Bill Maher's New Rules for 9-28

Maher had a pretty good show this week...here's the always-amusing and interesting New Rules segment.

Hillapolooza

Plenty of good Hillary stuff in the papers and all around this morning.

• The Times runs a story on the Hillary Cackle that I've been griping about here for the last two weeks. They present some evidence that it's not new, but has just been dormant for some time and is making an annoying and inappropriate comeback. Kind of like herpes.
• The beautiful Ms. Dowd also revisits the "two for the price of one" line that's been in our lexicon for too long. She also pulls out a quote from someone at the New Republic that made me cackle loudly in my backyard when I read it...

“She’s never going to get out of our faces. ... She’s like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really, really wants and won’t stop nagging you about it until finally you say, fine, take it, be the damn president, just leave me alone.”

For now, enjoy a little montage of the laugh, courtesy of Jon Stewart.

Pam Weds Again

There's no good reason why I've taken more interest in these tabloidy, ridiculous stories lately, but what the heck...

According to some news outlets, Pam Anderson is getting (or already got) hitched this weekend in Vegas to Rick Salomon. You might remember him, and his johnson, if you saw the Paris Hilton sex tape.

These two seem made for each other...although I do retain some sympathy for Anderson...

Anyway, it drew me back to a short but comical Zappa song, Cocaine Decisions.

Gary, Indiana...Cesspool

I grew up in Northwest Indiana, and went to high school on the outskirts of Gary.

Gary doesn't hold a place in my memory as a particularly fun place to hang out in general...although I know that the decent people outnumber the bad and there actually are some livable areas near the lakeshore.

Somehow, I stumbled across a mention of Gary today and started reading up on what's changed in the years since I've left. I ended up kind of slumped back on my chair, here, shaking my head in pity for the people there.

Through some odd sequence of events, they ended up with a charlatan of a mayor named Rudy Clay and nothing good can possibly come of this.
I was able to dig up articles of the shady way he took office and his monkeyshines since being in office, including driving around with a security posse of his cronies (one of whom is named "The General") in a Hummer.

But, I figured, there's always going to be naysayers. Anyone can find a few signs of excess or eccentricity to poke fun at.

So I read the mayor's biography on his website. I don't think we'd tolerate this kind of disorganized writing from a grade school student! Certainly someone who takes such little care (or displays such incompetence) in the way he presents himself to the world has no business running a city.

"But Dan," you might say, "your posts here are often filled with grammatical errors, run-on sentences, non sequiturs and countless other flavors of literary skid marks!"

If you did say that to me, you'd be right. However, this site provides me an occasional creative outlet and chance to vent on things that irk me. Further, for my readers who are family members and personal friends, it provides a sort of ongoing casual conversation place for us.

But for anyone else who happens upon our conversation here, I'm basically anonymous. I don't use my last name and have never mentioned the name of the company I work for. If I were representing anyone publicly, I would take a great deal more care in the thoughts expressed here.

I'm not quite sure how I got so fired up just by reading about this mayor, but it blows my mind how a city can accept the same crap over and over again...and the only thing someone seems to have to do is throw a few "...marched with Dr. King" items in the resume.

Selah.

Tonight, at Chuckles

Woof Woof

There's no deep thought behind my posting a favorite, somewhat-less-often-played Beatles tune, Hey Bulldog, except that I just heard it on WXRT and thought it was cool. We used to go see a Dead coverband in Chicago, Uncle John's Band, who usually worked this into their sets.

Incidentally, one of two of the guys from UJB ended up being part of the backbone of Dark Star Orchestra...easily the premier Dead coverband in the country.

Okay, this is getting to be a bit too much like 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Enjoy this cut from the Yellow Submarine album.

Is This Year Next Year?

Our beloved losers won the N.L. Central Division last night, moving them into the playoffs for the first time in a while.

With the Tribe also having won their division, it's at least mathematically possible that we have a most-unusual World Series match up this year.

But I'm not holding my breath.

A Movie I'll Have to See

Wes Anderson's new movie, The Darjeeling Limited, opens the New York Film Festival today.

As someone who totally digs what this cat is up to, I have been anxiously awaiting this release and can't wait till it makes it out here to the rust belt.

Anderson creates this neat little world in his movies that kind of straddles the real and fantasy worlds. One theme that seems to always carry through in his movies is the fall from grace. He pays such meticulous attention to costumes, set coloring and music that you can watch the movies over and over again, always picking up something you didn't see the first time.

I won't carry on and on about him, but will link up a very favorable review from this morning's Times.

Update>> I pulled down a copy of the trailer and also watched the short film, Hotel Chevalier, over at iTunes, which is apparently a prelude to the full movie.

Boy, Are the Catholics Mad About This

This weekend brings the annual Folsom Street Fair to San Francisco.

This is their promotional poster this year.

