9/11 recommendations?

Robert Dreyfuss concludes his listing of 5 things wrong with the 9/11 report with #5 today. He also posted this bit from the Washington Post today:

Okay, America, here's our intelligence reform agenda: The CIA recognized six years ago that America was at war with al Qaeda, so let's demote it. . . . Pentagon officials dragged their feet on dealing with terrorism, so let's give them more power. . . . The White House politicized the intelligence process, so let's create a new intelligence czar in the White House and give him control over domestic spying, too. The intelligence community suffers from too many fiefdoms, so let's create a few more.

Maybe that's an unfair summary of the recommendations made by the Sept. 11 Commission. But as President Bush and John Kerry race to endorse the commission's agenda for change, you'd think the proposals had been handed down from heaven itself, rather than offered up for public discussion.

Bright Future in Sales?

This is just priceless!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better.

Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.

The comment was apparently directed to a colleague who was transferring a phone call from a reporter asking about job quality, and who overheard the remark.

When told the Prozac comment had been overheard, Sheybani said: "Oh, I was just kidding."

(see story)

Dude!

We find the shirt mildly amusing but Billy Baldwin looks like he knows something we don't and we're pretty sure it's dirty.



Maybe he has seen Kerry's speech?

Safire

It is "Bring Your Child to Work Day" here at littleboxes. Wanting to get our children involved we've tried to think of some fairly simple but meaningful task that they can help us complete. Well, by 10am we had already taken out the trash twice and washed out the coffee cups. We needed something else and then we happened upon Will Safire's article in the New York Times. If it smells like...well, you know what we mean.

We've decided to let your children write some "little" comments on little Bill.

Hello! We are the children of littleboxes!
Mr. Safire makes three main points to try and prove that Kerry is a straddler of issues. We think that Mr. Safire is wrong.
Mr. Safire's first issue is
He says he opposes the death penalty - except for terrorists.
Mr. Safire claims that one must be either for or against the death penalty and cannot say that a serial rapist cannot be killed but that a terrorist can. Mr. Safire is incorrect. In every society, in every time, the death penalty has been enforced for certain crimes and not for others. Each culture has decided which crimes, if any, are punishable by death. The United States has different laws regarding the death penalty than Saudi Arabia. There are probably some Americans who feel that adultery should be punishable by death while some believe that only crimes against children should be punishable by death. Our point: a line is always drawn. John Kerry has drawn a line...so what?

Mr. Safire's second point:
Kerry has long identified himself with a woman's right to choose abortion, but recently revealed to a supporter that he believed "life begins at conception."
Mr. Safire claims that pro-choice people believe that life begins at birth and that pro-life people believe that life begins at conception. He goes onto claim that these two views cannot intersect. Again, Mr. Safire is wrong. It is possible for a person to believe that life begins at conception but still believe that a woman has a right to make a choice. Many women who have abortions feel like they lost a "child" not just a collection of cellular tissue (or whatever). Claiming that all people who have abortions don't feel like they are ending a life trivializes their decision and is an arrogant and ignorant remark. Also, not all pro-choice people have abortion or even think that abortion is ever warranted. They may be vehemently against abortion yet respect the right of others to make their own decision.

Mr. Safire's third (and final) point:
He says he is against same-sex marriage, on one hand, and against a constitutional amendment to ban it, on the other. His position: leave it to the states to battle out.
OK, so our parents haven't really explained to us yet exactly what "homosexual" means but we do know what marriage means and we don't see why anyone would want to prevent people from getting married. We think that everyone should just let people love one another. What is so wrong with that? Mr. Kerry's position does have us a bit confused though. However, he does have a right to his opinion and he is right in opposing a ban on gay marriage.


THANKS, KIDS. Well that was fun. Off to the playground and for some lunch.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

if we were older then we wouldn't have to wait so long and wouldn't be nice to live together... Sorry...just grooving out here on the night shift to some Beach Boys.

At first we had some reservations concerning posting about Obama because everyone is going to be posting about him. But then we realized that we've never really been original or unique anyway...so what the hell.

It was a damn good speech. If felt like a massive train moving through your soul. It starts out nice and slow just chugging along and slowly builds speed and then you feel it just rip through you and leave that big mark inside of you. Great Speech.

