Flying away on a wing and a prayer / Who could it be? / Believe it or not it's just me.

Our review of Fahrenheit 9/11 is now online. Verdict: Go see it. Even if you think you'll hate it. It's a long piece, with spoilers all over the place. Though the spoilers are such things as "we went to war in Iraq" and "Al Gore ended up losing the 2000 election" - so if that's a spoiler to you you probably are in some trouble.

Seriously though, the movie is discussed at length, so don't read if it you have already decided to go see it - read it afterwards and argue away with us!

Anybody need a new day job? Like running for Senate?

I just got a call from a good friend in newspapers saying that Jack Ryan is expected to resign within the hour.

*edit 1* The Trib is reporting it as well, and we beat them by 12 minutes!

I WILL GIVE YOU $19.99 IF YOU TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO HEAR.

If you're on the Atkins Diet, kill yourself. Well, actually, don't bother. Your insurance won't cover a suicide, and you'll be dead of natural causes soon anyway.

Dr. Atkins may just be the greatest entrepeneur since P.T. Barnum instructed his customers to head for the great Egress. His ridiculous diet - which is effective as a short-term weight-loss plan but is appalingly unhealthy as a lifestyle - plays right into the contemporary American psyche in ways that even the Doctor probably hadn't intended.

"Attention all fat-ass, lazy, self-gratifying Americans......Bacon, eggs, and cheese are a healthier breakfast than apples. Did you know that apples and oranges contain dangerous carbohydrates????"

Because if there's really an easier way to convince Americans to give you money and follow a diet plan than by telling them that they can continue eating all the fatty, greasy, fried shit they want so long as it doesn't contain any of those pesky fruits or vegetables, I'd love to hear it.

Yes, I've read the Atkins book. Cover to fucking cover. I understand that it calls for limited consumption of whole grains and certain vegetables (after the "induction phase" where basically no carbs at all are allowed). But what Atkins advocates who point this out fail to realize (logically, given that they're stupid enough to be on this in the first place) is that the finer points of the diet have been lost in the larger presentation. While it calls for consumption of certain carbohydrates, does anyone really think Americans have the patience to read an entire 500 page book? How many people who are caught up in this craze have actually read it? The average upper-middle-class butterball who thinks this fad is a good idea understands very little beyond what he wants to understand - bread, pasta, fruit, and vegetables are bad. Meat and cheese are good.

While participating in various athletics as a younger man, I used the "no carb" dieting method (which has been around for decades - Atkins just marketed it better) with frightening success a number of times. I'm not saying it doesn't work. But for God's sake it's a diet, not a "lifestyle" as is now being claimed. For 2 or 3 weeks, it will help you lose weight. In the long-term, the effects on your body from taking in that much fat and cholesterol can't even be imagined.

You can't go five feet in a grocery store without tripping over lo-carb everything anymore. Idaho farmers have genetically engineered a low-carb potato recently (seriously). But all of these products are an investment in my mind, because if you buy them now and hang on to them for a couple years, they'll have tremendous kitsch value - much like 19th-century patent medicines do now - when the fad has died out and transitioned into the domain of public ridicule. Low-Carb Doritos will be a hot item on eBay after Vh1's "I love 2004" airs in a decade or so.

Moore Inbound

Michael Moore's new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" opens this Friday (find screenings/buy tickets here). In honor, ginandtacos.com movie column has long reviews (too long for the main page) of the last two documentaries that I've seen, "Super-Size Me" and "My Architect."

Also we'd like to point you in the direction of two reviews: a surprising review from Fox News: "It turns out to be a really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail." And this is from a critic who panned Bowling For Columbine, a movie that I still think was more tame and well-balanced (and not that liberal) than most critics argue.

On the other end, not surprisingly, is a brutual writeup by Christopher Hitchens, who, though I haven't seen the movie yet, may have already provided the ultimate attack on it. Or at least what will be the standard attack.

Our review will be here soon enough :) Check back!

IT MUST BE BETTER, IT COSTS TEN TIMES AS MUCH.

So I just got back from an academic conference in Hawaii. Let me assure you that the primary purpose of my visit was professional, but nonetheless I was looking forward to experiencing this magical, non-contiguous former colonial posession's vacationing glories as well.

Here is my succinct review of Hawaii as a destination: Waste of Money.

Yes, the weather is very nice. Yes, it's got 70 miles of beach and coastline. Yes, pineapple is abundant. But good god I cannot do justice to the amount that the place is overcrowded. It has reached and far exceeded capacity. Driving anywhere requires a lengthy sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic. And the city of Honolulu is a complete piece of shit. The non-tourist parts are slums that look sort of like Gary, Indiana with palm trees. The tourist parts are nauseating. It is exactly like Wisconsin Dells meets Orlando meets the Vegas Strip (minus the casinos). The Waikiki Beach area, one of the most famous strips in the world, is a repeating series of t-shirt/trinket stores, porn shops, and gun clubs (the Japanese, who outnumber the American tourists 10 to 1, apparently love shooting ranges). It is tacky and strip-mall feeling. And everywhere you go there are just mobs and mobs of aimlessly-wandering people.

The tourists, aside from being too numerous, are the irritating fat suburban midwestern kind who spend loads of money to fly halfway around the world to shop at the same stores and eat at the same restaurants they have at home. The three hour wait outside the Waikiki Olive Garden (I checked, it actually was 3 hours) makes a ton of sense, because I'm positive that it offers an experience significantly different from that of the Orland Park Olive Garden.

Now, this reflects my experience on Oahu. The situation may be noticeably better on other Hawaiian Islands. But seeing as how most of them are much smaller, I sincerely doubt that the crowds will be any less wall-to-wall. In addition, Oahu was so expensive that by the time you added in the additional expenses to get to the other islands, you'd have spent so much money that you might as well go to Samoa, Fiji, or somewhere else there is guaranteed to be no crowds.

In short, there's nothing you can experience in Hawaii that you couldn't get in Key West, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Belize, the D.R., Southern California, or many places in Mexico. And in any of those places you could pay for your entire trip with the $700 it costs just for a plane ticket to Hawaii.

America has once again proven itself to be the nation of sheep people, because god knows it would be entirely too difficult to actually think of someplace better to vacation. God forbid any of our citizens think about the situation as opposed to just saying "It's vacation time.....where to, Florida or Hawaii?" like button-punching drones. It's pathetic when sitting in traffic and buying stuff are so central to people's lives that they need to, or at least are willing to, do it while on a very expensive vacation that is theoretically supposed to be relaxing.