OOMPAH, LOOMPAH I am torn between wincing and cheering. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are knee-deep in talks about a new film version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Maybe Gene Wilder will play Grandpa Joe.

Johnny Depp is poised to team up for the fourth time with director Tim Burton on a new film version of the Roald Dahl story Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

Depp and Burton, who previously collaborated on Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow, met recently to discuss the project with Warner Bros executives and are keen to work together again, according to Hollywood sources.

MESS WITH TEXAS What is it about this fall's movie releases that makes my most-anticipated list include three epics built around dramatic battle scenes? "The Alamo" looks promising for the camerawork alone.

SHIFTING SANDS OF PUBLISHING Magazines change. Thankfully. A decade ago, I found the Atlantic to be dull and staid, and Harper's to be lively and informative. The tide has turned. The September issue of the Altantic continues to demonstrate that writers like Jack Beatty, David Brooks, James Fallows and William Langewiesche not only represent some of the finest magazine writers out there, but they represent a broad spectrum of views. Then again, maybe it's me that's changing and not the magazines.

SLOW DOWN! Slate's Explainer says that more and more cars are using sensor data to collect and record reams of information about your driving habits, and that this information is being used more frequently as admissable evidence in courts.

QUEER EYE FOR THE ARAB GUY What's the story behind the new State Department magazine published for young teens in the Middle East?

THE DREAM Forty years ago, The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and shared a dream with the world. We like to pretend that his dream was realized. We've hardly started the journey. The Washington Post's CameraWorks section shows King's journey through a series of powerful images.

SUCCESS COMES IN TRIANGLES Columnist David Ignatius says that the attack on the UN compound in Baghdad should send a clear signal to three parties. The UN and Europe need to recognize that the attack on the international organization puts its credibility at risk in other dangerous countries. The United States needs to stop posturing and start allowing other nations to participate in the reconstruction of Iraq. And the Iraqi people need to do something Arabs have had a hard time doing in recent years -- stop being victims, and start taking charge of their country. None of these parties can save Iraq alone.

I SKIPPED THE PART ABOUT LOVE A new poll is making me hopeful that the theory that all the good trends start on the West Coast and move east. California voters -- who apparently hate everyone these days -- have weighed in on the Bush presidency. The verdict? Bush's popularity in California (admittedly never sky-high) has reached its lowest point since the September 11 attacks two years ago. How do you spell vulnerable?

SURPRISE! Just when you thought you were getting too old for the rock-and-roll, old favorites are dredged up. In this case, it's Johnny Hott's Piedmont Souprize, featuring the former House of Freaks' percussionist.

Which brings us to Sunday nights at Southern Culture, where Johnny Hott's Piedmont Souprize are kings (and queen). These nights are not clandestine events by any means, but when you walk in the door you get the sense that you've stumbled into some secret pocket of the cityscape where age, color, and upbringing have no bearing and music is truly making the people come together...

Funny and weird things tend to happen at these shows. Try and find another band that will stop in the middle of their set to enact scenes from "12 Angry Men" and "The Crucible."

The Piedmont Souprize specializes in vintage jazz and swing, rockabilly, country western, rock -- ah hell, they specialize in a little bit of everything. At one point in the evening a stellar cover of "Fools Rush In" gives way to an improvised snippet of Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused."

STATUS REPORT The Guardian does a little investigating and reports in some detail just what exactly has been done as far as reconstruction in Iraq. Despite all of the negativity -- much of it justified -- there has been a lot of progress on many fronts, thanks to some incredible work by Iraqis, the U.S. government and military, and the dozens of non-governmental agencies hard at work.

GETTING IT ON David Rees is still angry, but he's slightly less sharp, amusing and on-target with his latest batch of "Get Your War On" strips. But, you know, not everyone can be Berkley Breathed every day of the week.

HATING BUSH IS AN EMOTION Geoff rolls up his sleeves and explains in pretty clear, albeit emotional, English why exactly he hates, not dislikes, but hates President George W. Bush. I think Geoff is less on the fringe than he might have been a year ago.

Why would I say that I "hate" George W. Bush? Isn't that a little strong? Isn't he just your average politician? Isn't this just some natural extension of your overall left-leaning political views?

