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  • Thursday, June 30, 2005

     

    Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July...almost


    In lieu of Friday Random Ten... Posted by Picasa

    A sampling of 4th of July lyrics from Mariah to Aimee to Bruce to Ani to the great Dave Alvin

    ***

    It was twilight
    On the Fourth of July
    Sparkling colors were
    Strewn across the sky
    And we sat close enough
    That we just barely touched
    While roman candles
    Went soaring above us and baby

    Fourth of July – Mariah Carey

    ***

    Shower in the dark day
    Clean sparks driving down
    Cool in the waterway
    Where the baptized drown
    Naked in the cold sun
    Breathing life like fire
    Thought I was the only one
    But that was just a lie

    Cause I heard it in the wind
    And I saw it in the sky
    And I thought it was the end
    And I thought it was the 4th of July

    Fourth of July – Soundgarden

    ***

    Well she hated the 4th of july
    Bombs bursting in air, and she’d never know why
    She’d keep me up all night, too terrified to cry
    Oh yes, she hated 4th of July

    Don’t you be scared, don’t you start to shake
    Go back to sleep because I am wide awake
    I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere tonight
    Feel my hand, I’m gonna hold you till the early light

    4th of July – Blues Traveler

    ***

    Today’s the fourth of July
    Another June has gone by
    And when they light up our town I just think
    What a waste of gunpowder and sky
    I’m certain that I am alone
    In harbouring thoughts of our home
    It’s one of my faults that I can’t quell my past
    I ought to have gotten it gone

    Oh, baby, I wonder -
    If when you are older -
    Someday-
    You’ll wake up
    And say, ’my god, I should have told her -
    What would it take?
    But now here I am and the world’s gotten colder
    And she’s got the river down which I sold her.’

    Fourth of July – Aimee Mann

    ***

    She's waiting for me when I get home from work
    But things just ain't the same
    She turns out the light and cries in the dark
    Won't answer when I call her name

    On the stairs I smoke a cigarette alone
    The Mexican kids are shooting fireworks below
    Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July
    Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July

    She gives me her cheek when I want her lips
    And I don't have the strength to go
    On the lost side of town in a dark apartment
    We gave up trying so long ago

    Whatever happened, I apologize
    So dry your tears and baby, walk outside
    It's the Fourth of July

    Fourth of July – Dave Alvin

    ***

    Sandy the fireworks are hailin' over Little Eden tonight
    Forcin' a light into all those stoned-out faces left stranded on this Fourth of July
    Down in town the circuit's full with switchblade lovers so fast so shiny so sharp
    As the wizards play down on Pinball Way on the boardwalk way past dark
    And the boys from the casino dance with their shirts open like Latin lovers along the shore
    Chasin' all them silly New York girls

    Sandy the aurora is risin' behind us
    The pier lights our carnival life forever
    Love me tonight for I may never see you again
    Hey Sandy girl

    4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy) – Bruce Springsteen


    ***

    Shall I tell it again how we started as friends
    Who would run into one another now and again
    At the Yippee Cai O or the Mesa Dupree
    Or a dozen different everyday places to be
    I was loping along living alone
    We were ever so brave on the telephone
    Would you care to come down for fireworks time
    We could each just reach
    We step out of line
    And the smell of the smoke and the lay of the land
    and the feeling of finding one's heart in one's hand
    and the tiny tin voice of the radio band singing
    love must stand
    Love forever and ever must stand
    Unbelievable you, impossible me
    The fool who fell out of the family tree
    The fellow that found the philosopher's stone
    Deep underground like a dinosaur bone
    Who fell into you at a quarter to two
    With a tear in your eye for the Fourth of July

    On the Fourth of July - James Taylor

    ***

    you gotta have the right tools
    for every job
    so I invite myself in
    through a hole in the fence
    I am tripping through the junkyard
    scanning over the piles
    the thin cats raise their skin in defense
    I know he's watching me
    I can see him through the cracks
    his eyes are small and shy on my back
    he says his name is Jason
    he lives in the last trailer on the right
    and he'll be seven
    on the fourth of July

    only the people who live here
    know the name of this place
    my path through Iowa would be
    hard to trace
    all the adults in this town
    try not to frown
    when I walk by
    but Jason smiled at me
    he met my eye

    he don't ask me
    where I'm from
    or why I came
    here alone
    we all go looking for paradise
    then we go back home
    we cut out the small talk
    go right to the way things are
    he showed me his squirrel skull
    I told him I locked myself out of my car

    so there goes the only friend
    I have in Iowa
    his hand flapping behind him
    waving good-bye
    his name is Jason
    he lives in the last trailer on the right
    and he'll be seven
    on the fourth of July

    Fourth of July – Ani DiFranco

    ***

    I'm sure I missed a few. Drop me a line and I'll add them, but none of them can hold a roman candle to Alvin's as done by either him or John Doe with X.

    Added: Click on comments (the time stamp) to see some other great additions.


    posted by tbogg at 9:39 PM

    |

     

    Thursday Night Basset Blogging


    Usually when Beckham has this look on his face it
    means that somewhere in the house something is
    destroyed..or on fire...or has poop on it.  Posted by Picasa


    posted by tbogg at 9:01 PM

    |

     

    Modesty ablaze

    NotRocketTrunk over at Power Line writes:

    Peggy Noonan has an excellent piece in today's WSJ about the immodesty of some many of our present public officials. Barack ("Honest Abe") Obama is exhibit A, but Noonan also points to Bill Frist, the Senate's gang of 14, the Clintons, and Justices Ginsburg and Stevens.

    She could easily have added Al (he invented the internet) Gore and John ( "I don't fall down") Kerry. Has any party ever nominated in back-to back elections two men as pompous and conceited as these two? I'm having trouble thinking of even one other such presidential candidate


    Hmmmmm. Pompous? Conceited? I seem to remember someone like that

    You dumb shit, he didn't get access using a fake name, he used his real name. You lefties' concern for White House security is really touching, but you know what, you stupid asshole, I think the Secret Service has it covered. Go crawl back into your hole, you stupid left-wing shithead. And don't bother us anymore. You have to have an IQ over 50 to correspond with us. You don't qualify, you stupid shit.

    Nice guy, eh?


    posted by tbogg at 1:44 PM

    |

     

    For 24 hours your wishing me well
    364 days I'm in hell
    oh well
    Happy birthday to me
    Happy birthday to me


    Go wish Holden, who is Lord of the Gaggle in the same way that Guy Flatley is Lord of the Dance, a happy birthday.

    Go on. It won't kill you. And stand up straight, for heavens sake....


    posted by tbogg at 1:28 PM

    |

     

    We are all the same people that we were in high school

    For the moment we don't know if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers in Iran. I'm sure that the Muslim-sniffers over at LGF are wagging their tails, frothing at the mouth and barking up a storm. So, in the meantime, let's play Compare the President:

    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

    -student at the University of Science and Technology
    -member of the Office for Strengthening Unity
    -member of the Revolutionary Guard in 1980 and served in the Iran-Iraq war.
    -Former Mayor of Tehran.

    George W. Bush

    - C-student at Yale
    -Member of Texas Air National Guard who went AWOL. Avoided Vietnam War.
    -Couldn't find oil in Texas
    -Inside trader
    -Became a drunk
    -Snorted cocaine off of a Mexican hookers ass.
    -Ran for Congress and lost.
    -Minority partner in Texas Rangers Baseball club. Made fortune using eminent domain in a landgrab for Arlington Stadium
    -Governor of Texas. Makes fun of deathrow prisoners.
    -Elected President of the United States by stopping the vote count in Florida. Reads My Pet Goat to students while city burns and people leap to their death. Lies to American public and invades Iraq. Falls off of Segway.

    I think my work here is done.


    posted by tbogg at 11:45 AM

    |

    Wednesday, June 29, 2005

     

    Marathon man


    Courtesy of the WaPo Posted by Hello

    (click to enlarge)


    posted by tbogg at 11:47 PM

    |

     

    Fanboy

    The Pod on Cinderella Man:

    Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ron Howard, is a thrilling piece of work. No, more than thrilling. I left the screening room this afternoon exhilarated, moved, excited, stirred and overwhelmed, convinced that Cinderella Man is one of the best movies ever made"

    Pod on War of the Worlds

    Just back from seeing it. Fantastic--fantastic--first hour. Incredibly powerful, involving, scary, exhilarating. Then, unfortunately, Tim Robbins shows up and nearly wrecks it. Cruise is pretty good. Dakota Fanning, as his daughter, is sensational. Ending stinks. But man, that first hour. Wow


    Roger Ebert sleeps peacefully tonight, his job secure....


    posted by tbogg at 11:15 PM

    |

     

    Letters

    Todays U-T published letters that show that George Bush & Karl Rove are losing conservative San Diego.