Sloop John B

Great Review of the first night of the Democratic Convention over at the Whiskey Bar. We here at littleboxes mourn for the days of Freshman English class so that we could go back and learn how to write as well as billmon.

Here is some of what he is cooking:
What was important to me was what I saw when the camera panned the delegates - black and white and every shade in between, male and female, gay and straight, young and old, union guys from Cleveland and lesbian couples from San Francisco, Irish pols from Boston and Hispanic pols from East L.A. Asian American businessmen from Seattle and African American teachers from Harlem.

God knows that's not the full picture of the Democratic Party - not even close. I'm sure there was no shortage of vile hacks and corporate fat cats in the audience. And when it comes to actual policies, it's pretty clear the party has about as much progressive backbone as a bowl of corn meal mush.

But compared to the sea of sour-looking honkies and fundamentalist zealots that have filled the seats (if not the stage) of every GOP convention I've ever watched, there's no question in my mind which side I'm on in this fight. It may not be my party, but those are my people, my America. I wish I could be there with them.

(link to the rest)

Dreyfuss #2 on 9/11 Report

As we said earlier, Robert Dreyfuss over at the Dreyfuss Report is offering up
5 Things the 9/11 Commission got wrong.

Here is an excerpt of #2:
The commission report (page 362) notes that “Islamic” terrorism is “motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by bin Laden and widely felt throughout the Muslim world—against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel.” This is a nod in the direction of admitting that the terrorists don’t just “hate our freedom,” as President Bush constantly intones, but that there are fundamental policy differences that feed into anti-American sentiment in the region, and which Osama bin Laden draws upon. Yet the commission doesn’t recommend a single policy change, or even a review of those polices, or even a study to find out what policies exactly are considered “anti-Arab” and “anti-Muslim.”

Kerry/Edwards

Some have called us cynical. Some have called us too liberal. Maybe we here at littleboxes are not cynical enough. But when we read this in the newspaper

" Before Edwards and his wife left North Carolina they visited a cemetery where their teenage son, Wade, is buried. He was killed in a vehicular accident a decade ago."

we want John Edwards to win. We believe that his son's accident truly changed his life and that he ACTUALLY WANTS TO HELP PEOPLE.

Remember to watch his speech tonight.

Cornershop

One of our favorite bands here at littleboxes is Cornershop. They have a double A side single out and you can listen to it online! Yes, it is exciting, but just hold on and remain composed.

Here is the link.


Thank you and good night.

Yes, I still want to live

We got this link from (zap)Patriotic. There is a new book out on Woody Guthrie. We here at littleboxes read the Guthrie biography written by Joe Klein and it was, in a word, "awesome." Here is a little bit of the CNN article that duus over at (zap)Patriotic linked to:

Soon, the man who had penned well more than a thousand songs and innumerable writings and drawings would begin a dark, 13-year battle with Huntington's Chorea. The illness Guthrie inherited from his mother and passed on to at least two of his children -- both daughters from his first marriage -- would not only rob him of his ability to write and sing, but even to walk and talk.

In his final days, he would resort to blinking his eyes to communicate with people, and one of his final statements before he died in 1967 at age 55 would be "Yes," when asked whether, in spite of all he'd been through, he still wanted to live.

Five Things Wrong with the 9/11 Report

Robert Dreyfuss over that the Dreyfuss Report is going through Five Things Wrong with the 9/11 Report this week. He is always a good read.

"Such changes in our foreign and domestic spying capabilities cannot, and should not, even be considered in the months before a presidential election, with each party competing with the other to show how tough on terrorism they are. I expect that normal bureaucratic resistance will happily block the commission's radical plan this year, but you never know. One thing we do know: If Osama bin Laden & Co. are planning some attack this year, the commission's Big Brother plan won’t stop them—whether it’s enacted or not."

Stigmata

We here at littleboxes have a little book club. Just this last month we all read "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer. We all loved this book. It brings up some interesting questions regarding the nature of religious faith, especially the nature of "communication" with god.

We came across this article on Stigmata and found it rather interesting. As the Krakauer book notes, the line between fakery and genuine religious experience can be a thin one. More commonly, the line between a divine experience and insanity can be especially thin. Often insanity is only endowed on one who lacks followers. If someone who talks with God has thousands of followers they are less likely to be labeled insane than someone with no followers. [Of course the amount of followers may be directly related to the sanity of the person who "talks with God."]