And, as hard as I tried to not think of a wisecrack, the caption "eat me" just came to mind...

The Great Dictator

I taught a class today at my job...something I do a handful of times a year, but this was on a different data warehouse than I'd worked on before, so I'm pretty mentally and emotionally drained...so please forgive me the rather obvious posting tonight.

When I was watching that "leader" at the UN yesterday, I could only think of one of the great sequences of all time...Chaplin in the globe scene from The Great Dictator.

Energy level should be back up tomorrow and I'm betting I'll be pissed enough about something to post.

'Night...

BillO....Mr. Multicultural

Apparently, Bill never took a flight with the jive turkeys from Airplane!

This is from his radio show the other day...I guess this is old news to hipsters like Cody, but I fell out of the loop temporarily.

And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship.

Bill O'Reilly...A Man for All Seasons

A Funny Picture Before Bed

thanks, Ryno...

More of Hillary's Disturbingly Fake Laugh Routine

Hillary was on all the Sunday shows this morning. Her calculated laughing routine, which she's ramped up over the course of the summer, had been grating on my nerves for some time.

I'm not the only one who finds this curious...here's a compilation of her three laugh track hits on Fox News Sunday, compiled by our amigos at HuffPo.

The Dan Rather Lawsuit Against CBS

This made me giggle...

by Jimmy Margulies

Justice Breyer...Coppin' a Feel!

This is the cover of this morning's NYT Book Review...very interesting graphic.

Billary

Hillary has learned her lessons well. She slipped in a nice little nuance in her answer to Russert's question about getting out of Iraq early on in the beginning of another Clinton presidency.

"...I will end our involvement at the levels we've seen."

This leaves quite a bit of wiggle room.

More Good Stuff

Sick of the Clinton-fest on the Sunday shows, I came across this, uh, gem.

New Feature

In a desperate attempt to double my readership up to a dozen unique visitors ;-) I'm going to dink around with something new here that interests me.

I'll occasionally put up music clips that I find interesting and cool, but am now going to make an effort to link up similarly interesting/cool/influential political speeches that I can find out there.

Most of the reason I get off on politics so much, I think, is not because of some great sense of patriotism or civic responsibility, but rather how people use their gift of persuasion to influence public opinion.

I'll include formal political speeches as well as other times when they were on camera. One that I hope to dig up is when George H.W. Bush got Dan Rather to walk off the set when he turned the tables on him.

As the first installment, I'll throw up something that I can still remember Mr. Klora teaching us about all those years back in US History, 1945-Present in high school....Veep Candidate Nixon's Checkers Speech.

Given on this date back in 1952, it predated HD-quality video by a few weeks, but it was a great leap, in some direction, when it came to the use of television in moving public opinion.

This is Why America is Doomed

This dimwitted Star Jones replacement, Sherri Shepherd, believes that the Bible is the literal word of God.

Okay, fine. I don't have a categorical problem with people of faith and other fairy tale believers.

Whoopie Goldberg, who I find myself in the unfamiliar position of defending, asked her if the world was flat. Shepherd said that she didn't know, that she'd never really thought about it, and that if her child ever asked her, they would have to make a trip to the library to investigate this cutting-edge scientific dilemma.

The issue comes in when I realize that her fat bottom is on that show for a reason...she appeals to a wide swath of the American public.

This sort of vapid approach to life, where the, "well, Whoopie, what I have thought about is how to feed my family" excuse is accepted as a catch-all rationale for not having taken the time in your life to think of any thoughts beyond how to put food in your belly is pretty disturbing.

I suppose it's nothing new, but when this sort of person is presented up there not as an entertainer to make us laugh, but as someone espousing a legitimate Viewpoint, I get scared to walk the streets...

Show Him the City

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (yes, I had to paste that in) is headed to New York this weekend, for stints at the U.N and Columbia University.

There's the predictable dust-up going on there about how much energy we should devote to securing him during his visit.

It's mostly blow-hard nonsense from the right, in this case. We choose to maintain the United Nations in New York City knowing that it comes with the price of having to act as temporary guardians to a few a$ holes now and then.

I have to say, though, if I were Nurse Bloomberg, I would take a page right out of one of my predecessor's playbooks.

In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, Mayor Laguardia sent a clear message to the German consulate, which was having security concerns.

He beefed up their police protection...with a bunch of Jewish volunteers.

Any Christian who would vote for Rudy Giuliani needs to check out his or her salvation.

So says a radio/religious nut that I'd never heard of till I saw this story linked.

Bless you, my children, on this Day of Atonement.

I Couldn't Resist Posting This

While it violates just about everything that we used to think was decent, I guess it is pretty harmless...there's a new movie coming out as well as a new book, both based on the Brady Bunch.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

...Before we had the theatrical trailer for OJ's Eleven.

Good Prez Campaign Blog-ish Site

I've been a fan of National Review's Corner blog for several years and they've consistently been a site that's tried to keep up with maintaining a relevant online presence.