    I am a member of the Republican Party, but my friends are of all political persuasions. I don't know a single Democrat who was interested in offering "therapy and understanding" for our attackers after Sept. 11. To a man, they all supported our military invasion against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Of course, we all expected the job in that country to be finished before another attack on a country with no involvement in the World Trade Center attacks was initiated.

    Furthermore, no one I know, Republican or Democrat, is interested in giving up our First Amendment right to question and criticize our government on Rove's say-so just because it might be broadcast on Al-Jazeera. I am sick of these types of cheap, inflammatory potshots from both sides and would like to see our country's leadership, my party's leadership, who purport to be grown-ups, start intelligent, conciliatory and productive political dealings with each other no matter what side of the political aisle they come from.

    The president, our CEO, should expect good behavior, serve all of us as head of the country we all live in, and fire these playground bullies if they can't shape up. Of course, that might be too "uniting."

    ELAINE SHOEMAKER
    La Mesa

    Karl Rove's ignorant statement that liberals would have just provided therapy for the Sept. 11 attack incensed me. My father was a combat veteran of World War II, my husband is an Army veteran of Vietnam, every man and two women in my family have served in the military. We are patriotic. We have strong family values and a very strong work ethic. And guess what folks? We are Democrats.

    That's right, liberals – stemming from the word liberty as in liberty and justice for all, not just the wealthy. What branch of the military did Karl Rove serve in? Or Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly? They are chicken hawks.

    CINDY DUNNE
    Lakeside


    There's lots more.


    posted by tbogg at 10:26 AM

    |

     

    Blogging from Cellblock C

    Via Roger Ailes, we see that the Queen of Iraq has a kinda-sorta blog up. We await the day when Ahmed Chalabi guest-posts for her while she's busy in the prison laundry.


    posted by tbogg at 9:49 AM

    |

     

    Ask for the Podhoretz discount

    See the Pod's favorite movie for free.

    In a rare marketing ploy, the No. 2 U.S. movie theater chain, AMC Entertainment, is offering a money-back guarantee for boxing picture "Cinderella Man," hoping to boost interest in the struggling film amid a record box-office slump.

    Advertisements offering on-the-spot refunds to AMC patrons unhappy with the film began running June 24 in newspapers and on the exhibitor's Web site (www.amctheatres.com), AMC spokeswoman Pam Blase said Tuesday.

    The ads, welcomed by the film's distributor, Universal Pictures, say in part: "AMC believes Cinderella Man is one of the finest motion pictures of the year!"


    Okay. We could have done without that concluding exclamation point.

    This isn't to say that Cinderella Man isn't a good movie. I really don't know; I haven't seen it. I think that Ron Howard is a competent though style-less director, Russell Crowe is an above-average actor, and Renée Zellweger*...well, I don't know anyone who has ever gone to a movie specifically because she was in it. But Cinderella Man (horrible title and all) was released at the wrong time and marketed poorly. Big serious humanistic dramas belong in the late fall when they're all rolled out for Academy consideration. Nobody wants to see a movie about the Depression at a time when all of the other movies have exploding shit in them (see Michael Bay's next opus crappus). And if I really wanted to see a movie about the Depression I would watch Steven Soderbergh's minor masterpiece King of the Hill... except for the fact that it is inexplicably not available on DVD.

    Now that is wrong.

    *Bonus Renée Zellweger antipathy note: she is currently slated to play Janis Joplin in Piece of My Heart. You may now commence getting your hate on....


    posted by tbogg at 9:06 AM

    |

     

    Like you needed another reason to hate Oprah


    I am a contemptible over-pampered bi-atch  Posted by Hello

    Oprah shows up at a store after they have closed and they don't open the door because...they're racists.

    Whether Oprah Winfrey was turned away from a bit of after-hours shopping in Paris because of a racist employee or a special event, news of the confrontation outside a luxury store has evoked empathy and anger from many American minorities.

    [...]

    The incident occurred when Winfrey stopped by Hermes on June 14 to buy a watch minutes after the boutique closed. Though she and three friends said they saw shoppers inside, neither a sales clerk nor manager would let them in.

    Winfrey believes the store's staff had identified her, according to a spokeswoman from Harpo Production Inc., her company. Winfrey's friend, Gayle King, who was there, told Entertainment Tonight, "Oprah describes it as 'one of the most humiliating moments of her life.'" Harpo says Winfrey plans to discuss the incident in the context of race relations on her show this fall.

    Hermes said in a statement it "regrets not having been able to welcome" Winfrey to the store, but that "a private public relations event was being prepared inside." The store did not respond to calls seeking comment.

    "As retailers, we want to treat every customer well. So I tell retailers not to look at the customer for what they look like but to address the product they want and what service they're looking for," said Daniel Butler, vice president for merchandising and operations at the Washington-based National Retail Federation.

    Even if a store is closed, Butler said, the staff should be empowered to "do as much as they can to accommodate a customer and hopefully use common sense."

    Winfrey has often plugged Hermes products – a $135 tea cup and saucer was featured in her magazine in 2001 and was still on her Web site Tuesday, along with the company's phone number. But she has said she will no longer be shopping in its stores.


    First of all, fuck Oprah. They didn't open the doors because...they were closed. The customers who were inside had a better grasp of the concept of space and time and were able to make it through the doors before they were locked and, as far as the employees are concerned, those people had better get their asses in gear and pick out whatever expensive bullshit trinket they want and get the hell out.

    You see, people in the service industry have lives. They are scheduled to work until, say 9pm, and then they want to go home to their husband and kids or their significant other or even to their dog (or a cat in extreme but unfathomable circumstances). They are tired of pretending to care about your needs. They are tired of making that fake smile that isn't really a smile. They are tired of people demanding and bullying and saying things that, if the employee didn't need that job, would get the customer's asses beat like Steadman's when he hasn't buttered the toast properly.

    For Gayle King and Oprah to play the race card is contemptible. For Oprah to use it "to discuss the incident in the context of race relations on her show this fall" is even worse. If they recognized her as Oprah and turned their backs it wasn't because she was black; it was because she was Oprah and they could probably see themselves spending the next hour-and-a-half or more catering to her and her friends whims.

    King said:

    "Oprah describes it as 'one of the most humiliating moments of her life.'"

    No. Humiliating is having to have to put your life on hold and re-open the store so that a woman who has made a career out of pretending to care for the common man can come in and browse around with her friends for an overpriced gift watch so that the recipient will be forced to acknowledge how fucking wonderful and generous she is.

    If Oprah wants to talk about one of the most humiliating moments of her life, she could always re-open the closed wound that was Beloved. She could spend a goddamn week on that.


    posted by tbogg at 12:02 AM

    |

    Tuesday, June 28, 2005

     

    Good stuff

    It's a link dump.

    Here is Jane on the understated brilliance of Harry Reid.

    Here's James humiliating Rich Lowry in a way that that no man deserves...except for Rich Lowry.

    ...and here's billmon on all of the things that George Bush isn't.


    posted by tbogg at 11:25 PM

    |

     

    Companeeeee! Sit on your hands! Sir. Yes Sir.

    The Commander in Chief gives a speech that goes over like a belch at a funeral and the guys that he is sending off to die for Halliburton and his phony legacy fail to show their appreciation.

    So has does General Jack D.Assrocket of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders see it?:

    Clear, confident, substantive. There was nothing in it that we and our readers didn't already know, but the message is one that many rarely hear. And the networks all carried it after all. That's good; President Bush nearly always does well when people see him, instead of seeing Democrats talking about him, as they will on the evening news.

    The only thing I thought was odd was the unnatural quiet in the hall. It was like the audience at a Presidential debate, which has been cautioned not to express approval or disapproval. Only at the end, apparently, were the soldiers permitted to applaud.


    Looks like the Rocketman is still in the denial stage.