Anyway, all this reading got us interested in other manifestations of religious fanatacism. For the uninitiated:

"Popularly associated with saintliness, stigmata refers to the wounds of Christ's crucifixion supposedly reproduced spontaneously on the body of a Christian. Following the death of Jesus, about a.d. 29 or 30, the phenomenon waited nearly twelve centuries to appear (putting aside a cryptic Biblical reference to St. Paul [Galatians 6:17]). St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) is credited with being the first "true" stigmatist (after a man with the crucifixion wounds was arrested for imposture two years earlier)."

link to story

Wichita Lineman--I need a small vacation, but it don't look like rain

In your semi-typical "America is the greatest country in the world" conversation someone usually brings up that the United States gives more in foreign AID than any other country. This is usually mentioned after our love of freedom (as if Europe was home to a certain "low-grade" freedom). However, maybe the United States's peformance with foreign aid isn't that special. Is it informative to know that Bill Gates contributed more to charity than your grandmother? Or is it more helpful to know that grandma gave almost 10% of her income to charity while Bill Gates gave only 2%?

Anyway...buried in a NYT article we find out that

"Yet the United States now ranks dead last among developed nations in percentage of gross domestic product devoted to foreign aid, and the political wherewithal to increase foreign aid is thus far not forthcoming."

Is it even useful to label a nation as if it were a person? This country is honorable, this country is compassionate, this country is evil? Do countries contain more or less contradictions than the people we label every day?

recipe for peace

No matter how many times we read comments like the one found below we are still shocked. Apparently there are enough people [on both sides] who think like this to ensure that peace is merely a dream as opposed to an acheivable reality.
---------------------------------
Police put the turnout as 70,000 but organizers spoke of 150,000 participants. Israeli media estimates ranged from 70,000 to 130,000, including some members of Sharon's own Likud Party.

People of all ages lined the dusty roads from Gaza to Jerusalem, many wearing orange baseball caps, a reference to the color of the Gaza settlers' movement, which organized the protest.

"I have come to demonstrate against the disengagement of Jews from the land of Israel, " said Alexander Slonim, 65, of the southern city of Beersheba. "If Sharon wants to disengage, he should do it to the Arabs, because they don't belong in the Land of Israel."

(LINK)

Summer of 1963

It would be nice if when discussing terrorism the networks would discuss the history of terrorism in the United States. Of course, there are many events and people they could mention. For example, they could mention Mississippi in the summer of 1963:

"In total that summer, Mississippi Klansmen were responsible for at least 35 shooting incidents and 6 murders, the burnings of 65 homes and churches, and the beatings of at least 80 volunteers."--American Heritage.com, Joshua Zeitz.

Please hold me up to an entirely different standard

Here is a link to a good article on Che Guevara. The more liberal folk among us like the article but think it focuses too much on some of Che's "faults" that might be considered "mild" compared to the faults of other leaders and their policies (e.g. United States foreign policy, USSR, etc.). The conservatives among us (yes, there are a few) are just glad that the "son of a bitch is dead."

excerpts:

The day after his capture, bedraggled and exhausted, Che was trussed up and taken to a thatched school house in La Higuera, where he was shot four times by a Bolivian volunteer called Mario Teran, who lives in hiding to this day. Che was 39. His last words were, 'I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.'

----------

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 Che was more bullish even than Castro or Khrushchev, seemingly unconcerned that the whole world was holding its breath over the outcome. 'The worst thing I heard about him,' says Hitchens, 'is that he was in favour of launching the missiles. That, for me, is a contradiction too far. You can't be a great revolutionary who wants to free the world and be a guy who wants to push the button. You can only be one or the other.'

LINK TO STORY

Labor Theory of Value

By the Labor Theory of Value this website is pretty much worthless. However, we feel even more pathetic when we look at the blogshares index.

Also, we can't even be found on Google. Oh the humanity!

Hip Shake

While not looking up random pictures of drunk people...

you should check out the duus, who has just updated his website/blog.

who is respectful?

blogger Rivka on Respectful of Otters has an amazing post today (which is not unusual).

link to today's post

link to her blog

We here at littleboxes have much respect for Rivka.