They don't do a whole bunch of flashy non-sense, but they seem to be constantly adding depth to their site and not letting their variety of blogs fall stale due to non-posting.

The latest one I've started to nose around on is the Campaign Spot. While Buckley's rag won't exactly be giving you the Code Pink viewpoint, they're nowhere near vitriolic.

But check out their other content offerings if you get a chance.

Daniels, Charlie That Is

I don't quite recall how Charlie Daniels came up in talking with my friend MC the other day, but it did and I was shocked that he wasn't familiar with the Ballad of the Uneasy Rider.

So I just had to post up a great, funny song from the 70s...

Happy Saturday.

The O's 0-Factor

There's some new polling out from the folks at Pew suggesting that Oprah's endorsement of Obama will have no net effect....

According to their research, while he could get a 15% lift from her, she'd have the same amount of drag on other voters.

I don't know what to make of it (probably nothing!) but I thought I throw it up on a Friday that is creeping along too slowly. I need sleep....

The Moveon Ad

Well, my Cubs hat is tipped to Moveon.org.

They've accomplished what they wanted in their on-the-cheap ad in the Times last week, playing on the name of General Petraus.

They have inspired the US Senate to perform one of its best circle jerks in some time.

This, of course, is like Michael Jordon out-doing himself in the dunking realm...or Andy Dick doing something really creepy, even for him.

Here's what happened:

John Cornyn (R-TX) brought up a bill condemning the ad that The Decider called "disgusting."

Since they were apparently now in the business of offering unsolicited commentary on private sector advertising, Barbie Box-uh (D-CA) decided to throw on an amendment saying that they were also pissed at how John Kerry was swiftboated and Max Cleland's devotion to this country was pushed into ambiguity.

The Texan accused Boxer of changing the subject, to which she said, 'I know you are, but what am I?'

The Boxer amendment failed, but the larger bill passed.

"I'm probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world"

That's what Rudy Giuliani told reporters during his trip to London this week to get some cash, press and street cred in the international diplomacy world.

Give or take a few dozen others, he's pretty close to right. He's in the upper echelon, no doubt.

And this seems like a distinguished sort of thing to say about oneself, but it's not necessarily a sign of virtue.

Off the top of my head, I came up with a few other honors I might not want:

• McDonalds is among foods America is best known for
• Colombia's most notorious export got Robert Downey Jr. in a fair share of trouble
• Minnesota's best-known governor was also a former professional wrestler
• The face of Cuba is not universally loved
• The Soviet Union's most famous leaders were not exactly choir boys
• Would you want your daughter to date the person most-associated with Waco, TX in the 1990s?

I get where you're going with it, Rudy, but you open yourself up for some other comparisons when you let your ego run your mouth.

NBC Takes Baby Steps

After the fallout, a few weeks ago, between NBC and iTunes over pricing schemes, the Peacock made another move around the electronic availability of their television shows.

Starting this fall, viewers will be able to download shows from NBC within a week of their initial broadcast for free. Sounds cool except the files become unusable after a week and are not transferable to other machines. Further, they will contain commercials that cannot be FF'd through.

Presumably, future iterations will contain more convenience, but will surely not come for free.

I'm not a big enough fan of any of NBC's shows (spare Meet the Press, I guess?) to get myself hyped up over this. I suppose it will be interesting to see how they do once the Apple umbilical cord is cut, though.

Some analysts are not so optimistic about the model of having to shop for my shows straight from the network...

“It’s not just a shift from a supermarket to a mom-and-pop story, it’s a shift to one store that only sells bread, another store that only sells dairy products. The consumers have decided they want to get their content from iTunes.”

Chris Crotty, analyst for iSuppli

I Hate Illinois Nazis

The New York Times and other outlets are running stories about a new exhibit at the Holocaust Museum in Washington of how the Nazis in Auschwitz spent their time...you know when they weren't killing Jews, Poles, gays and everyone else they didn't like.

It kind of speaks for itself and I don't think I can offer much to it.

Here's a link to an audio slideshow.

U2 Performs Dylan's "Maggie's Farm"

I'm in the mood for another (what I think is) interesting music pick tonight, so I dug up U2 performing Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" back in 1986 when they, too, were a little more of a conventional protest band than they may be today.

The song itself is Dylan's backlash against what he found to be a rather oppressive folk power structure at the time that booed him when he played electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival (now sponsored by Dunkin' Donuts!).

"I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them"

The song's been rattling around in my head all day after listening to a neat RatDog performance of the song last summer in Columbus, but I couldn't find anything linkable. That said, I really like U2's interpretation, and I hope you do, too.

Wow, Has Marcia Clark Changed!

Hard to believe that the same woman who was not able to convict The Juice back in 1995 now looks like this...reporting for Entertainment Tonight!