    This isn't going to be pretty.


    posted by tbogg at 7:56 PM

    |

     

    Rock and roll is dead

    Oh dear me. Coming soon to a Holiday Inn Boom-Boom Room near you: Jimmy and the Foreheads

    In the afternoon we went to the Guitar Center to buy an amp for Garageband. It’s been a long time since I went to a guitar store, and I was amazed by the quantity of merchandise; never mind the silly HaRd Rawk axes or the innumerable cheapo Strat knockoffs - they had some vintage Fenders in hues you associate with tailfinned death-cars, and a butterscotch-finish Les Paul that made me weak in the knees. I didn’t know whether to buy it or ask for its neck in marriage. I might go back. (My Strat, she is a heavy burden – literally, the thing weighs nine tons, and as much as I love the whammy bar the guitar is incapable of staying in tune.) Gnat amused herself by playing all the guitars like harps. She sat in my lap as I tried out some pedals. We’ll have to go back; I can only imagine that “going to the electric guitar store with Daddy” might be one of those key memories that leads her to think I’m far cooler than I could ever hope to be.

    It was with this eventuality in mind that Pete Townshend found the need to write:

    I hope I die before I get old.

    I blame this on easy-to-acquire digital audio-editing software that allows anyone whose muse is Night Ranger to become an artiste in the non-critical comfort and sanctity of their own home. Just because You Can Still Rock In America (Ah yeah s'alright), doesn't mean that you should.

    Remember:

    The very technology that gave us Trent Reznor also gave us Andrew WK.


    posted by tbogg at 10:01 AM

    |

    Monday, June 27, 2005

     

    Would you like foam on your
    non-fat, de-caf blood latte?



    Fill it to the brim... Posted by Hello

    Dick Cheney uses American soldiers to pave the road and Haliburton drives right behind scooping up the cash with shovels and dump trucks:

    Pentagon auditors have challenged nearly $1.5 billion worth of Halliburton Co.'s bills to the U.S. military, Democratic lawmakers say.

    Placing the military's largest private contractor operating in Iraq under the microscope once again, House and Senate Democrats on Monday pointed to Pentagon audits criticizing Halliburton for inflating costs, billing for unnecessary equipment and submitting millions of dollars in duplicate costs on two contracts valued at more than $11 billion.

    Halliburton has been able to run up excessive charges largely because of "deficient Defense Department oversight and an unquestioning reliance on Halliburton's assurances," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said in a report released Monday at an ad hoc hearing attended only by Democrats.

    Officials at the Defense Contract Audit Agency identified more than $1 billion in "questioned" costs and another $442 million in "unsupported" billings connected with contracts to support U.S. troops and rebuild Iraq's devastated oil infrastructure.

    Questioned costs are billings auditors have deemed unacceptable because they are unreasonably high, illegal or not permitted under the contract. Unsupported costs lack the necessary documentation.


    Here comes the Halliburton response:

    Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Gist-Mann noted that many of the auditors' questions have already been resolved.

    The figure represented in Monday's hearing "stems from an aggregation of many reviews over a three-year period," Gist-Mann said. "The amount is a gross mischaracterization of the true facts."

    Many of the auditors' questions centered around the "quality of supporting documentation," Gist-Mann said. "It is completely wrong to say or to imply that any of these costs ... are now 'overcharges.' "


    So if you amortize the fraud over three years, well, it's not so bad. Is it?

    Under the company's largest contract — valued, as of last September (the most recent figures available) at $8.6 billion — Halliburton subsidiary KBR builds bases, serves meals, washes clothes and provides a myriad of other support services.

    At the start of the war, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had also awarded Halliburton a no-bid contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure. Under that contract, Halliburton was ordered to truck much-needed fuel into Iraq, and the assignment mushroomed to a total cost of $2.5 billion.

    Under that contract, Waxman said, Halliburton was charging about $1.30 a gallon to truck in fuel from Kuwait. Executives from Lloyd-Owen International, which has been trucking in fuel for the last year, said they have been charging about 18 cents a gallon.

    While Pentagon officials are supposed to be supervising the company's work in Iraq, the military often fails to challenge Halliburton's cost estimates, even when those numbers are dramatically higher than the government's own projections, the lawmakers said.

    Halliburton, for example, provided operations and maintenance support at Baghdad International Airport. The government expected the cost of that assignment to be about $1.9 million. Halliburton's estimate was $12.8 million.

    The U.S. Army Audit Agency complained that the military supervisors "were willing to rely on the contractor's cost estimates with little or no question."

    Halliburton also came under fire Monday from Rory Mayberry, a former food production manager for the company at Camp Anaconda in Iraq.

    Mayberry accused Halliburton of serving U.S. troops food that had passed its expiration date or even had been damaged in an insurgent attack.

    "We were told to go into the trucks and remove the food items and use them after removing the bullets and any shrapnel from the bad food," Mayberry, who is now working in Iraq for another contractor, told the lawmakers in a videotape.

    Halliburton's Gist-Mann said the company's dining facilities are "thoroughly inspected every month by the Army's Preventive Medicine Services division, and one of the main things they check is the expiration dates on various food products."

    Mayberry also accused Halliburton of shipping workers who dared speak to military auditors off to more dangerous locations.


    If I had to guess, I'd be willing to say that Halliburton's Cathy Gist-Mann goes home each and every night and drinks herself unconscious to escape the psychic pain and the bad karma that is eventually going to snap her in two like a twig in a hurricane.


    posted by tbogg at 11:53 PM

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    I am become Hannity, destroyer of worlds...

    We've always known that Sean Hannity can take any topic and suck the life and any hope of rational discourse out of it by exposing it to the black hole of his endless stupidity. He is salt on the snail of intellectualism, to coin a phrase that will never ever be used again for obvious reasons. What kind of devastation can he wreak? I'm glad you asked.

    Take Debbie Schlussel, right-wing commentator and repository of our National Lip Collagen Reserves:

    Attorney, Columnist, and Hip, Conservative Info-Babe Commentator, Debbie Schlussel is the VRWC's latest and greatest sexy, blonde, and beautiful commentator. With a law degree, MBA, long blonde tresses, and sports acumen to boot, she's a red-blooded American guy's dream. If you are into Debbie Schlussel's appearances on FOX News Channel, ESPN, FOX Sports Radio, CNN, ABC's "Politically Incorrect," and Howard Stern, and her Townhall.com and PoliticalUSA.com "Debbie Does Politics" columns, then this is the place for you--her unofficial fan club. If you've heard Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern talk about her on their national radio shows or seen her speak at the NRA convention, Debbie is proof positive that "Dumb Blonde" is an oxymoron--her beauty and brains are a lethal combination, the reason Ms. Magazine declared Debbie its #1 enemy. To paraphrase "Wayne's World's" Wayne and Garth, if she were President, Debbie Schlussel would be Babe-raham Lincoln.

    Fair enough. Outside of her blackened soul she passes a reasonable hottitude level even when we factor in a certain amount of air-brushing. But then came that fateful day when she looked into the howling void that is Sean.

    The horror...the horror.

    I report. You avert your eyes.


    posted by tbogg at 11:02 PM

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    Mike Adams: Beer Whore

    World O'Crap has already had their fun with Mike Adams...Oh I'm sorry, DR. Mike "Respect My Authoritah" Adams who is now taking sex tips from The Virgin Ben.

    We'll let that sink in in all it's pathetic glory.

    So sad.

    Anyway, I was amused when DR. Mike made up some more fake students writing fake essays so he could make one of his fake points:

    I noticed that in between the time I began using this exercise (in 1993) and the time I stopped (in 2003) there was a marked increase in reports of bizarre sexual conduct. For example, students began to write occasionally about group sex. Others wrote about posing nude for internet sites. One of my students even dropped out of school to become a Playboy Centerfold in 1996. Another wrote about how she ran out of money on Spring Break and slept with another college student for $40 just so she could have money to stay and get drunk on the last night of her vacation.

    After you've stopped masturbating.....(I'll wait).......okay (that was quick) consider this college student willing to work for beer:

    In 1990, he turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. He also played for free beer.

    Mind you, it's no easy task playing accordion after a couple of pitchers of Coors Light.

    Two words: pinched nipples...


    posted by tbogg at 10:32 PM

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    Poseur alert

    Roger Simon:

    I have an offer to make Mr. Wood. Sir, I will introduce you to the California Guru of Your Choice to help you deal with your "anger problem." Or failing that I'll lend you my dog-eared paperback of Hannah Arendt's The Banality of Evil (if I can find it).

