What huge chemical weapons factory? We never said anything about that. Move along.

The Bush administration has just awarded the open-ended contract to put out Iraqi oil well fires to a subsidiary of Halliburton, without any bidding. Until 2000, the CEO of Halliburton was Dick Cheney. Does the name ring a bell?

Although the amount of the contract was not disclosed, estimates put it in the neighborhood of $1 billion. Cheney, who divested himself of Halliburton holdings when he became vice president, still gets approximately $1 million a year in compensation from the company that will benefit hugely from Cheney and Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

Defend that, hawks. I dare you.

As if I needed another reason to love Molly Ivins

“When the man says there will be a tax cut ‘for everyone who pays income taxes’ and that the average tax cut will be $1,100, he expects you not to notice that half of all taxpayers will get less than $100, while people making over $1 million will get an average of $92,200. That averages to $1,100 all right. As The New Yorker pointed out recently, if Bill Gates went to a mission where two nuns were feeding soup to sixty bums, the average net worth of everyone in that room would be $1 billion each. But it would still be Bill Gates, sixty bums, and two nuns.”

-Molly Ivins in “The Progressive”

If we want to live in a purely Darwinian society, where each person just grabs what they can, that’s not hard to create. But is that really the society we want to live in?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of words. There has been so much eloquent writing about the world situation in the last few months, writing that has sustained me through some tough times. The internet, and weblogs in particular, allow many more people to express their opinions to the world than has ever been possible in human history. With all this discourse, you would think we would be able to see our commonalities, to work together for common goals. And yet, as Arthur pointed out, in this country we’re more polarized than ever before. We’re just shouting past one another. Words seem only to divide and harden, and increasingly, actions seem to be all that matter. I used to think that writing about the war was therapy for me; now it just seems like lancing a boil that won’t stop draining.

The world of Patrick Henry and Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, a world where words mattered, where words could change the course of human history, seems very far away. Maybe it’s just because the noise level is so high – surfing the internet is like taking a drink from a firehose, and when you add satellite TV, radio, magazines and all the rest, it’s hard not to feel buried. But I don’t think that completely explains it. Do words still matter? I don’t know, but I hope so. I hope so.

Michael Moore for President

Asked backstage why he made the remarks, Moore answered: ?I’m an American.?

?Is that all?? a reporter asked.

?Oh, that’s a lot,? Moore responded.

-from wire stories on Moore’s talk with reporters after the Oscars

If I hear one more person say about Moore or Natalie Maines or whoever, “They wouldn’t have the freedom to say that in Iraq,” I swear I’m going to beat them senseless with a bag of oranges. What they really mean is, “We could use a little of that repression for these troublemaking peaceniks here,” and I’m sick to death of it. The fact that we have that freedom is supposed to be the reason we love this country so much, and are willing to roam around the world bombing people in order to preserve (and spread) it. Every hawk in this country should be celebrating Moore and Maines and Sarandon and me, for that matter. Because that’s what they say we’re fighting for.

Thoughts on Oscar

-I was so glad Pedro Almodovar won for his “Talk to Her” screenplay. It was challenging, subtle, ambiguous, adult – four things in short supply in Hollywood these days.

-“Chicago” is the perfect Academy movie. If there is a lab where middling, inoffensive, flashy pap is genetically engineered to appeal directly to Academy voters, this movie was its crowning achievement. Not bad, not good, just there.

-Catherine Zeta-Jones was lucky as hell to be in it.

-“Spirited Away” was another pleasant surprise. It took animation to places that Americans don’t normally experience. And, it gave Suzanne Pleshette some voice work.

-Michael Moore is Michael Moore. I think he should have handled himself with more subtlety, but that’s just not who he is. And I love him for it, especially in these “you’re either for us or against us” times.

-The opposite end of that spectrum was the now-apparently-infamous Susan Sarandon, who just held up two fingers in a peace sign as she walked out. Cool.

-“Punch-Drunk Love” was so far and away the best movie of last year, it’s not even funny. Which explains why you didn’t hear it mentioned tonight.

-In a sort of Halle-Berry-ish situation, I think Adam Sandler should have gotten a Best Actor nomination for the above. It was a time and a place and a role, and he was brillant.

-Steve Martin was generally good. I especially liked the Meryl Streep eBay joke – “Don’t you have enough!?”

-Every year they seem to pare it down more, and it’s still three and a half hours long. One thing they could definitely cut – getting all the Oscar winners onstage and laboriously panning through them. Cut this, please.

-Renee Zellweger: eat a hamburger, please, sweetheart. I love you, but you. need. to. eat. If some more tough love is required, I have just two words for you: Callista Flockhart. ‘Nuff said.

As a lover of type and typography, how can I resist type-related humor? (thanks to defective yeti)

No one is talking or thinking much about the Oscars, which are apparently going to go on as scheduled tomorrow night. That’s understandable. (I did like Jon Stewart’s joke that the red carpet has been downsized to “a crimson bathmat.”) Everything will be toned down and somber, which is also understandable. But I personally wouldn’t mind a real spectacle to allow me to take a break from the bleak thoughts that have dominated my consciousness this week. There’s so much more to say about this conflict, about the fate of our country and the world. But right now, I’m just tired. My brain hurts and my heart hurts worse. Making fun of Joan Rivers has never seemed so worthwhile.

It’s humor day here at words mean things

“Use nuclear strikes to defeat your enemies…but only as a last resort!”

-blurb on box for “SuperPower,” a world-simulation real-time-strategy game

Unintentionally funny quote of the week

“I’m definitely anti-war, but at the same time, we’re trying to live our lives here,” fumed Mark Thedis as he spent 30 minutes in his idling Range Rover in an alleyway off Folsom Street. “If they’re trying to get people on their side, it’s not working.”

-Angry citizen inconvenienced by anti-war protests in San Francisco Thursday

No wait, this one is good too

“Now, at a time of war, these people out here protesting are behaving like traitors,” said Russian immigrant Alexander Gosen. He spent the morning at Franklin and Fell streets waving a sign reading “Viva Bush” on one side and “Go to hell, peaceniks” on the other. “They should all be arrested. They don’t know what it’s like to live under a tyrant.”