“If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena"

No, that's not me talking about and misspelling the name of of the President's daughter, but Jesse Jackson overstating the obvious again.

He's talking about a racial incident I posted here about a week or so ago that took place in Jena, Louisiana.

It's quite obvious that what happened down there is hideous and worth talking about.

It's even more obvious, however, that if he were a candidate, you're damned right Jesse Jackson would find a way to exploit it for his own political gain!

1000 Words

The New York Times ran a different picture, probably taken right around the same time, on its front page this morning of Palestinian girls during a gunfight and I just find it quite haunting. George Azar, Bloomberg News

Clown of the Day...Dr. Cornel West

Princeton's Cornel West is at it again.

Now he's irked at the leading GOP candidates who are ignoring the upcoming Tavis Smiley-hosted Presidential debate.

His brief comments on HuffPo are either shamefully naive or similarly cynical.

The GOP candidates gain no more, electorally, showing up there than Dennis Kucinich would showing up at an NRA or Federalist Society meeting.

The difference here is that the latter two organizations are comfortable enough in their own skin, and not wrapped up in their victimhood mentality, to scold candidates who don't come. They simply don't support folks who don't vote in line with their interests.

For some reason, the West crowd folks who would make a stink about the debate no-shows will both choose not to vote for right-leaning candidates as well as feign surprise about it.

"Is there gambling going on in this establishment?"

"I'm a Minnesota Guy"

That's how Jim Ramstad summed up his decision today to leave the US House after his 9th term runs up. Ramstad is 'one of the good Republicans' according to frequent keep-Dan-honest poster, Cody, and I can't agree more.

While I won't push myself off as a student of his House career, I know that one of his signature issues since coming to the House is health care for those afflicted with mental and addiction disorders. The recovering drinker hopes to make a little more of a dent in this before leaving the Beltway.

He worked on this fervently with the late Senator Paul Wellstone (who I would call one of the 'good Democrats' :-) ) on this issue. Wellstone had a family connection to mental illness.

But to go back to the horse race interpretation, this does not bode well for the GOP, as The Hotline notes, since he's the latest in a line of Republicans to just walk away from Washington, perhaps getting out of the way of a party implosion in November 2008.

Hank Williams Followup

I wasn't able to find a good copy of the Dead doing "You Win Again" but did find this absolutely delightful version by the two masters, Dylan and Willie from Los Angeles in 2004.

This looks to be some sort of commercial taping and I just love Dylan's twangy homage to Williams!

A true gem.

I'm Not a Psychiatrist, and I Don't Even Play One on TV

...but this morning I looked up Wiki's definition of Antisocial Personality Disorder:

Antisocial personality disorder (APD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by an individual's common disregard for social rules, norms, and cultural codes, as well as impulsive behavior, and indifference to the rights and feelings of others. Antisocial personality disorder is terminology used by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, while the World Health Organization's ICD-10 refers to Dissocial personality disorder. People diagnosed with this disorder are typically called Sociopaths.

Makes you think, eh?

Happy Birthday to Hank Williams Sr.

Today would have been Hank Williams' birthday...but the poor chap didn't make it past age 29...another person who had a vicious love affair with bottles and pills...

It's remarkable, the influence he's had over rock and country given only a few years of recording like that.

The Grateful Dead covered a lot of different artists in their time and one of my favorites was Williams' "You Win Again." Unfortunately, I did not have time to post a video of this before I left for work, so I'll have to try and do it later on this evening.

Ever Wonder Why We're Screwed?

This is a picture of the leaders at the APEC meetings last week. Look closely.

All This Video Posting is Probably a Sign of Laziness

...But sometimes I just can't help myself.

There'll be time to post up some of the old Hertz ads in the coming weeks, as the newest Orenthal James Simpson saga continues, but for now, it appears that one person won't be like Sheryl Crow this week.

Fall is in the Air

The most generous assessment you could make about my feelings towards sports is that I'm a casual fan at best. I rarely follow any team or sport through a full season, but the high- drama moments do draw me in.

So as baseball's regular season starts to wind down, my interest is starting to ramp up a little bit and I checked out the spanking administered to the Yanks yesterday at Fenway.

I had to look back, then, for one of the most memorable moments in Chicago Cubs' history...the famous Lee Elia tirade in 1983.

Elia was the coach for only about 2 seasons and had quite a temper. His team was biting the big one at this early point in the season, getting booed by the day-baseball Bleacher Bums and just not having a good time.

He let the press know about it.

This tape is mostly profanity...including the highlight:

"Eighty-five percent of the *uckin' world is working. The other fifteen come out here. A *uckin' playground for the *ock*uckers."

Grateful Dead Channel on Sirius

Last week, Sirius Satellite launched their Grateful Dead Channel after a brief trial run in August and they have the Dan seal of approval.