    Ahem. There is no such book by Hannah Arendt called The Banality of Evil. It must be tough "dog-earing" an imaginary book...even one that is specifically identified as a paperback.

    Next he'll be telling us about the car chase scene in Ulysses.


    posted by tbogg at 10:11 PM

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    Sunday, June 26, 2005

     

    Dinner parties of mass destruction


    One of these people will die tonight... Posted by Hello

    As you may have heard, we are losing more and more "liberals" and "Democrats" at dinner parties where the talk turns from the best ways to prepare portobello mushrooms to war, hatred, destruction, and fear, This usually happens right before dessert, particularly if you're serving crème brûlée which takes a bit more time because of the caramelizing stage. Maybe next time, a nice sorbet. Just to safe.

    Anyway, it seems like only yesterday that Keith Thompson was quietly enjoying a Sand In You Crack when the unthinkable happened:

    A turning point came at a dinner party on the day Ronald Reagan famously described the Soviet Union as the preeminent source of evil in the modern world. The general tenor of the evening was that Reagan’s use of the word “evil” had moved the world closer to annihilation. There was a palpable sense that we might not make it to dessert.

    When I casually offered that the surviving relatives of the more than 20 million people murdered on orders of Joseph Stalin might not find “evil’” too strong a word, the room took on a collective bemused smile of the sort you might expect if someone had casually mentioned taking up child molestation for sport.

    My progressive companions had a point. It was rude to bring a word like “gulag” to the dinner table.

    I look back on that experience as the beginning of my departure from a left already well on its way to losing its bearings.


    Keith, we hardly knew ye...

    Now comes word that another of our brothers-in-arms has taken a hit. This one happens to be a friend of Power Line Boy Band member Scott Johnson:

    Everything Rove said is absolutely true. I entertained at a 50th anniversary party for a well-known feminist leader about 10 days after 9/11. Much of the liberal elite of the Twin Cities was present. I was wearing a little flag pin that elicited considerable mockery. In a post-performance conversation with 3 prominent DFL activists, they all agreed that 1) America had it coming 2) much of the rest of the world cheered the attacks and that was not a bad thing; 3) the attack was purely a "criminal" matter that required the issuing of indictments, but surely not a war, and finally and most horrifically, a direct quote, "At least we got rid of Barbara Olson."

    Like racists who feel free to use the "N" word among themselves, these people felt free to be so frank and unguarded because they absolutely assumed that I shared their worldview. I was so upset I couldn't even EAT, and anyone who knows me knows how serious THAT was. I told them I disagreed completely and left. That was the final straw launching me from my lifelong stint as a Democrat to the Republican party.


    Yes, one moment you're contemplating the shrimp platter and the next thing you know you're sprawled out on the floor watching as everything you've ever believed in (a world free of poverty and war; a world where you can breathe clean air and drink clean water, where workers rights are respected and the government looks out for the little guy) seeps out of your body. As your life passes before your eyes your body grows cold, your vision narrows, and tragically but mercifully your brain shuts down.

    When you come to...you're a conservative.

    It doesn't have to end this way. You could just stay home each night writing letters to the NY Times ombudsman complaining about that bitch Judith Miller while watching and re-watching Fahrenheit 9/11 as you burn American flags in the fireplace, but all human beings (except the Virgin Ben) require some human contact. Lets face it, we're liberals and as everyone knows we're continually rutting away like rabbits on Red Bull when we're not smoking crack and forcing virgins to have abortions. Well, you can't do that at home by yourself (believe me, I've tried) and so we nervously leave our palatial rent-controlled studio apartments in search of human companionship and maybe, if we're lucky, a solitary Christian that we can mock mercilessly. Eventually we reach our destination where we join other fellow-travelers and plot the overthrow of the government, share recipes for serving and eating the rich, and make fun of NASCAR. But there is always the risk that someone will carelessly mention Friedrich Hayek and the next thing you know another liberal will be flopping on the floor like a landed trout and you'll be thinking, "There but for the grace of a completely random sequence of events having nothing to do with a primitive and ridiculous notion of some 'god' or 'cosmic overseer', go I."

    This is our burden.

    So let's be careful because somewhere out there, maybe in the mail right this very moment, is an invitation with you name on it. The one you never see coming....


    posted by tbogg at 10:22 PM

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    No Olympic rings for you. Next!


    Using her feminine charms... Posted by Hello

    Condoleezza Rice, who failed spectacularly as National Security Advisor (remember 9/11, "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S"?) and is one of the architects of our sojourn into Iraquagmire has volunteered to help out New York City in attempting to acquire the 2012 Olympics.

    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is offering herself as a personal ambassador for New York's bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

    Rice will appear with New York Governor George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a rally on the steps of City Hall on Tuesday.

    It is a send-off rally for New York's emissaries to the International Olympic Committee, which is to choose a host city July 6 at a meeting in Singapore."New York is an internationally recognized symbol of unity, hope and opportunity and Secretary Rice believes it is the perfect place for the Olympics," Rice senior adviser Jim Wilkinson said Friday.


    I assume that she'll pitch Rikers as an excellent location for an athletes village for any participants from the Middle East.

    I'd hold off on printing up those NYC2012 t-shirts for right now.


    posted by tbogg at 9:47 PM

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    Saturday, June 25, 2005

     

    There goes the neighborhood

    It would be wrong to not share some of the latest on Randy "Your Vote Is In Escrow" Cunningham:

    Neighbors got their first inkling that something was going on at Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Del Mar-area home when they saw him packing.

    * Procurement deal keeps lawmaker's friend busy
    * Poway firm contributed to Cunningham

    Next door neighbor Kent Greene asked: "Are you selling your house?"

    "Already sold," Cunningham answered.

    When neighbors later learned the $1,675,000 price, they were even more astonished.

    "There was something fishy with the whole thing," said Mark Konopacke, who had bought his home across the street six months before for $700,000 less.

    [...]

    Some have dubbed the controversy "Mansiongate," but the house's original owner, Barbara Casino-Mizer, laughs when she sees the house in the papers. She and her husband, Corky Mizer, bought the ocean-view home from the builder in April 1987 for $385,000.

    Casino-Mizer loved the big kitchen, the mosaic-tiled bathtub and the mauve carpet that was all the rage in the late '80s. However, when the couple found another home with acreage nine months later, they put the Mercado home on the market. Cunningham, who had been teaching at the Navy's Top Gun flight school, bought it for $435,000.

    "I didn't know him from a hole in the wall," said Casino-Mizer. "It broke my heart he was going to put bars over the windows, even on the skylights."

    Some neighbors adored the larger-than-life fighter pilot who turned into a politician. One said she walked precincts for him. But he rarely participated in neighborhood get-togethers like the Labor Day block party. Some considered him standoffish.

    "On Sundays when we were out washing cars in our shorts and jeans and T-shirts, he would come and go in long-sleeved shirts and cuff links," said neighbor Michele Kipnis.

    The decorative bars Cunningham put over the windows gave the stylish home an ominous prison-like look, some neighbors said. They called it an eyesore. The neighborhood, though, was desirable. Many homes have ocean views, and each has its own style. Values shot up.

    [...]

    Neighbors say they never saw Wade. Some heard the house had been purchased by a government employee with tax dollars. Others heard a friend bought it. The house went on the market again almost immediately for $1,680,000.

    "When I saw the price, I said, 'Thank you for raising my property values,' " Kipnis said.

    Many neighbors peeked in during the open house.

    "We all knew it wasn't market value," said Victoria Konopacke. "It was a dump. The place needed to be gutted."

    Her husband, Mark, added: "I'm not surprised at all people are asking questions."

    The 3,826-square-foot house sat on the market for months while most homes were getting multiple offers. After the bars were removed, Kerry and Warren Vail put in a "low-ball" offer. Wade didn't respond for more than a month, Kerry Vail said. Then, there was a call, and a deal was struck quickly: $975,000.

    [...]

    Next door to the congressman's old place, Kent Greene has a for-sale sign posted in front of his house. He's asking $1,650,000.

    Greene said that while the price may have been "ridiculous" for Cunningham's house in 2003, his home is highly upgraded and the market has moved up.

    "It's a good neighborhood," he said, "an improved house, and, let me put it this way, it's better without him here."


