KEN LAYNE

This is one of two Desert Tortoises that I found eating wildflowers last weekend while I wandered around Mojave National Preserve for a couple of fine days. Despite traveling and camping and hiking through the North American deserts for 25 years -- and in this particular part of the East Mojave long before it became a "National Preserve" -- this was the first time I'd seen the Desert Tortoise in the wild. (Other than squished on the roadside.) I had some Inside Information from the enviro-socialists.

Has Achewood really been doing this strange & beautiful art work for six+ years? Yes, Yes It Can. I'm about to disconnect the Internet forever (three days) so instead of writing my AOL column (I'M TRYING), I was catching up with Achewood because I like to read a week at a time, sort of like how if I watch a TV show, I watch the entire three or four years on DVD in three nights. Or at least I used to do that, when the adults were occasionally allowed to watch the TV now and again, at night, after dinner, maybe to see a Netflix everyone was talking about in November.

I mean, start here with the beginning of the Roast Beef Greeting Card Story. Then follow the very basic arrow things atop the comic: "->" means "go forward," etc.

Thank you, Jeebus, for sending some of Your UFOs to Phoenix again last week, so I had something funny to write about this week for my AOL column, because You know what, Jesus? I don't think I can pay attention to Hillary vs. Barack ever again.

Your Pal,
KL

So I've had this beautiful dream for the past six or seven years: Combine the two stupidest copyright-infringing redneck window-sticker trends of the 21st Century -- Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes vulgarly pissing on some enemy car brand, and Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes stupidly praying at the foot of a giant crucifix -- into one perfect union. You know, Calvin pissing on the Cross. Well, I kind of mentioned this idea in public today, in the comments of a Wonkette post, and next thing you know a funny commenter put together this here image. This, my friends, is America. Embrace it. Print it out. Glue it on your neighbor's pickup ... the one with the confederate flag license plate frame.

Don't care much for weblogs, but Ben Sullivan just introduced me to this one, by the folk/punk/rock musician and songwriter Peter Case.

It's a rolling, roiling history of California punk, European travels, mini-biographies of songwriters and groups, interesting commentary about politics & rock 'n roll, plus lots of Los Angeles night-time prose.

Long ago, in the 1980s, one of my old bands played a few bills with Peter Case, not long after his Plimsouls days. Jesus Christ, Ronald Reagan was president back then. And he still is ....

Did I kill a celebrity? Impregnate Kobe Bryant? Solve the Environment? No.

But I did have a scatter-brained IM talk with my friend Tony Pierce, who runs the Los Angeles Times' many many new blogs.

This Q&A we did, it's a funny thing, with the usual funny pictures of his friends that Tony always collects, just in case.

And with crucial assists from BlogAds and Gawker, there might just be some fun to be had, during this Terrible Election Year of Our Lord.

Or, there might be sorrow and doom. But probably not. I mean, Jesus, this is the 21st Century. People are supposed to run their own Printing Presses at this point, right?

Yes, I'm still editor of Wonkette. Even though Wonkette has been sold. To, uhm, me. Me and some people with money, I mean!