Yeah, there's some cheesiness here and there, but they play 3 uninterrupted, full concerts every day, including Grateful Dead and Jerryband, so I can only assume that Ratdog and other spinoffs are on the way soon, too.

In addition, while there's the obvious preference for soundboard recordings, they're not total snobs...I came across a tasty audience tape of a Jerry Halloween show the other day. There's another audience tape overnight tonight from one of their very few 1974 shows, too. You can bet I'll be recording that for my listening pleasure later on in the week.

While I've had bad luck with their customer service and am dreading dealing with a Vista-compatibility problem I have with their tech support, I'm largely happy with the programming Sirius provides. The variety of narrow-cast content is well-worth a few cents a day!

Neat Little Time-Killer/Distraction

Blogger put up a cool little stream of pictures that are currently being uploaded to their servers. It's really kind of interesting to watch this and see all the different things folks have going on...and to wonder why some of these things are being posted!

Meet the New Boss...Same as the Old Boss

It's been about 9 months since the new Democratic-controlled House and Senate took charge.

What's really changed?

We're still in Iraq and there's no more visible plan on the horizon to leave now than there was before...if anything we've become more entrenched.

The Democrats ran and celebrated that night on their change in direction.

The fact is that they remain scared of being called pussies and won't do a darned thing about it. Hillary's aversion to making a clear statement on the Moveon ad this week is just the latest example of the fact that one is no better than the other.

Unfortunately, we have gotten fooled again...(insert windmill guitar lick here).

The Hedgehog on Britney

This One's No Better

Bill Maher asks the question I've had for some time....if you can be fooled by George W. Bush, how are you going to deal with DPRK?

And that laugh is downright haunting. It's not the first time her fake cackle bothered me, but it might have exceeded all previous instances in intensity.

Shrub in the Headlights

So a friend and former co-worker in Sacramento suckered me into helping them vote for her kids' school to be the high school game of the week on the local TV station out there.

I felt kind of stupid taking part in this charade.

Then I looked up at my own television just in time to hear the Jackass tell me that if we don't have a "free" Iraq, I can count on another 9-11 happening.

For the life of me, I never thought I'd see such a load of bullcrap on television.

"It's never too late to deal a blow to Al Qeada."

The World Through Bubba's Eyes...

Photo from Reuters

Ms. Dowd Gets it Right...Again

A bit tied up with some work things going on, but luckily I was able to get a morning cup of Dowd today and her take on the Iraq testimony this week.

A girdle can be a nice thing...it produces something momentarily more attractive than reality, but you can't wear it forever...gravity eventually wins.


September 12, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Peaches Tightens the Girdle
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

Joe Biden didn’t talk that much yesterday for Joe Biden.

And he told Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker that they shouldn’t talk too much, either, so that members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would have time to get in their questions. Even though the senators often didn’t ask questions but simply gave little partisan lectures or told stories about themselves, or in the case of Barbara Boxer, had an aide hold up a blow-up picture of herself with General Petraeus in Iraq.

Nevertheless, Mr. Biden, the committee’s chairman, took time at the end of yesterday’s first hearing with the Surge Twins to make the points, a bit repetitively, that there is no plan to get out of Iraq and that the Bush administration is not leveling with Americans.

John McCain was standing behind Mr. Biden, waiting to sit down for the next hearing — the Armed Services Committee — with the witnesses.

First, the Republican presidential candidate smiled archly at having to cool his heels as the Democratic presidential candidate yakked — sniffing at the Surge that Mr. McCain supports. Then Mr. McCain turned to his G.O.P. colleague Susan Collins and flapped his fingers in the universal hand sign for yakking.

It pretty much said it all.

For months, everyone here has been waiting with great expectations to hear whether the Surge is working from the top commander and top diplomat in Iraq.

But the whole thing was sort of a fizzle. It’s obvious that the Surge is like those girdles the secretaries wear on the vintage advertising show, “Mad Men.” It just pushes the fat around, giving a momentary illusion of flatness. But once Peaches Petraeus, as he was known growing up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, takes the girdle off, the center will not hold.

And it was clear from their marathon testimony that the Iraqi politicians are useless, that we’re going to have a huge number of troops in Iraq for a long time, that there’s no post-Surge strategy, that they’re just playing for time, hoping that somehow, some way, things will look up in the desert maze of demons that General Petraeus referred to as “home.”

The strategy is no more than a soap bubble of hope, just as W.’s invasion of Iraq was based on a fantasy about W.M.D.’s and an illusory view of Iraq.

Even though it was 9/11, Osama was barely mentioned all day.

Republican Senator John Warner, freer than ever now that he’s announced his retirement, turned the screw on the two witnesses.

Do you feel, he asked the general, that the Surge “is making America safer?”

“Sir, I don’t know actually,” Peaches replied. “I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind.”

The Surge Twins seemed competent and more realistic than some of their misbegotten predecessors, but just too late to do any good. They’re like two veteran pilots trying to crash land the plane.

