Heck of a Job, Wolfie

Random funny culled from Bartcop...

You've Got to Know When to Hold 'em

The Center for Responsive Politics has come out with its initial slicing and dicing of first quarter fundraising and spending by the announced Presidential candidates.

They also have a neat charting tool, used to produce the graphic below, to compare candidates' fundraising, week by week. 

The geek in me looked closer and each option just pulls a different pre-made image file, though.  I was hoping it would define a call to a SQL table we could extract and really have some fun with.  

Since the candidates are spending money like drunken sailors....or running Mormons, as it were, there's a lot more analysis that these folks are up to and working on, so I'll be checking back in with them as they follow the money trail.

The Candidates, Mano y Mano,  Week by Week

Statement from the NRA on Today's Events

Surely the regular actors are taking their places behind the curtain, waiting to enter, from stage left and right, to exploit today's tragedy to meet their respective agenda (or agendas depending on how old school you are.)

Here's the NRA's statement.

And the Brady Bill folks.

The Average Fox News Channel Viewer?

Our friends at the Pew Research Center have come out with another dandy survey that may confirm what some already believed...

When you break the US population out into groups based on their primary news outlet you find:

• Fox viewers rank towards the bottom of all outlets (in the company of the "Good Morning Cleveland" crowd....which hardly qualifies as a news show anyway)
• Daily Show/Colbert Report viewers ranked among the most knowledgable
• Rush Limbaugh's viewers came in pretty much identical to NPR listeners, much to the latter's chagrin, I'm sure. Also quite notable, IMO, was the fact that Rush listeners were more knowledgable than any group when it came to knowing the US death count in Iraq!

The only thing I could think of here that could be throwing it off is a bit of a conspiracy. If I'm one of those GOP/Fox-hating NPR types and really want to stick it to them, I might respond to this poll and self-identify as a Fox viewer and intentionally screw up the results.

This is far-fetched and probably giving the fans of Some Things Considered too much credit, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Boston Marathon Threatened by Storms?

While it does irk me that what would just be called a big storm out here in fly over country gets its own special name when it happens to the snobs on the east coast, today is Patriots' Day, so you know what that means.

Yes, yes, in addition to the Red Sox game and an additional day for you procrastinators to pay Uncle Sam, it's also Boston Marathon day.

And they could be in for a doozy this year with this Nor'easter.

I have two friends at work who qualified for the prestigious race today and they could be in for a rough ride. While I wish the Boston Athletic Assosciation would have built a nice Web 2.0 plugin I could have placed on this page, I'll have to click over when I want to track Mike and Mark's excellent adventure.

Chicago Moves One Step Closer to Hosting Olympics

Yesterday, the USOC announced that it chose Chicago as its US City to back in the bid to host the 2016 Summer Games.

This is great news for the city where I went to college and remember fondly.

While there is practically no scale to compare hosting the Olympics to, bear in mind that Chicago hosted the Democratic Convention a few years back (partially as a matter of pennance for the father's sins in 1968) and the World Cup opening ceremonies and rounds in 1994.

I'm happy for the city of Chicago and will watch this story closely.

Perhaps a Chicago-cut and a few Rob Roys at Gibson's will influence the IOC's decision!

I Hope He Didn't Die Taking a Nap

Don Ho is dead at 76.

"Towels Filled with Ejaculate"

Finally someone takes that shrew, Nancy Grace, and spits her own words right back at her.

Hats off to Jon Stewart.

Al Sharpton and Death Threats

According to CBS and the people at National Action Network, race-baiting bigot, the Reverend Al Sharpton, has been getting more death threats than normal.

I have a few observations here.

• It would be a real shame if we were no longer treated to Al's manipulation and hijacking of news stories that have anything to do with race.
  
• 
  
• The National Action Network, and Al himself, would have aboslutely no interest in hyping, fabricating or just creating the death threats as a way to garner sympathy. Naw.
  
• 
  
• This story does bring back memories of another New York original...Morton Downey Junior.
  

