GUTTERING LOONS. Not RESTRAINED MUSHMOUTHEDNESS. Anger and shouting. DISTURBING JABBY GESTURES are the call of the day, and I just hope that more folks like Michael Moore start getting on TV to make them.

Anyways, if you haven't before, go ahead and check out Michael Moore's Web site. I'm not sure it's actually working, though. When I started this article, it had up the default page from a new install of Debian GNU/Linux, which, you know, rock on, Michael. Running Debian is almost as cool a thing as freaking the fuck out on national TV.

Check it out yourself

maclisp@pigdog.org