Ambassador Crocker has expressed a darker, more rueful vision in background briefings with reporters, and he emanated a bit of Graham Greene yesterday.

He noted that the Iraqis know that “they’re going to be there forever,” while we will not.

Pulling troops out too soon, he fears, could “push the Iraqis in the wrong direction. It would make them, I would fear, more focused on, you know, building the walls, stocking the ammunition and getting ready for a big, nasty street fight without us around.”

Asked by Senator McCain if he was confident that the Maliki government will get the job done, the ambassador said dryly: “My level of confidence is under control.”

The star witnesses gave shell game answers, trying to make the best of a hideous hand.

“It’s a hand that’s unlikely to improve in my view,” Hillary Clinton — one of five senators running for president on the two panels — told the Surge Twins. “I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief.”

Hillary’s plan is to posture and criticize W.’s war all the way to the White House. But then President Clinton will be stuck with figuring out how to pull out the more than 100,000 troops still there policing a lot of crazy sectarian street fighting.

The Republicans seemed happy that the witnesses’ calm presentation bolstered the president’s case for continued war funding. In his speech tomorrow night, W. will be able to accept the recommendations of the Surge Twins, who are only recommending what he wants to hear.

Republicans seemed oblivious to the fact that they may have scored points short term while laying the groundwork for disaster long term. W. won’t care because he’s not running, but it will be political suicide for Republicans entering the campaign with 130,000 troops still in Iraq.

As Lindsey Graham joked to the witnesses about Congress, referring to the talk of the dysfunctional Iraqi government, “You could say we’re dysfunctional and you wouldn’t be wrong.”

Music Break With Everclear

After the previous morbid and rambling posting, figured I would lighten the mood a little bit with a terrible video for a great song...."Santa Monica" by Everclear.

Random Memories and Observations on 9-11

I'm sitting here watching the video from the Howard Stern Show on 9-11-2001 and it's an interesting look back in time...both personally and reflecting on how the world may have changed, and not, in the interim.

I was living in California at the time and woke up at 6AM, just about the time the first plane was coming into the WTC. There had been a few weird murders going on in Sacramento around that time so when I clicked on the TV and there was a "Breaking News" banner I got annoyed and switched channels. By the third channel switch, I started to focus and realize what was going on.

Oddly, the first thing I did was grab the phone number of my company's New York office and called out to them. At that point, they, as well as I, thought it was a bit of a fluke and not a cause to disrupt their morning schedule. We agreed to chat later on in the day when I got to my office, and hung up.

By the way in to the office, it was clear what had happened and I remember driving down the 680, listening to the Howard Stern show on a 3-hour tape delay. It was fascinating to hear the show turn from the groping of Pamela Anderson's breasts to a slow realization of what was really going on here.

As the day wore on, things got more and more surreal...including having lunch with Jim at Togos. ;-)

I remember fleeting talk of donating blood at a local hospital until it became clear that the blood really was not needed. There weren't a whole hell of a lot of injuries requiring that aid. You lived or died.

Since then, I've become considerably more jaded about the world and, to be completely frank, glad I don't have children who will have to be here longer than I am. While not convinced that we're destined for some sort of complete destruction, I have a great deal of concern over the future. Now I don't know if that's just a function of growing older and seeing more things as life goes on, or if I am justified in my feelings.

Regardless, on that day it became clear to me, as it did to most everyone else, that life had really changed. We always thought that we were safe over here and found out that we aren't.

I guess I'm just feeling out of sorts here, looking back on what's gone down, and wanted to indulge myself by posting this rambling which I'll probably be tempted to delete tomorrow.

I have nothing to post on these show trials/hearings/circus acts going on in Washington...the whole charade makes me feel physically ill and ashamed of my country.

Hopefully He's Better than Rush and Dennis Miller

Keith Olbermann is coming back to do some more TV sports...I just switched over to Football Night in America for a moment and was interested to see him.

I'm not the world's biggest sports fan, but I find him highly entertaining and he may end up drawing me in to the pre-show on occasion...

Kudos...now just get an easier-to-remember domain name and turn off the auto-sound, boys, it's really friggin' annoying.

The Jena 6

I really hate to find myself on the same side of the coin as the Revs. Al and Jesse, but when it happens, the situation must be kind of a special situation.

I read a story this afternoon that caused me to put myself on their side.

There's a little town in central Louisiana, Jena, where there was apparently a tree that the white kids used to sit underneath. After some sort of school assembly last year when a black kid had the nerve to ask, rhetorically, if only whites could sit underneath it, some nooses ended up appearing on the tree.

Over the next few months there were some skirmishes, where both sides got out some cans of whoopass, resulting in some scrapes and bruises on the white kids and the black kids with charges that could have landed them in the can for 15 years.