    For this we will break our 'heh' embargo and just say, "Heh".


    posted by tbogg at 1:58 PM

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    Advertisements for myself


    Buy my book or I'll perky the fuck out of you... Posted by Hello

    Lest anyone think that Clownhall columns serve anything other than egos that should rightfully remain small, keep in mind that they also serve mammon in the form of flogging otherwise negligible literary efforts. Take the case of Rebecca Hagelin who is Meghan Cox Gurdon without the anglophilia. Rebecca, whom I'm sure goes by Becky, Becs, and I Used To Be A Real Catch Back In High School, regularly uses her columns to impart mom-ish common sense in interpretive dance as underwritten by the Heritage Society. That is unless she's got a minivan payment coming due, in which case it's time to start pimping her latest book, Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family From A Culture That Makes My Husband Want To Put His "You-Know-What" Somewhere God Never Intended. And if you didn't know that she had a new book out, it's probably because you were only pretending to listen to her drone on and on while you were watching Sportscenter.

    June 17, 2005
    Along with the honor of being a father comes tremendous responsibility. In my newly released book, "Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That's Gone Stark Raving Mad", I dedicate an entire chapter to Dads, outlining a half a dozen virtues that are particularly important for fathers to model for their families. Included in my list are reverence, commitment, honesty, pleasantness and respect, fitness and communication. I’ve excerpted below the section on reverence

    June 10, 2005
    Amen. As I write in my book Home Invasion, fathers should add tangible spiritual elements to family life. This means taking your family to church, of course, because being active in a congregation grounds you in faith. But it also means bringing spirituality into your home. Play spiritual music. Incorporate grace into mealtimes. Institute regular family prayer and study. Talk about what you believe, why you believe it, and how it applies to your daily lives.

    May 27, 2005
    As I discuss in my book, Home Invasion, my Heritage Foundation colleague, researcher and policy analyst Patrick Fagan points to the sad state of the American family as one key causal factor that has led to what he calls our "culture of rejection:"

    May 19, 2005
    Townhall.com columnist Rebecca Hagelin can be heard today on Focus on the Family, hosted by Dr. James Dobson, discussing her new book, Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture that's Gone Stark Raving Mad. Focus on the Family is heard on 3,500 stations nationwide and 5,000 internationally in 163 countries. Below is an excerpt from Home Invasion.

    May 13, 2005
    After listening to caller feedback on the scores of radio interviews I’ve done so far on my new book, Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That’s Gone Stark Raving Mad, I’ve got a renewed passion for my heartfelt message: Parents can fight the culture -- and win.

    May 6, 2005

    In short, Katrina is an inspiration -- not just for single moms, but for married moms, too. As I point out in my book, Home Invasion (www.HomeInvasion.org), when it comes to the extraordinarily hard task of raising our children with character, parents get only one chance to do it right. The job is much harder for the single parent, but Hunter is living proof that the children of single moms can thrive and rise to the top of their peers when they are blessed with a mother like Katrina.

    April 22, 2005
    This week, our dear Papa John died. But although I grieve that I no longer will be able to hear his gentle voice on the phone, or see the glimmer in his eye, or watch his warm embrace of my husband and our children, I am so blessed in having learned from this great champion of faith, family and freedom.

    What follows is an excerpt from my newly released book, Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That's Gone Stark Raving Mad.


    April 15, 2005
    The following is an excerpt from Rebecca Hagelin's new book, Home Invasion : Protecting Your Family in a Culture that's Gone Stark Raving Mad, which hit Amazon.com's best seller list within 24 hours of release.

    You really have to appreciate the kind of stick-to-it-ness that allows someone to use the death of her father-in-law in order to promote her book. Let's just hope that she didn't autograph copies of it at the funeral using the casket for a table.

    That would have been tacky.


    posted by tbogg at 12:01 AM

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    Friday, June 24, 2005

     

    Shorter Victor Davis Thermopylae Agamemnon Hanson

    A sober American Public won't give George Bush the keys to the car so that he can careen around the world in a drunken killing spree of power and this makes George a victim and it makes me very sad. I think I'm going to cry.

    (Added): Jesus. As usual James Wolcott (who is a professional, by gum) covers Hanson and the Panic Posse in greater detail, minutes before I did. Damned Eastern Standard Time elitist...


    posted by tbogg at 10:26 PM

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    Friday neologism blogging

    Bill Yates, who writes reviews of Christian CD's ("DJ Stigmata's Hollaback Jesus is the new gold standard in Christian hip-hop with enough funky samples and phat beats that'll make even old school evangelicals get up and get their phreak on...condemning them to a fiery hell where they will be sodomized by Satan for eternity for the sin of dancing.") has come up with a new wingnutbag term:

    To Durbinize

    Durbinize, verb.
    1. To make, either explicitly or implicitly, a moral, political, or factual equivalence between two situations which in reality have little or nothing in common. (After U. S. Senator Richard Durbin (D, ILL) who compared the alleged abusive treatment of a terrorist detainee held at Guantanamo Bay with the depraved horrors of the Nazis, Soviet gulags, and Pol Pot’s mass murders, thereby equating the U. S. personnel with these murderous despots.)
    2. To apparently apologize without actually doing so by subtly placing the blame for legitimate objections to the actions of definition 1 on the objectors. This may be accomplished by expressing disappointment that the objectors have “misunderstood” the speaker’s remarks or by stating the speaker’s sorrow that feelings were hurt. In reality, the speaker is implying that the objectors are too stupid to understand plain English or are insufficiently educated or mature to accept the speaker’s remarks as truth.


    Which, of course, reminded me of this one:

    Yattering, verb.
    1.)To feign outrage at or deliberately misunderstand simple english in an effort to score cheap political points or deflect from the issue at hand, "He was still yattering on about it long after we went out to buy beer and Slim Jims. What a dumbass.".Synonyms: malkinize, malangalanging.
    2.) A pathological condition characterized by misinterpreting the words of others and endowing them with a nonsensical amount of hyperbole in order to drown out the cognitive dissonance. See also; bullshitting oneself, delusions of competency, and what a dumbass.


    posted by tbogg at 1:19 PM

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    Friday Random Ten

    For your listening reading pleasure...

    A Case of You - Joni Mitchell (live Miles of Aisles)
    Green Flower Street - Donald Fagen
    Sleeps With Butterflies - Tori Amos
    Parade - Garbage
    Put 'Em Up - Neptunes N.O.R.E.
    All Lifestyles - Beastie Boys
    Casualties of War (Main Theme) - Yo-Yo Ma
    California Stars - Billy Bragg & Wilco
    The Medication Is Wearing Off - The Eels
    Embrasse Moi- Les Nubians


    posted by tbogg at 10:53 AM

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    Friday Call Karl Rove Blogging

    Via Americablog you can call Karl at (202) 456-2369.

    Bonus points for actually getting through to him.

    By 'getting through to him', I mean talking to him. I don't think it's possible to "get through to him". He's too far gone.


    posted by tbogg at 10:35 AM

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    Thursday, June 23, 2005

     

    Thursday Night Right-Aligned Basset Blogging


    From the archives... Posted by Hello

    Since I was so wrapped up with fixing the blog (which, as you can see, hasn't happened yet) I almost forgot Basset Blogging. Oh yeah, we also went and saw Batman. Anyway, a quick search pulled up this one from the day Beckham came home. This is his pre-evil little bastard period.

    ..as for the format, apparently it has to do with a div that is not closed. Problem is, I can't find the little bastard.


    posted by tbogg at 10:53 PM

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    I Hate Blogger

    Okay. I did absolutely nothing that should have made the format change and, being the computer wiz that I'm not, I have no idea how to fix it.

    If anyone has any suggestions...email me.

    (grumble...grumble...grumble)


    posted by tbogg at 4:26 PM

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    Why Jonah isn't a political consultant

    Oh. This is good advice:

    THE POLITICS OF SCOTUS [Jonah Goldberg]

    I fall somewhere between Ramesh and Rod on this. But I don't see any downside whatsoever in George W. Bush going before the cameras and delivering a sober but stern denunciation of this ruling. The principles are obvious. On the political front, it sets the stage for nomination battles to come in a new and helpful way. Home-owners hitch many of their political views to the set of interests revolving around their homes, and for good reason. Moreover, home-ownership is at an all time high, including black home ownership, which means there are large numbers of middle and lower-middle income voters who are in a moment of political transition where they see their interests in a new light. Why shouldn't Bush go out there and say we need judges who appreciate that property rights are just as valuable as any other right, that the state shouldn't be able to seize your home to reward political contributors? He already has a lot of talking points about how owning a home is the ticket to the American dream.