Minneapolis and Moussaoui

Again from Chapter 8 of the 9/11 report:
(this all took place in late August 2001)

"There was substantial disagreement between Minneapolis agents and FBI headquarters as to what Moussaoui was planning to do. In one conversation between a Minneapolis supervisor and a headquarters agent,the latter complained that Minneapolis’s FISA request was couched in a manner intended to get people “spun up.” The supervisor replied that was precisely his intent.He said he was “trying to keep someone from taking a plane and crashing into the World Trade Center.” The headquarters agent replied that this was not going to happen and that they did not know if Moussaoui was a terrorist."

9/11 report

We've been reading the 9/11 report and find it really interesting. We plan to post some quotes from the report. These quotes may not be the best or most pertinent ones but they all caught the attention of at least one of us in some way.
From Chapter 8 titled "The system was blinking red"

"In sum,the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction,and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts. The public was not warned."

Alan Greenspan is the Devil!

from the Progress Report:

"Of course, Greenspan's other past comments call into question whether he really cares about average workers. In the face of massive job loss, Greenspan said on 7/15/03 the manufacturing job loss "does not really matter." Similarly, Greenspan on 7/18/01 told Congress he supported abolishing the federal minimum wage."

we've had our coffee and still see tiny humanoid creature!

we found this story on the web and had to turn the computers off and came back to take another look, just to make sure we weren't seeing things. Bjorn [from the product placement division] suggests that we should also mention that we all went to Starbucks for coffee while the computers were shut down.
Anyway...the site is not a fake, per se...but it plenty strange.

"On October first of 2002, while vacationing in the Southern Chilean city of Concepcion, a group of family members found what appeared to be a small humanoid creature. The miniscule being measures about 7.2 centimeters long. It has a relatively large head, two arms with long fingers, and two legs."

(see Story with pictures)

Nice Going, George

Bob Dreyfuss over at the Dreyfuss Report comments on Iraq nearly every day. Here are some excerpts from today's post.

"There are also signs that the insurgency in Iraq is on the verge of turning the quagmire into something much worse. One on hand, U.S. forces and their partners in the ersatz Iraqi quisling army are finding themselves personnel non grata in city after city in Iraq, not just in Falljuah. To demonstrate American might, it now appears as if U.S. forces are about to launch an all-out assault on Samarra, north of Baghdad, in a raid that could make the Alamo look like a picnic."

"In fact, cities all over Iraq are totally outside the control of either the U.S. forces or the government of Iraqistan. Not only Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, but other population centers in central Iraq are virtually self-contained city-states. The Kurds run their little enclave all by themselves. Parts of Baghdad are no-go zones for Americans. And in the south, fascist Shiite militia and armed gangs controlled by Iranian-backed mullahs and the likes of Ayatollah Sistani run things without any help from Baghdad."

"Nice going, George."

What did the american people know and when did they know it?

President Bush gave a press conference on March 6, 2003 (right before the Iraq War). We were wondering what was said at this press conference so we had one of our lackeys go and look it up. Well here it is, days later, and we finally have the transcript.
Here are some nuggets:

QUESTION: Mr. President, to a lot of people it seems that war is probably inevitable, because many people doubt -- most people I would guess -- that Saddam Hussein will ever do what we are demanding that he do, which is disarm.

And if war is inevitable, there are a lot of people in this country -- as much as half by polling standards -- who agree that he should be disarmed, who listen to you say that you have the evidence, but who feel they haven't seen it, and who still wonder why blood has to be shed if he hasn't attacked us.

BUSH: Well, Bill, if they believe he should be disarmed and he's not going to disarm, there's only way to disarm him. And that is going to be my last choice: the use of force.

Secondly, the American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.

By the way, he declared he didn't have any. 1441 insisted that he have a complete declaration of his weapons. He said he didn't have any weapons.

And secondly, he's used these weapons before. I mean, we're not speculating about the nature of the man. We know the nature of the man.

Colin Powell, in an eloquent address to the United Nations, described some of the information we were at liberty of talking about. He mentioned a man named Al-Zachari (ph) who is in charge of the poison network. It's a man who was wounded in Afghanistan, received aid in Baghdad, ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen -- USAID employee -- was harbored in Iraq.

There is a poison plant in northeast Iraq. [Yada yada yada.]

Here is another nugget:
QUESTION: Thank you, sir.

Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties set this country on a mission of regime change in Vietnam. Fifty-thousand Americans died. The regime is still there in Hanoi and it hasn't harmed or threatened a single American in 30 years since the war ended.