The kids who hung the nooses got a 3-day school suspension.

This story is starting to pick up some steam and it's just shameful to read...even if we don't know 100% of the story, which I'm sure we don't.

Multiple O's

Oprah Winfrey held her much-anticipated fund raiser for her fellow O-man last night in Santa Barbara.

Oprah's got just as much right as anyone else to distribute her opinions, money and influence on a political race about race. I get that.

But I still find her involvement here to be a bit disturbing. While one of my three loyal readers might correct me, I've been scanning my memory of a recent race when a more valuable, non-compulsory endorsement was thrown into a Presidential campaign.

Presidents Reagan and Clinton, both very popular at the ends of their reigns, endorsed their veeps in their bids to hand off the torch but only their failure to do so would have been newsworthy. (In fact, of course, the limited role Bubba played in Albert's run was exponentially more costly than anything that went on in Florida.)

Race-baiting bigots Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson like to fancy themselves kingmakers whose blessings are necessary for someone running for the Democratic nod, but their influence is not even in the same universe as the queen of Harpo Productions.

But Oprah just seems different to me. I work with some women who seem to just swear by anything that comes out of her mouth and have generalized her celebrity to an overall belief about Oprah's goodness and wisdom.

And she didn't have to be involved here. While she has had the candidates and their wives come through her studios in the past two national elections, she was not taking the explicit role of an advocate for an individual candidate.

I don't think it's possible to overestimate the importance of her endorsement here. This will remain a story throughout at least the primary season.

Osama...Yo Mama.

Perhaps this is what went on behind the scenes when the mastermind put together his recent op-ed tape. Very funny...

Hello, Little Girl. Do You Like Candy?

Recipe I Plan to Try

For years, I've been ashamed of my inability to make good ribs inside, but a friend turned me on to this braising way of doing it, so I think I'll give it a stab....

I'll Have What Bush is Smoking

From CNN:

"The security situation is changing," Bush told reporters during the visit. "There's more work to be done. But reconciliation is taking place."

...

"We're kicking ass," Bush said to Vaile Tuesday, according the Herald, after the deputy prime minister inquired about his trip to Iraq.

Well, We Are Approaching New TV Show Season

Was it Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell No!

As we now know, Larry Craig may have decided to fight this one out a little bit.

I'm not the only one who noticed on Saturday that he said it was his intent to resign from the Senate on 30-September rather than an all-out promise to follow through on that intent.

Personally, I feel bad for the guy. While I have neither the evidence nor the expertise to say that his guilty plea in the misdemeanor should be overturned, it's clear that the GOP threw him out like yesterday's laundry and don't care a bit for a man when he's been kicked (or kicked himself).

But maybe we're now finding out, again, that Larry Craig does not take certain things sitting down.

So my take, for both the sake of the great theater it will provide as well as the pleasure we might take in administering some of their own medicine back to them, Go Larry Craig! Make it a drop-down, drag-out fight. Let's air all the dirty laundry.

One can't help but wonder if the scene in Senator Craig's office over the weekend resembled this one from Animal House. At the end, some bright-eyed, eager staffer might have even quoted Otter...

In this case, I think we have to go all out.

I think this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture
be done on somebody's part.

We're just the guys to do it.

A Musical Interlude with The Statler Brothers

Had a busy return to the office this week, so no posts yesterday and I don't know that I'll have too many deep thoughts about the Pavarotti death, but I wanted to throw up a tune, so I opted for the good old Statler Brothers.

There's nothing all that deep about their lyrics or challenging about their playing but I really do enjoy these cats.

Hope you like, "Do You Remember These?"

Health Insurance Free for All

There's an interesting article out of the UK today that folks on this side of the pond might think about. It's something I suspected was inevitable for some time, so it's heartening, in a way, to see this discussion taking place.

At issue there, as it will probably become here at some point, is when there's a national risk pool participating in the health insurance system, suddenly there's a much more direct link between myself and the lifestyle choices you decide to make.

When my neighbor decides to live on nothing but Marlboros and Big Macs, both consumed in his own home, most of the results of that decision go to him (and those involved in his insurance comapany's risk pool). They can raise or lower his rates depending on certain choices he makes.

However, if our country becomes part of (literally) the same risk pool under some sort of nationalized healthcare system, we all become more interconnected and the opportunity and justification for for punitive actions against non-conformers increases.

Will the government be able to say, "it is no longer legal to consume tobacco/alcohol/red meat/fritos" in the privacy of your own home because to do so hurts all of us economically?

Considering the public health arguments used to justify public smoking bans and the use of trans fats, I don't think a reasonable person can say that the above scenario's not all that plausible.

Pay attention before ordering.

What Did the GOP Leadership Know and When Did They Know it?

Be on the lookout for more probing questions surrounding Senator Craig's de facto dismissal from the US Senate when the good old boys return from their vacation this week.