    Well there is that little problem with Arlington Stadium on which George Bush's fortune lies:

    In 1993, while walking through the stadium, Bush told the Houston Chronicle, "When all those people in Austin say, 'He ain't never done anything,' well, this is it." But Bush would have never gotten the stadium deal off the ground if the city of Arlington had not agreed to use its power of eminent domain to seize the property that belonged to the Mathes family. And evidence presented in the Mathes lawsuit suggests that the Rangers' owners -- remember that Bush was the managing general partner -- were conspiring to use the city's condemnation powers to obtain the thirteen-acre tract a full six months before the ASFDA was even created.

    I think that George Bush should hold a press conference on this.


    posted by tbogg at 4:19 PM

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    WTF

    I have no idea why the blog has reformatted itself.

    I'm working on it. In the meantime comments are down.


    posted by tbogg at 2:24 PM

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    Me look at purty pictures..not read stuff inside

    Tim Graham- Stupidest Man on Earth:

    MAO Z. HUFFINGTON [Tim Graham]
    Forgive me for noticing so late in the week, but why does Time look like a pathetic communist poster this week? (Mao is not the subject inside.) Is this any way to show the world your fervor for the people and their human rights? Presenting like a sun god a man who slaughtered millions?


    Here is the offending cover that Tim can't seem to wrap his cashew-sized brain around.

    ...and here is Ed Driscoll, the Second Stupidest Man on Earth, agreeing:

    Earlier this month, we linked to an Australian article about Chang and Halliday which had this classic radical chic rebuttal from Philip Short, a British author and journalist who published his own book on Mao in 1999:

    "Mao was ruthless and tyrannical enough in real life that there's no need to reduce him to a cardboard cut-out of Satan. Do we really gain in understanding by denying his complexity, his perversity, his genius and reducing him to a one-dimensional caricature?

    "Mao was a tyrant, but [also] much more than that. He was the reverse of a one-dimensional man. He was a great poet, a visionary and, I would argue, a military strategist of genius. He had great skills and enormous failings. Let's not oversimplify and pretend he was just a monster.


    Fine. But the reverse should be equally true: let's not oversimplify as Time does on their cover this week and imply that he was just a beneficent leader and kindly father-figure, either.


    You see the Mao jacket has Luis Vuitton logos so it's a parody of----

    Oh fuck it. Why bother.


    posted by tbogg at 12:39 PM

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    Oi, a shkandal!

    When rabbis go bad:

    Yesterday's Senate hearing into superlobbyist Jack Abramoff's alleged defrauding of Indian tribes had something for everyone. There was the yoga instructor who took the Fifth. There was the lifeguard selected to run a think tank from a beach house at Rehoboth. And there was Exhibit 31, an e-mail from Abramoff to a rabbi friend.

    "I hate to ask you for your help with something so silly but I've been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club, which is a very distinguished club in Washington, DC, comprised of Nobel Prize winners, etc.," Abramoff wrote. "Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none. I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award from Toward Tradition with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like Scholar of Talmudic Studies?"

    There were titters in the audience as Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) read aloud the e-mail, then outright laughter as he continued reading: "Indeed, it would be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past, if you know what I mean."

    The rabbi, conservative radio host Daniel Lapin, gave his blessing. "I just need to know what needs to be produced," he wrote. "Letters? Plaques?"


    This would be Rabbi Lapin.

    Prior to his immigration to the United States from South Africa in 1973 Rabbi Daniel Lapin studied theology, physics, economics, and mathematics in London and Jerusalem . He is the founding Rabbi of the Pacific Jewish Center, a now legendary Orthodox synagogue in Venice , California . He and his family relocated to Washington State in 1991 to develop Toward Tradition and host a nationally syndicated weekly radio show. Rabbi Lapin has written for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, Commentary, the American Enterprise, and the Washington Times, and has taught at the Christian Coalition, U.S. Army, Harvard Law School , and the Family Research Council. He is also the author of America’s Real War, Buried Treasure and most recently Thou Shall Prosper. He also serves on the board of the Jewish Policy Center in Washington , DC, and was recently appointed to a U.S. presidential commission.

    Whose organization, Toward Tradition:

    ... is a non-profit (501.c.3), educational organization working to advance our nation toward the traditional Judeo-Christian values that defined America’s creation and became the blueprint for her greatness. We believe that only a new alliance of concerned citizens can re-identify and dramatically strengthen the core values necessary for America to maintain that greatness and moral leadership. These values are: faith-based American principles of constitutional and limited government; the rule of law; representative democracy; free markets; a strong military; and, a moral public culture.

    ...and if you need a little help with fraud, a little this, a little that...you came to the right place, bubee.


    posted by tbogg at 11:49 AM

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    ...and I should know.

    Peggy Noonan, who once wrote a book about Hillary Clinton that contained fictionalized Clinton coversations, complains about Ed Klein. No. Really.

    I have read the Hillary book by Ed Klein, which has been heavily dumped on by conservatives, and understandably. In terms of political impact it is not a takedown but a buildup. Dick Morris says its sensational charges will only "embolden" her. They will certainly tend to inoculate her against future and legitimate criticism and revelations. The book is poorly written, poorly thought, poorly sourced and full of the kind of loaded language that is appropriate to a polemic but not an investigative work.

    Here are some significant things about Mr. Klein's book: It comes from an establishment journalist who's had his professional ticket punched at the New York Times magazine and Newsweek. He has no conservative bona fides; he says he is and appears to be essentially apolitical.


    Before we get to "apolitical" Ed Klein, here is a sample review from Amazon of Peggy's book:

    Ms. Noonan's case could have benefited from stronger editing. I felt, for example, a hypothetical conversation snippet imagined at Hillary's future gravesite was regrettable and tasteless. More concerning - especially after Ms. Noonan wrote negatively (and accurately) about Edmund Morris fiction/non-fiction Ronald Reagan biography - was an extremely interesting portion of her book set at Michael Eisner's home; a scene which turns out, in the end, to be entirely made up by Ms Noonan. She describes how she wound up watching this (fictional) scene, as the friend of Eisner's housekeeper! I felt disappointed and manipulated after reading this fascinating scene to find out at its close that Ms. Noonan had imagined it entirely - including fictional quotes from Ted Turner, etc.

    And now, here is "apoltical" Ed Klein:

    NRO: Do you believe, as Hillary expressed around impeachment time, that there was a "vast-right-wing conspiracy" out to do her husband in?

    Klein: The only conspiracy that existed during impeachment time was Bill and Hillary’s attempt to hide the truth.

    NRO: Are you now part of some "Republican scream machine"? What was your intention in writing the book?

    Klein: I’m a journalist who writes about fascinating people. I spent many years writing about the Kennedys. But the Clintons have eclipsed them in national interest. Right now, Hillary is the most fascinating woman in America.

    I don’t know if all Republicans will like this book, but I call them as I see them.

    NRO: Did you vote for Bill Clinton?

    Klein: No.

    NRO: You're a New Yorker. Did you vote for Hillary for senator? Would you vote for Hillary for president?

    Klein: No and no.

    I think Elizabeth Moynihan, Senator Moynihan’s wife, had it right when she told me that Hillary is “duplicitous.” Hillary acts as though she is chosen by God, and that gives her the right to use any means to justify her ends.

    If she becomes president, it’s going to be deja Clinton all over again. And as far as I’m concerned, we’ve already had the Clinton presidency for its full constitutional eight years.

    NRO: Is Sidney Blumenthal still "Hillary's brain"?

    Klein: I don’t know, but he’s still her pit bull attack dog. Blumenthal was the first person to attack my book as soon as Vanity Fair’s excerpt appeared.

    NRO: A Sentinel spokesman said recently that The Truth about Hillary could be Hillary's Swift Boat Vets. Do you intend that or expect that?

    Klein: I intended my book to take a good hard look at Hillary’s true character, and if the book is being compared to the Swift Boat Vets’ book on that account, then I am proud of the comparison.


    Now back to La Loon:

    The real problem with Hillary biographies is that the picture they paint, if it is true, is difficult for a normal person to believe. No one could be that bad. No one who has risen so high in American politics could possibly be that bad. To believe is to go to a dark place.