For those of you who are too young or unhip to remmeber this loudmouth, Morton Downey Junior's claim to fame was a talk show in the late 1980s and early 90s on WWOR in New York. Downey's show can probably be called a precursor to both the O'Reilly and Springer formats. While he ostensibly covered issues of social interest, they were really just to provide a jumping board 
for him to blow
smoke in the face of his guests and scream.

But towards the end of his career, he jumped the shark like no one else ever has.  He stumbled in for TV cameras in San Francisco claiming to have been beaten up by Nazi Skinheads.  In fact,  he even had  a Swastika painted on himself.

It later became widely believed, after no one was able to verify any of his claims, that it was a self-inflicted stunt for publicity.

Now wait just one minute.  Doesn't that sound a lot like the Tawana Brawley case?

How could these two have both come up with schemes like this and Al is still around claiming to be threatened by boogeymen?

Could their be any connection between the two?

Billy Joel in Concert

Just got back from the Billy Joel concert this evening in Cleveland at Quicken Arena.

It was a solid show and aside from Goodnight Saigon and Matter of Trust, I heard pretty much everything I wanted to.

As we were sitting there, though, I kind of realized that Billy is the TGIF of the music world.  TGIF is a good bet for dinner.  The food is tasty and filling.  It's entertaining in its delivery, but it doesn't challenge or surprise you much.   And while they may put a whole ice cream scoop of sour cream on your nachos....they're still just nachos!

Just about the same can be said for this show and other bootlegs I've heard of his shows over the years.  Billy does what we paid him for.  The music is nothing all that magical, there are no extended jams or better musicianship than you would find in any run of the mill good band.  But I enoyed my time there and left with a good feeling.

My only regret, as the one who ordered the tickets, was failing to take into account the fact that a woman with us is, uh, altitudinally challenged.  Brainiac Dan bought floor seats.   Sorry, AT!

Billy does seem a bit old for some of his antics on stage and he's an attention whore even compared to other performers, but I don't want to be too much of a downer on the show.  He played his heart out (even through some speaker troubles early on) and delivered what I paid for.

Below is tonight's setlist and then, because I missed it, a video of Goodnight Saigon, which I believe is pulling footage from his classic Live from Long Island concert video.

Angry Young Man
My Life speaker troubles, so they ended up doing over the 2d half after a Spinal Tap joke
Everybody Loves You Now
The Entertainer
Vienna
Allentown
Zanzibar
New York State of Mind
Moving Out (Anthony's Song)  dedicated to "Imus"
 ->  which was odd because the camera then flashed to the only woman on stage, a black saxaphone player from Gary, IN
Stand by Me tease into Innocent Man
Don't Ask Me Why
Always a Woman
Keeping the Faith
River of Dreams
Highway to Hell    AC/DC cover by the roadie Chainsaw
We Didn't Start the Fire
Big Shot
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me
You May be Right

E*Only the Good Die Young
E*Scenes from an Italian Restaurant
E*Piano Man

Best Synopsis of Imus' Ill-Fated Handling of His Ho Situation

No one ever seems to learn that it's not the original sin that brings most people down, but their poor handling of the aftermath.

While no one knows if Imus could have survived the Rutgers situation, one thing is for certain. He lost his job, but he also handed over a lot of his dignity and control of the situation. Rather than controlling the story and speaking to the parties directly affected right off the bat, he appealed to race-baiting bigot, Al Sharpton.

Mistake.

This line from the Times today pretty-well sums it up for me.


By seeking absolution from people with their own political agenda, Mr. Imus lost custody of his apology.

NY Times Article by David Carr, 13-April-2007

The Grand Wiz

In this temporary age of Imus (who I predict will make some kind of comeback), we can never forget this blast from the past. Currently the longest-serving member ever of the US Senate, Robert Byrd also holds the unique distinction of being a former Klansmen. In fact, he was not just a follower. This ambitious young racist even recruited 150 others to join!

Worry not, he's explained in the past that it was a "youthful indiscretion."

Well, you can take the white hood off the man, but it's hard to shake his vocabulary.

I remember watching this Sunday show when it originally aired. I was in California and remember running out from the kitchen to check if I was hearing things or not.

Listen all the way through, but if you're in an office or around little people, you may wish to turn down the volume a little bit or wait till you have privacy. Old Bobby drops a few bombs and the end.