What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and the daughters of the Americans who served in Vietnam to assure them that you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?

BUSH: It's a great question.

Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament.

In order to disarm, it will mean regime change. I'm confident that we'll be able to achieve that objective in a way that minimizes the loss of life.

No doubt there's risks with any military operation. I know that. But it's very clear what we intend to do. And our mission won't change. The mission is precisely what I just stated. We've got a plan that will achieve that mission should we need to send forces in.

and another:
QUESTION: As you know, not everyone shares your optimistic vision of how this might play out. Do you ever worry, maybe in the wee, small hours, that you might be wrong and they might be right in thinking that this could lead to more terrorism, more anti-American sentiment, more instability in the Middle East?

BUSH: I think, first of all, it's hard to envision more terror on America than September the 11th, 2001. We did nothing to provoke that terrorist attack. It came upon us because there is an enemy which hates America. They hate what we stand for. We love freedom, and we're not changing.

And therefore, so long as there's a terrorist network like al Qaeda and others willing to fund them, finance them, equip them, we're at war.

And so I -- you know, obviously I've thought long and hard about the use of troops. I think about it all of the time. It is my responsibility to commit the troops.

I believe we'll prevail. I know we'll prevail.

And out of that disarmament of Saddam will come a better world, particularly for the people who live in Iraq.

This is society, Ron, who -- which has been decimated by his murderous ways, his torture. He doesn't allow dissent. He doesn't believe in the values we believe in.

I believe this society -- the Iraqi society can develop in a much better way. I think of the risks, calculated the costs of inaction versus the cost of action. And I'm firmly convinced, if we have to, we will act in the name of peace and in the name of freedom.

Science Time

So, we don't know nothing about nothing here, just to make that clear. But, we do come in contact with the occassional social scientist and sometimes we even talk with actual scientists. All this talk with smart people has endowed us with a belief that we too are smart. While this belief is misguided and downright silly, it does allow us to pontificate on matters of science without hesitation. We think we've found us another opportunity!

So, recently there was a study about anit-depressants involving 2,800 British adults and children. A finding...
" The study looked at four drugs and found that suicidal thoughts or attempts were four times more likely during the first 10 days of treatment than they were after three months. Suicide was almost 40 times more common early on than later in treatment, though there were only 17 suicides, all in patients older than 19."

We here at littleboxes agree with these people:
"Some doctors argue that patients just starting on antidepressants are usually in the deepest throes of depression — which itself can cause suicidal behavior — and that the risks subside as the drugs take hold."

We disagree with the others
"Others say a medication-induced mood boost may give a profoundly depressed person just enough energy to act on suicidal thoughts."

Why? Because we can. Either way, since this study cannot differeniate between the two effects listed above and whether or not the drug caused the suicide attempts, this study is crapola. How did they get funding? Why can't we get the same money to surf the web and promote our worldview?

(see story)

The Short Stack

We came across this description of the so-called blogosphere today and realized we are just woefully inadequate when it comes to blog qualities listed below. We are thinking of throwing in the towel.

"... common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar."

(see link)


Sounds more like politics to us. Jenna Bush shows her tongue while John Kerry is all studly and stuff.

Tom Tomorrow

Special New Comic!

Picture Pages

We found these interesting and wanted to share. [actually, it is only me here, Nightshift Ned. OK, I wish my name was Ned, it is actually just Tom. Nightshift Tom just sounds kinda stupid.] Red State/Blue State maps for 1960, 1980, 1996 and 2000.

1960


1980


1996


2000

Camping Commercials

See Campaign Commercials for all presidential elections between 1952-2004. Good Stuff.



I especially liked the Goldwater commercial against the Vietnam War. It is the fourth video from the top on the right hand side. It's kinda kooky, but good.

It had to happen

Teresa says she really doesn't want to watch it, but Chad looks pretty interested. In what? Well, we here at littleboxes keep our ears firmly planted to the ground. Over the years we've heard alot of rumbling and grumbling about male nudity in movies. All these complaints can be boiled down to one question: Where are all the penises? Besides your random Bruce Willis or Harvey Keitel shot, you don't see much manflesh in today's movies. Of course, Ewan McGregor is always willing and rumor is that Colin Ferril's man-meat is just too distracting to show on film. In the meantime, it is Joe Francis to the rescue with Guys Gone Wild.