    And the charges seem so at odds--so utterly at odds--with the nice, smiling woman who calls abortion a tragedy and enjoys speaking of how much she prays. This is the problem all Hillary biographers have: It's too grim to believe. To believe that her story as presented by the books so far is true is to believe that she has clung to a premeditated plan for 40 years, that she is ruthless in the pursuit both of her own ambitions and of a deep and intractable leftist political agenda. And that she found her equal in a partner sufficiently hardhearted to stick with the plan, and the secrecy, and the weirdness. It's too over the top. It seems hard to believe, not because it isn't true but because it isn't likely, usual, expected. It isn't the kind of biography we are used to in our leaders. That is her great advantage.
    (my emphasis)

    In other words we are back to Noonan's Law:

    Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

    Ed Klein need not apply.


    posted by tbogg at 1:48 AM

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    Shorter David Brooks


    The illustrated David Brooks Posted by Hello

    Normally we would write something short and pithy, but we thought the above pretty much describes todays column.


    posted by tbogg at 12:35 AM

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    Wednesday, June 22, 2005

     

    All I got was a nasty tobacco burn...

    Ed Klein has officially become the national pinata of both the left and the right (John Podhoretz and Sean Hannity). Whacked on both sides he starts talking crazy shit:

    The book doesn’t come out and say that the woman in the photo is the “stunning divorcée.” But the picture was clearly selected and positioned to bolster the book's lurid allegations. And the book does not specify the circumstances or the date of the event in the photo. Sharing the fact that it took place at a campaign rally would obviously have undercut the book’s claims of extramarital intimacy.

    What’s more, the photo is in fact one of several taken by Clendenin—which New York has obtained—showing a sequence in which a female supporter approaches Bill amid an adoring throng and leans in for what appears to be a kiss on the cheek. Klein’s book reprinted the closest shot of the kiss—the only one that could conceivably be construed as “mouth-kissing.”

    Klein dismissed the photographer's charges, arguing that the two pictures on the page reinforced the impression of an overall pattern. "The pictures speak for themselves," he said. "They make the point I was trying to make in the book, which is that he hasn't stopped being a philanderer."

    Klein bristled when asked if juxtaposing the photo with a caption charging extramarital affairs was misleading in that it invited the reader to see the photo as proof of misbehavior. He said, "It invites the reader to see a pattern of behavior on his part. A man who masturbated in the Oval Office with a cigar shouldn't be going around leering at women and kissing them on the mouth."


    If masturbating with a cigar is a crime then lock this guy up.


    posted by tbogg at 3:12 PM

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    Pay for play

    Local Congressman "Duke" Cunningham's problems take a turn for the interesting:

    Mitchell Wade, founder of the defense contracting firm MZM Inc., pressured employees to donate to a political fund that benefited Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and other members of Congress, according to three former employees of the company.

    Wade, who took a $700,000 loss on the purchase of Cunningham's Del Mar home and allows the congressman to stay on his yacht while in Washington, demanded employees tomake donations to the company's political action committee, MZM PAC, they said.

    "By the spring of '02, Mitch was twisting employees' arms to donate to his MZM PAC," said one former employee. "We were called in and told basically either donate to the MZM PAC or we would be fired."

    Many companies have PACs, but campaign finance laws prohibit employers from pressuring workers to contribute to the PAC. They may encourage contributions, but not compel them.


    Here is where the fun starts:

    MZM has been seeking to increase its contracts with the Central Command, which oversees military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Special Operations Command, both based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., according to former employees.

    The three former MZM employees who said Wade pressured them and others to donate money to the company PAC declined to be identified, saying they feared for their careers if their names were disclosed. All continue to work in the military and intelligence fields.

    They and other former MZM employees questioned the way Wade solicited contracts from Defense Department intelligence agencies during the time they worked for the company.

    They also expressed concerns about Wade's dealings with three House members who received a large portion of the money disbursed by MZM's PAC. The three ... all Republicans ... are Cunningham and Reps. Virgil Goode of Virginia and Katherine Harris of Florida.

    [...]

    MZM officials and their family members gave Harris, who ran for Congress in 2002, a total of $44,000 during 2003 and 2004. Goode received a total of $27,851 between 2000 and 2004.

    [...]

    Ashdown echoed the comments of former MZM employees in saying Wade strategically targeted MZM's donations.

    "A lot of people will throw a lot of money at a lot of different people," Ashdown said. Wade's "strategy was, `I need to make friends with a few very influential lawmakers and really, really schmooze and coddle them and that's how I'm going to make my money.' And that's what he did.

    "The first person is Cunningham, a senior guy on the (defense appropriations) committee, and he helps them get business. Then they go to another guy on the (defense appropriations) committee, Goode, who's more junior but has the benefit of getting a facility in his district. And then they go to Katherine Harris, who isn't on the committee but needs lots of money for her Senate race and would be bringing business and new jobs to her area," Ashdown said.

    Harris plans to run for Senate next year.


    By the way, people are asking if Cunningham is either arrogant or just stupid to think that he could get away with the house selling scam. As an interested observer of Cunningham for many years I can attest to the fact that he is profoundly stupid as in JD Hayworth-stupid which is just short of stick-your-tongue-in-a-light-socket kind of stupid.


    posted by tbogg at 12:38 AM

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    In the very near future accomplished will mean not accomplished


    Pay no attention to that curtain behind the man... Posted by Hello

    Karl Rove does Hardball:

    GREGORY: But if you're talking about the number of troops necessary, the level of American casualties, the force and intensity of the insurgency…did the president mislead the American people about the cost of the war or was he just simply surprised by what happened?

    ROVE: I would go back to the president’s statements over the last several years and I would defy you to find one speech which he talked about Iraq where he doesn’t say there would be difficult times ahead, that we had a long road to hope that a great deal of sacrifice was going to be called for by both the American people and by the Iraqis to achieve this goal.


    But...but...it says... Oh. Never mind.


    posted by tbogg at 12:11 AM

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    Tuesday, June 21, 2005

     

    No. Duh.

    Get the hell out of here...Really?

    Washington Post headline:

    Republican Rule Makes Lobbying Big Business

    With pro-business officials running executive and legislative branches, lobbyists seek ways to profit from tax breaks, loosened regulations


    Coming up... Water: It's Really Really Wet. A five-part series.


    posted by tbogg at 11:53 PM

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    Brief baseball interlude

    We heard about this while watching the Padre game tonight:

    The Yankees were behind by 10-2 after four innings, but they erased that deficit and roughed up four Tampa Bay pitchers. Getting the worst of it was Travis Harper, who took the loss that lowered his record to 1-6. He entered with one out in the eighth and gave up eight hits and nine runs, including four home runs.

    Three of the home runs were in succession - by Sheffield, Rodriguez and Matsui. Asked why he left his pitcher in to suffer as he did, Tampa Manager Lou Piniella said: "I was hoping to get one more out. That's what we were hoping for. Just get one more out and get the inning over with. You hate to see that happen."


    To quote my fifteen year-old daughter, "What idiot manager left him in long enough to give up nine runs and only two outs?"

    Now we know.

    Lou Piniella makes Bob Brenly look like a managerial genius.


    posted by tbogg at 11:47 PM

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    The downward spiral


    "What kind of a girl do you think I am?" she said
    "We've already determined ...
    "Now, we're just haggling over the price!"
     Posted by Hello

    Has anyone ever had a worse career than Susan Estrich? The Dukakis campaign...her slapfight with Michael Kinsley...her hiring at Fox in an effort to make Alan Colmes appear bright and articulate...and now this.

    I've come to expect the jabs at Fox News - because being a liberal, I get more than most. I work there in part because, six or seven years ago, they offered me a better deal than NBC at the time; and because, as a feminist and a Democrat, I think it's particularly important to have a dialogue with people who aren't already members of the same choir - that's the way we will ultimately have to win elections.

    I'll take advice from Estrich on how to "win elections" right after I finish Dick Cheney's Healthy Heart Living diet book.

    Added... From the comments:

    That looks like the prelude to the worst blowjob ever.
    # posted by The Chemist : 10:08 AM


    Oh man. That is funny.


    posted by tbogg at 11:13 PM

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    Why bother?

    Dick Durbin issues an unnecessary mea culpa to people who have deliberately misinterpreted his words:

    “Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line,” the Illinois Democrat said. “To them I extend my heartfelt apologies.”