Katie Cougar

I can't really explain why I find this story amusing, but I guess I do.

Katie's been on the prowl and the cougar has caught her prey.

The NY Post and other outlets seem equally enchanted by Her Royal Perkiness.

Busy Today But a Funny Cartoon

Courtesy of The Politico

Are We Keeping Them There Longer to Handle The Last Pockets of Dead-Enders?

The Pentagon is increaing tours of duty to 15 months now.

Rummy and his buddies should rot in prison or someplace warmer for this.

Intellectual Laziness in Imus Analysis

As has been noted, every several months, someone in this country is raked over the coals for racial remarks that range from distasteful to outright hateful. Rencent entrants in this contest have included Michael Richards and Mel Gibson.

Part of the script usually involves a public mea culpa to the likes of Dr. Phil, Baba Wawas or Al Sharpton, all of whom are eminently qualified to act as the moral compass for America.

Oddly, I'm not joking above, but anyway...

I get pretty tired of citing the first amendment in defense of these bozos. No one is seriously talking about sending the I-man to the pokey for what he's saying. If they were, a first amendment arugment would be justified.

This is all about people like Sharpton capitalizing on a situation to make a political point and burn the fear of god into anyone who dares express unpopular thoughts. While I may disagree with the Reverend, he has as much right to call for Imus' firing as I do to call for the month of April to be named after me.

If Sharpton and the rest of the self-annointed morality police were really serious about media companies spewing out offensive material then they would make a bigger case about the movies and music that implicitly condone violence, sex and racism.

It's no more honest to say that Don Imus the individual espouses racism because of his show than it is to say that Bruce Willis the individual condones blowing up buildings and shooting people up because he portrays such characters in movies.

Ross Perot Redux

Thanks to J. Donald Imus, we've been able to bring back a classic H. Ross Perot tagline.

Perot was criticized for a remark made during a speech at the NAACP convention. Perot was sympathizing with the plight of African Americans during tough economic times, but referred to his audience as "you people", a phrase that was loudly objected to by some members of the audience, and deemed insensitive by the media.

From Wikpedia's entry on Ross Perot

"I do understand that. How do you assume that I don't understand that? Of course I understand that! It's like the old country song, 'God may forgive you, but I won't. Jesus loves you but I don't.' So I can't get any place with you people, but I can get some place with Jesus,"

Don Imus, sniffling on the Al Sharpton show, 9-April-2007

Google's Local Phone Search

We just tried this at work and it's very easy. Google is now offering a free phone search service for local businesses

We just called 1-800-Goog-411, said "Cleveland" and then when prompted for name, said the name of a local business and it found it right away and connected us, no problem!

Google is taking over the world.

Mike Huckabee Hijacking the Straight Talk Express?

I've enjoyed what little I've seen so far of Mike Huckabee.

While I'm not sure he has a snowball's chance in Hades of making the final cut, stranger things have happened and, if nothing else, he's holding the feet of current GOP candidates to the fire.

The latest example came yesterday when he appeared on Face the Nation and spoke about Elmer-Fudd-Come-Lately, Mitt Romney:

“He certainly wants to appeal to a lot of the voters that I naturally
appeal to … who truly value their Second Amendment rights. It would be like me
saying I’ve been a lifelong golfer because I played putt-putt when I was 9 years
old and I rode in a golf cart a couple of times."

Don Imus: Latest Entrant into the Victim Olympics

This week brings us yet another installment of, "No Kidding."

Don Imus goes on the air and makes an offensive-sounding observation about the Rutgers Women's Baskeball team.

Race baiting bigot, Al Sharpton comes out demanding his ouster.

Hilarity ensues.

Easter. The Other Winter Holiday

Picture courtesy of Thomas Ondrey of the Plain Dealer.  This was from yesterday's annual Easter Egg Hunt in suburban Chardon.  I wonder if that's on government property? ;-)

Last Saturday, I cut the grass.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, I comfortably wore shorts to work.

By Thursday, I was wearing long johns (and regular pants, thank you).

Yesterday, I cleared out a little snow, but it was pretty discretionary and more a function of wanting to get outside in the crisp air.

Now, I just came in from shoveling no less than 6-7 inches of snow that have fallen since last night.