No, not really...

When I look at George W. Bush, I don't see a patriot. I see a lying, psychopathic narcissist. And it pains me, it grieves me, it WOUNDS me to realize that this puts me not only in the minority… but in the "whacko fringe."

MIDDLE EAST NATION POSES DANGER Thanks to the Daily Kos for tipping me off to a new source for humorous news. The sad thing? I can actually imagine President Bush in a press conference declare war on Iraq again...

Bush to Declare War On Iraq

Today President Bush said the situation in Iraq had deteriorated to the point where he had no choice "but to declare war on that country."

"I've just become aware that good people are dying out there. Terrorists run rampant, killing people, blowing up oil pipelines, wreaking havoc, maybe just plain reaking. They've got to be stopped."

Bush said that he had recently learned that since May 1, 2003, Iraq has become the "number one nexus of the terrorist activities in the world," and he called it "the nexus of the axis of evil," speaking from his ranch in Texas.

He said that it was a difficult decision but he had "no choice" given the state of the country at this time.

"Whoever is running that country has allowed it to turn into a hornet's nest that threatens the stability of the Middle East, and with it, the safety and security of the United States, and of the world."

A NEW VOICE FROM IRAQ Riverbend was featured long ago on Salam Pax's weblog, and just recently returned with one of her own. Yes, her. Riverbend is a 24-year-old Iraqi woman with a keen sense of English.

FABLES OF THE RECONSTRUCTION The bombing of the UN compound in Baghdad has meaning to many different groups -- from al Qaeda to the Baathists, from the Arab news networks to the Bush administration. But what it means to the people of Iraq cannot be explained dispassionately. The factions hitting Western targets and Iraqi infrastructure stand to create a new Lebanon, and the effort to rebuild will collapse. The Iraqi nationalists, the Syrians, the Iranians and the terrorists will rip Iraq apart far faster than the Bush administration could. If something doesn't change -- dramatically -- Salam Pax's fears will be too true.

there is a friggin' Iraqi idiot now on Jazeera saying that the security responsibility should be given over to the Iraqi Governing Council. Fuck off, this is not about American presence in Iraq. these attacks have nothing to do with the so called resistance. These are fucking idiots who destroying all the efforts to help this country get back on it's feet. the fucking Governing Council could not control this mess the moment the Coalition Forces move out we are plunged in chaos. We have entered a dark dark tunnel and we have no idea what will happen now.

Ok this is what we know. a truck (some say a cement mixer) was driving by the UN building (Canal Hotel) then swerved past the median stopped in the outside parking lot. and exploded. the west side of the building was destroyed, they were in the middle of a scheduled press conference about land mines in Iraq. the street was chaos people were rushing out of the windows and doors. injured people were all over. the american ,ilitary was there pretty fast and started evacuating the injured. they brought in rescue teams to pull out people from under the building. the place of the blast was a huge crater and was too close to the wall. the word is still out on the issue whether it was a suicide attack or not, the driver could have just parcked the car and left. when we got there there were lots of poeple trying to find out what happened to their families. people crying, shouting. the thing is there is a a hospital right next to the UN building, the cieling there caved in because of the explosion. many injured but no one killed.

this is what I know and what I saw.

I am plunging into a fucking depression, do we have a future? is this country going to be hijacked by shit extremists who want to prove a point?

TOO SOON, TOO SOON The death of Sergio Vieira de Mello in the bombing of the United Nations compound in Baghdad is a blow from which the UN, and Iraq, will be hard-pressed to recover. De Millo was not only the UN's star nation-builder -- having led peacemaking efforts in East Timor and rebuilding activity in Kosovo -- the Brazilian was widely seen as a successor of Kofi Annan. He was slated to return to his post as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in September. In Iraq, de Mello was seen as an indespensible asset first and foremost to the Iraqi people, but also to the Bush administration, the United Nations and scores of non-governmental agencies attempting to hold Iraq together. De Mello's death is a loss that most people will never realize they experienced.

DAMNATION For a minute, I thought one of the Reuters headlines said "Vice President Cheney Captured in Iraq," not "Saddam's Vice President Captured in Iraq."

