the hills, american gangster

for reasons i won't get into, i ended up watching a bit of the hills this weekend. (fine, i will get into it. it was on TV at the gym in the hotel i was staying at.) so, are reality tv shows kind of like sports?

• you basically choose randomly to root for certain characters.
  
• you follow their behavior, which is seemingly of no consequence whatsoever.
  
• despite their mundane behavior, you not only watch them, but you read articles that speculate about more of their mundane behavior.
  

im as big a sports nut as you'll find, but this i don't get. even weirder, it was somewhat addictive despite being the mental equivalent of an anesthetic. also, congrats on making me hate every single character on a tv show. impressive.

what i do know is how awesome american gangster is (jay-z's album, not the movie, which i sadly have not yet seen). man, i hope nobody is reading this, because this album is like a year old. especially the jay-z/nas duet "success". you gotta give hov credit for being a good storyteller, he's one of the few whose lyrics i'll actually pay attention to. also, its redemption for him after the shameful kingdom come, which followed the awesome black album, which was kind of a silly mimicking of the metallica album, whose nickname was the black album, but whose real name was metallica.

finally, an angry diatribe about MORE ROVE-IAN NONSENSE COURTESY OF YOUR LOCAL GOP. for those of you who don't know, apparently Ahmed Yousef, a political advisor to the Hamas group, basically said that he likes Obama and would be happy if he turned out to be president. Apparently in John McCain's mind, having someone think favorably of you obviously means that you think favorably of them. I didn't know that republican nominees could co-opt the reflexive property so...liberally. in my book, this is on par with trying to denigrate Obama for having Hussein as his middle name. NY Times notes:

“I think it is very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States,” Mr. McCain said to the bloggers. “If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly.”

But important nuances appear to have been lost in the partisan salvos, particularly on Mr. McCain’s side. An examination of Mr. Obama’s numerous public statements on the subjects indicates that he has consistently condemned Hamas as a “terrorist organization,” has not sought the group’s support and does not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president.

But Obama has his own shameful secret, apparently:

Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need”

He doesnt want us to go guns blazing into Iran? BLASPHEMY!!! ugh.