    His voice quaking and tears welling in his eyes, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate also apologized to any soldiers who felt insulted by his remarks.

    “They’re the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them,” he said.


    ...and here is what he gets for his pains from Captain Cubicle:

    At least this is an apology, instead of a "statement of regret". However tearfully delivered, though, it still contains qualifiers that shift the responsibility to everyone but Durbin. "Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line, and to them I extend my heartfelt apologies."

    No, no, no.

    Your remarks did cross the line, Senator. Why can't you just admit that, without qualification? This is yet another halfway dodge in putting the onus onto those whom you offended instead of taking responsibility for your own actions and comments.

    Color me unimpressed.


    How about color you disingenuous. If you don't understand what he said...admit it. We wouldn't think any less of you. We couldn't.

    Then there is Scott "Hattie Carroll Is My Muse" Johnson of the Power Line boy band (he's the "edgy" one):

    Senator Dick Durbin characterizes his incessant imputation of heinous misconduct to the American military as "a very poor choice of words": "Sen. Durbin apologizes for Gitmo remarks." Does he retract his comparison of our soldiers to mass murdering Nazis and Communists? The answer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune will be happy to know, is "no."

    Oooooo. "incessant imputation of heinous misconduct". Someone got a coupon from the thesaurus store. Fake outrage is the new black and Scott and the Ass Rocket and that other guy wear it so well.

    The reality at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib is that these weren't and aren't soldiers making rash decisions in action or commiting acts that can be blamed on the 'fog of war'. They are systematically and deliberately torturing people in the name of 'freedom'. And when they get caught they toss the world a bone like Lyndie England while Ricardo Sanchez gets a bonus. Don't want to be compared to torturers of yore? Quit fucking acting like Torquemadas in training. If anyone should be pissed it should be the soldiers in the field whose impossible job is made even harder by those who act like thugs under the color of authority.

    Every time the chickenhawks endorse torture they make it more dangerous for American service people. Do they care? Not really. They don't have any kids in the line of fire. Not Hindrocket Jr and not the lil' Surbers. Their kids are too white and too special to make any sacrifices.

    Let's be honest here. These people fit into two categories.

    1) They know what they are saying is bullshit but they have to deflect the emerging storyline that the war is being lost, public opinion is running away from them, and they were wrong wrong wrong and now 1724 American soldiers are dead because their President lied, they knew it, but they wanted someone to go kick some raghead ass so they could feel safe at night because they're congenital cowards at heart. Who cares what they think? Fuck 'em.

    2) They're stupid. Stone cold, paste-eating, ditto-headed walking advertisements for eugenics who want so hard to fit in that they'll parrot any talking point that is explained to them in easy to understand terms as long as you keep it within the two syllable limit. To respond to them with anything more than a patronizing pat on the head and an offer of pudding or a shiny dime is a waste of time. So fuck them too.

    The only thing that needs to be done is to decide which group each 101st Keyboarder belongs to and then...ignore them. Don't play their game.

    Fuck 'em.


    posted by tbogg at 8:12 PM

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    Monday, June 20, 2005

     

    It's sorta like Red Dawn meets Grumpy Old Men. You know...old guys fighting Islamofacists and then going to Coco's before they turn the steam tables off.


    Hollywon't Posted by Hello

    Personally I have been up late at night wondering (pondering, wrestling with) why Hollywood is in the doldrums this summer. I mean John Podheretz his own bad self said that Cinderella Man had given him his first erection since the impeachment hearings. But pfffttt, Cinderella Man is dropping out of sight faster than Bo Bice.

    But if Hollywood wants to know what it's doing wrong, well, intrepid blogger and out-to-pasture screenwriter Roger Simon knows what ails ya:

    Hollywood box office is off this year by a fairly disastrous nine percent (accounting for ticket price inflation). Marketing people will give dozens of explanations but the reason couldn't be more obvious: The movies - with a few exceptions - are hugely predictable and unimaginative. In other words, who would want to go?

    A secondary explanation is that the coveted 17-year old boy audience is staying home to play computer games. Why wouldn't they? I don't play them myself but from what I understand many are far more original than Hollywood pabulum - and they are interactive.

    Of course, the other elephant in the room is Hollywood's lack of response to the world conflagration all around us, especially from a direction that would even hint the US was on the right side (other than Team America from the far-hipper-than-the-boomers South Park crew). This is a far cry from WWII when films from Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo to the bizarrely pro-Stalin Mission to Moscow abounded.


    Yup. If only we had more rah-rah shoot'em-ups with square-jawed American soldiers fighting the good fight for the love of that plucky gal back home then that desirable 17-24 year-old male demographic might race down the the local Megacinemapaloozaplex and plop down ten dollars to get a vicarious jolt of pure Americanized Righteousness which beats the hell out of actually enlisting because, as Roger might put it, "In other words, who would want to go?". After all, these are numbers that even Paul Dergarabedian couldn't put a positive spin on.

    It's not for nothing that they call Hollywood: The Dream Factory.


    posted by tbogg at 11:26 PM

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    Shorter John Tierney

    Let's not let some silly social contract keep us from hiring older people at poverty wages to perform menial work for boomers like mysel--Hey! You stupid old bastard! Where's my goddamn latte?


    posted by tbogg at 11:09 PM

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    The Lonely Passion of Joel Mowbray

    Poor Joel. Still flogging it over at confirmbolton.com ("T-shirts half-off! Hurry for best selection! No offer refused!"). All of the other kids, except for Andrew Cochran, are looking for day work.

    VOINOVICH… WTF?(Mowbray)

    Though the GOP managed to pick up three Dem votes–the same as the last time–for giving Bolton an up-or-down vote, Voinovich crossed lines to side with professional hacks Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. He must be too stupid (see earlier analyses) to understand a political ploy when he sees one, thus his seeming indulgence of the Dems’ line that they need more info. To be fair, it could also be that Voinovich is a headline whore, and he perhaps calculated that he could garner still more attention by stabbing his GOP brethen in the back yet again.

    FILIBUSTER, REDUX(Mowbray)

    Not to anyone’s great shock, the Dems today filibustered Bolton yet again. They want to continue fishing, and the White House has not effectively rebuked the Dems. Biden and Dodd have nearly succeeded in sounding reasonable, yet the White House merely says that the Senate has all the information it needs. Yes, that’s true, but truth isn’t exactly paramount in politics.


    How
    very
    fucking
    sad.

    But this should cheer you up. They really don't pay Scottie enough.


    posted by tbogg at 10:27 PM

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    Pecksniff & Co.

    Jane has a wrap-up on The Virgin Ben's kerfluffle (or we could call it a 'ker-fluffer" but then we would have to explain that to Ben and who has that much spare time on their hands?)

    Oh yeah. And there's also a Mary Carey picture... not that you're the type to go to another blog just to see a picture of a porn star. I have more respect for you than that.

    No. Really. I do.


    posted by tbogg at 12:31 AM

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    Sunday, June 19, 2005

     

    Bill Frist: Cheating, two-timing man-slut

    David Brooks finds honor in sleeping around on your fiancé:

    Bill Frist was his high school's class president. He was a quarterback on the football team and a member of the honor society, and lived amid the upper crust of Nashville society. He dated the head cheerleader, and while he was in med school they were engaged to be married.

    But while interning in Boston, he met another woman, spent a dinner and a night with her, and fell in love. Two days before his wedding, he flew back to Nashville and broke off his engagement. "Everyone listened carefully to what I said, all the lame explanations I had that were and were not the truth," Frist later wrote, "and they nodded and dealt with it and I went on my way."

    I've always admired that anecdote. It took guts to break off the grand wedding that was in the works - to risk alienating everyone he had grown up with for the sake of the woman he had suddenly come to love. Furthermore here was a Bill Frist who knew his own heart.


    Here we see Frist and the slut who slept with him on their first date.

    I blame the culture:

    The most extreme manifestation of the new culture is the mainstream acceptance of pornography. Pornography is no longer relegated to the dark corners of the newsstand or the skuzzy box in the video store; it's now in your inbox. It's on the radio, the television and the billboards. We live in an America that makes Paris Hilton a cultural icon and Jenna Jameson a New York Times best-selling author.

    ...and makes a man who cheats on his fiancé the Senate Majority Leader.

    Bobo's World: Where your wedding is only a dinner and a blow job away from collapsing like a Papier Mâchè submarine.


     

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