Of interest, I think, is the process by which the GOP leadership circled the wagons and decided to purge themselves of this guy.

Certainly there's more to it than the homosexual nature of the admitted offense. If they knew that this guy was a ticking time bomb of sorts for some time, it begs the question that Robert Novak asks this morning....why was he not gotten rid of long ago?

It doesn't take a Republican of unique gifts to win the seat in Idaho of all places, so it's not like another reliable soldier is going to be hard to find. And if friendship or affection for a colleague is the stated reason for keeping him around, we have to ask what the shelf life on that kind of friendship really is.

We're going to find that even though the GOP could have handled the situation worse by holding on to this tumor for a little bit longer, they could have avoided it altogether by cleaning house earlier on. Ineptness and/or cockiness ruled the roost again, if you'll pardon the pun.

Mary Matalin's Cute When She's Angry

Yesterday's Meet the Press full-hour roundtable was pretty much a classic....The spouses Carville/Matalin, Mike Murphy and Bob Shrum got together with Russert to cover the topics of the day.

When the inevitable Iraq topic came up, and Shrum wouldn't stop badgering Matalin, she clearly threw her pen at him at the end of the segment.

Pretty funny...

Opera 9.5 Beta to be Released on Tuesday

I've been a big fan of the Opera browser for years and pretty much split my time between it and Firefox whenever I can...there are still some cretins who insist on making you use IE for their sites and I do so only grudgingly.

To me, Opera functions in much the same way outsider candidates, like Dennis Kucinich or Pat Buchanan do in Presidential campaigns. In all likelihood they won't be on top when the race is over, and that's a shame, but they force the mainstream candidates (or browsers like IE, in this case) to adopt positions or functions that the people really want and that they are too slow to notice or implement on their own.

The much-anticipated 9.5 Beta is being released tomorrow and I can't wait to take it for a test spin.

The folks over at Cybernet News have put together a nice little video of the improved functionality we can look forward to.

Enjoy!

On Beachwear

From Salon.com...rather funny. Click to open it larger...I couldn't make it readable in the room I have here.

9-11 Fatigue

As the anniversary of September 11 rolls around, as it will continue to do at least once a year for the foreseeable future, we have to prepare for the inevitable media onslaught.

Appropriately-enough, it will be more intense than the recent looks back we got on a Princess' life, but as the New York Times wisely asks this morning, is it still fitting to have solemn mandatory remembrance after remembrance?

I, for one, side with some of the skeptics the Times talked to who said, in effect, enough is enough and it's time to largely move on with our lives. While we continue to learn lessons on what it's like to live in a post-911 world, and those who feel personally touched by those events have every right and obligation to observe the day as they see fit, the rest of the country should be allowed to carry on with life without a sense of guilt.

People die under tragic circumstances every day. It's kind of self-evident that every death can be interpreted as a tragedy.

I remain irked by the sainthood bestowed upon the 9-11 Families. While I can't put myself in their emotional shoes and don't know how I would react to a family member dying in the Event, the rest of us should not be guilt-tripped into letting them and only them define both how we remember and move to avoid such an event in the first place.

We're all Americans.

Very Cool Pictorial History of a Woman's Life

This is so simple, but also very cool...

Do You Believe in Miracles?

Too bad either Al Michaels or Keith "Whoah Nellie" Jackson were not doing the play by play when Appalachian State beat Michigan in one of the greatest sports upsets of all time.

I was out doing yard work and missed it, but thank goodness for the video.

Am I The Only One Who Wonders if Tony Orlando Had a Role in the Larry Craig Sex-in-a-Stall Strategy

When I read how one is to solicit sex in a public bathroom...by tapping three times, I immediately wondered if this was inspired by the Tony Orlando and Dawn classic, Knock Three Times.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I don't think so.

The Warner Retirement

John Warner's retirement from the US Senate is effectively buried this weekend by the Tap-Three-Times saga, but it is kind of a big deal for the national GOP.

His seat was pretty reliable (he is in his fifth term), but the Commonwealth of Virginia is anything but a guaranteed red state and the GOP is going to have to fight for it.

The knee jerk assumption is that either Tom Davis or Jim Gilmore should be the GOP nominee.

While they've both demonstrated varying degrees of competence on the national stage, this would be penny-wise, pound foolish.

I find myself in the company of Mark Levin over at National Review in believing that they should find someone a touch more dynamic...someone to make not just a dixie cup of lemonade out of this lemon, but a damned 60-ounce, Super Size Slurpee!

The beltway state has to be ripe with people who know the game and it might be time for the GOP to really think big and find someone to make a nationall rallying cry out of.

I'm not sure who that is yet, but I'll let you know....perhaps we can resurrect Alan Keyes? ;-)

Office Space Redux

While nothing will beat the classic Shining Redux, this one, making Office Space into a drama, is pretty damned good.

It's from our friends at College Humor.