HE'S PAST BEING GONZO Interviewing Hunter S. Thompson would only make me want to throw him out of the hotel window, but here's a recent sit-down with the infamous writer. Apparently, he wasn't thrown out of the window.

IT'S THE HAYSTACK The cartoon below Monday, June 2.

COUNTING BY NUMBERS Earlier this month, the Bush administration told a federal court that it did not know how many people it was holding at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or who those people were.

The US government said today it had neither an exact count nor all the names of hundreds of people captured in Afghanistan over a year ago and now detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

US government lawyers made the disclosure during a court hearing in a case on behalf of Falen Gherebi, a Libyan national believed to be in US custody in Cuba.

At the appeals court hearing on Monday, the planned debate over the government's right to hold Gherebi dissolved into a more basic discussion over whether the US government even had kept complete records on the people being held.

"They won't let him out and they also won't tell us if he's there," said Stephen Yagman, a lawyer for Falen Gherebi's brother, Belaid Gherebi, a San Diego resident, who has sued to get his brother legal representation. "This is crazy. This is just nuts."

Yagman complained that the government has stonewalled such requests on behalf of Gherebi and other detainees by maintaining ignorance as to who exactly it had in custody.

A panel of appeals court judges hearing the case on Monday expressed shock about the apparent lack of record keeping on a group of hundreds of people, possibly including some children, who have been in custody for 577 days.

"It strikes me as astonishing that the government says they have no idea whether this gentleman is or is not being held," one said. "Don't you even keep records?"

Government lawyers responded that while they had attempted to keep records, they were incomplete because some of those who were arrested had not co-operated with authorities. They said that translating the names from Arabic to English had created further problems with spelling.

After scanning a list for names similar to that of Falen Gherebi, the lawyers said: "We think we have him but we're not sure. We can't confirm it 100 per cent."

POWERLESS? A statement released to Global Islamic Media and purporting to be from Al Qaeda claims responsibility for the power outage that swept the Northeast last week. The statement also says that "a package" will soon be delivered to the White House.

DOES THE GARDEN GROW? The CSMonitor spent the past year following three teens from the Middle East who participated in the Seeds of Peace summer camp to see whether the seeds planted last summer in the lives of these kids survived the harsh reality of their homelands.

When Saja Abuhigleh returned home to the Palestinian town of Ramallah last year, her friend Donia stopped speaking to her.

The problem: Saja was bursting with enthusiasm for Maine's Seeds of Peace camp, where she had just spent three weeks, and for her friends there - including Israelis.

"She told me, 'I can't believe after everything that happened to your family, you can make friends with them,' " Saja recounts sadly.

Adar Ziegel, one of Saja's Israeli bunkmates last summer, also had her ideals from camp tested. Her friend Tom was riding the No. 37 bus in Haifa in March when a suicide bomber blew it up. Tom and his father were killed, along with 13 others. It was the first time that the violence of her homeland had touched Adar so personally.

Seeds of Peace, a lakeside enclave northwest of Portland, is dedicated to helping teenagers from the Middle East begin to overcome their differences - or at least put a human face on the "enemy." But it's one thing to express optimism in the Maine woods; it's another to test that optimism against the violence and hatred back home.

CURTAINS UP Teatro de la Luna is Washington, D.C.'s, professional, Spanish-language theatre company. They'll be at the University of Richmond's Modlin Center this fall.

THE IRON CHEF Sushi-Bay has thrown down the ginger-laced gauntlet to Richmond's growing bevvy of sushi restaurants. Word on the street is that it won the battle the moment it opened its doors.

YOUR NAME HERE Find out whether your parents -- or your spouse! -- has donated money to the campaign to re-elect George W. Bush. Oddly enough, thanks to this little search tool, the Bush campaign is actually the most transparent one out there. Too bad the actual presidency isn't transparent.

FLASH MAGIC Every time I see that "Too Stupid To Be President" has added a new Flash animation to their site, I want to make donations to art departments everywhere. This week, the site tackles the recall in California -- first with an amusing diary-writing bit, and then with a scathing look at the unfortunate history of the conservative Kennedy (by marriage).