Taco Bell

We are in serious trouble here at littleboxes. Staff members are dropping like flies.
Maybe Tennessee is just too rowdy for us?

2004-07-19
by Lance Coleman
of The Daily Times Staff


A Maryville man spent his 23rd birthday in custody after police said they found him early Sunday running nude from the John Sevier pool snack bar with a box of stolen snacks.

Authorities said the man had apparently scaled an 8-foot tall fence while naked and covered in nacho cheese and was seen running toward a Jeep in which officers found clothing and an open bottle of vodka. (see story)
--snip--
``In addition, the male had nacho cheese in his hair, on his face and on his shoulders,'' Spicer reported. ``The nude male had a strong odor of alcohol and was semi-incoherent.''

TV For Democracy

Bjorn (product placement division) had NBC on the television this morning. We all watched Katie Couric and Big Al smile at us all morning. Ever since Reg left, the coffee has been subpar, so we bought a TV to keep us awake in the mornings. However, we have banned cable channels, because they are distracting!

While watching Katie Couric and Al we realized that there are all these people behind them on the street. They have been waiting there since 4am just to be on television. They aren't really on television anyway. People watching at home can barely make out the faces, especially the faces of the people frantically jumping up and down in the back as if everytime they try to sit down a badger bites them in the ass.

Everytime we think about ass, we think about politics. So we got to thinking...people really want to be on TV. They will wake up at 4am, stand outside for 5 hours to be in the background of a TV show. Why not televise voting? That would surely increase turnout. Couldn't the Bush people film people voting for Bush and put them on television? Vote for Bush and get 10 seconds on network television! It would be a hit.

Dudes and Dudettes, do not neglect to partake of the badger link. It is priceless.

Tour de France

OK. We love Lance Armstrong here at littleboxes. We hope he can find a way to win the Tour de France. We are nervous. Go Lance!

Album We're Excited About

As many of you know, we don't get excited about much here at littleboxes. However, we just heard some great news over at rollingstone.com. Mos Def, actor/musician, is releasing (finally) a new album on September 28th, 2004. The album is called The New Danger. Mr. Def is also filming The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for a 2005 release.
Other cool stuff about Mos Def:

• He and Talib Kweli form the music group Black Star
• He just starred in an HBO film called Something The Lord Made. The movie is about the first open heart surgery performed in the world. As many do not know, the first heart surgery was planned and (pretty much) executed by a black man named Vivien Thomas. Mos Def just received an Emmy nomination for Best Lead Actor for his work in the film.
• He is the host of Russell Simmon's Def Poetry Jam on HBO, which starts its new season on Sunday, July 18th.
  
• Mos also appeared in the Halle Berry film Monster's Ball.
  

Most of the Time

As many of you may have read, Robert Blake's murder case has been postponed by two months. Needless to say, that is leaving us with a lot more free time than we had anticipated. In addition to the trial delay, Robert has also backed out of our plan to bring "Baretta" to the big screen. Damn! Our hollywood dreams are dashed again.

We are not quite sure what to do now that we won't be spending as much time with Robert. Bjorn (from the product placement division) just suggested that we try to find some sponsors so that he can "place some products." But, Jenny over in clandestine operations suggests that we not discuss our plans to enlist sponsors for a new version of the Bible too openly.

Welcome

We here at littleboxes would like to welcome you, our faithful reader(s), to our new location. We decided to make the switch from earthlink because blogger is free and earthlink is not free.

Keeping fixed costs low is a big concern of ours and we are absolutely delighted that we were able to save some money.

Further news on the budget front: Unfortunately we've had to lay off our html expert, Reginald. His last day was Tuesday. Good old Reginald, he never met a salamander he didn't like and it finally caught up with him. Anyway, Reg's absence has led to a shortage of coffee in the lounge and has slowed down our move quite a bit.

At the moment the two major casaulties from our move and the loss of Reg are our archived blog postings and the music section. Bjorn over in product placement management says he knows a girl in Peoria who we might be able to outsource the music section to. Her name slips our memory but Bjorn says she's pretty cheap and a fan of prog rock, so it seems we really can't go wrong.

Here's to a bright future! Until next time, keep your feet on the ground and your hands in your pants.