corrente

...than the Teller. Although Teller's awfully good, he doesn't talk, which makes it hard to quote him here.

The esteemed Mr. Jillette conflates a couple of issues in this piece, so I pulled out all the we-need-more-than-two-parties stuff which, while probably true in the long term, ain't a-gonna happen in the next 50 days and is a distraction from the more important point.

And oh yeah: except for material cut, this is printed just as the Times ran it. You'll see the point about the asterisks as you read:

(via LATimes op ed)

Where is the god**** "freedom of speech" candidate? Isn't it about time someone running for president said, "I'll work to get the government out of the censorship business. My fellow Americans, I just read the Bill of Rights again, and I'm going to remind Congress of the 'Congress shall make no law' thang"? He or she would have my vote.

Anti-freedom of speech is on a roll... How did everyone get sucked into wanting the government to control what the people can say about the people who are the government? And I thought bottled water was a scam.

There is no reason for the government... to be involved in showbiz. No reason at all. The unconstitutional-from-the-get-go and now-completely-outdated Federal Communications Commission, which has been fighting against profanity on the networks, is now yapping about going after pay TV — and the anyone-but-Bush candidate hasn't said that's a bad idea. They all love the FCC.

The "****" in "god****" in the first line of this article is not censorship. I did that myself, guessing that's what The Times would want. That's my right. I'm writing the god**** thing; I can write it how I want. The newspaper is printing it; so they can do what they want. Anything outside of the government isn't censorship, it's merely taste.

I don't care if Disney doesn't want to put out a movie by a fat white guy who hates fat white guys. Disney hasn't put out a lot of stuff by me and I'm a fat white guy. I'm sure they have a lot of reasons for not putting my stuff out — in addition to me not having asked them.

Look on the bright side, Eminem and the "South Park" guys, some of the most-skilled writers of our time, don't seem to be slowed down at all. Whatever you think of the very successful Moore/Bush entertainment team, we have a movie trashing our president and it's not only out there, it's making tons of money. How cool is that?

I didn't like anything about that movie... but I love that that movie exists. I didn't like the movie, but seeing the marquees for it gets me all patriotic and teary-eyed.

We need a president who realizes that there's no government business in show business.

I think we need to pull out those before-and-after pictures of Ashcroft hiding the figure of Justice because it was in the form of a bare-breasted woman. That should have been the wake-up call to anybody who thought this particular Bush appointment was just another welfare program for a Republican who lost an election to a dead guy. Even an attorney private, or an attorney sergeant, much less an Attorney General, should be somebody who realizes his job is to promote Justice, not cover it up.