It's starting to get a little bit silly around here.

Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli.

While I've always been into movies like Godfather and Scarface, I'd not put much effort into reading non-fiction about it.  

This changed when I picked up Corn Sugar and Blood:  The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia, by Rick Porrello.  It's a quick read history of the Cleveland Mafia.

Porrello, a Cleveland-area cop, is a descendent of one of the two major 'families' in the corn sugar wars that ended up causing a lot of death and destruction in Cleveland during Prohibition.

The other major group in these wars was the Mayfield Road Mob, which was based out of Cleveland's Little Italy section where I now live.    It's got money, gambling, bootlegging,  sliced necks, sex, people getting shot, bombs going off....  all the things you kids love.

While it's certainly not the most amazing prose I've ever laid eyes on, I really enjoyed reading about events that happened at places near where I now live.... and some of which I walk by every day and can see from my living room window!

One thing I found out through a little more research is that the head of the Cleveland Mafia for a time in the late 70s lived in a house that is still just 3 doors down from me.   He died in prison in the 80s after a RICO conviction.

Luckily, this Porrello seems to have found his calling and I've picked up another one of his books, about the murder of Cleveland hood Danny Green.  More about how they blew up the Irishman in a later post.

Biggest Understatement I've Heard in a Long Time

“I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

Former Chief Bush Strategist Matthew Dowd on his old boss, as quoted in the New York Times

A Perfect Gift for Your Loved Ones

from Real Time w/ Bill Maher

Cashin' In

Hotline On Call seems to be throwing around the earliest hard reporting on the first quarter fundraising prowess of the announced Presidential hopefuls.  

While I guess every candidate is interesting in their own way, one of the biggest questions on folks' minds was how Hillary and Barack would slice up the pie.

And the winner is...

HRC raised a total of $26M from donors during 2007Q1 while adding $11M from her Senate war chest to the Prez campaign.  Barack Obama hauled in $22M, which is nothing to sneeze at.

Given how easily information is stored on donors, and how much candidates like to brag about their percentage of small money donors (for street cred, yo!), I'm very interested to see someone take the time to do some analyses that compare the candidates on:

• A frequency count on donation size
  
• What percentage of donors were the only contributors to the campaign in their household
• How monogamous are your contributors?  How many are hedging by giving to > 1 campaign?

Newt Gingrich and Another Chapter in the English-preferred Movement

If-you-really-think-I-should Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has above-the-scroll billing on CNN.com this hour for a speech he gave yesterday in favor of English-only/preferred when it comes to the printing of government documents.

What grabs the headline, of course, is his conscious decision to equate bilingual education with "the language of living in a ghetto."

When reading this snippet, I was reminded of an old Dennis Miller bit in which he said that he never got into drugs not because he found their use to be particularly troublesome, but rather the people you had to do them with.

The English-only movement, as well as other political causes seem to be to be doomed by the same phenomena. It's hard to make a case that it really is in one's self-interest to know how to speak English in this country without being branded an Archie Bunker (or worse!) type.

The marijuana legalization movement, in my opinon, falls into this group, too. The so-called war on drugs in this country is fraught with problems from top to bottom...ranging from what qualifies as a "drug" to the way in which it is enforced.

However, when the luminaries of the movement are folks like the Black Crowes, it makes it a litte more desirable to just stay out of the way.

If the folks in the English-only crowd are actually serious about making a positive difference for people in this country (rather than just exploiting the issue solely for political gain), they might be wiser to rely more heavily on economic and sociological research that shows why this might be a good idea.

I won't hold my breath...lest my dear readers wonder what I'm smoking.

Well, Ralphie Boy, It's Like We Say Down in the Sewer...

This story out of the Twin Cities kind of caught my eye this morning.  Apparently there was some bad communication to workers around whether or not a biomed company had the rights to dispose of blood into the sewer system.

The one fella was pretty upset that, in the pursuit of his daily tasks working in the sewer, he had swallowed some of his bread and butter...which might have contained blood.

Now I'm all for worker protection and think (from my layman's perspective) that this merits an investigation.   But if it's SOP for workers in the department to get sprayed in the face and swallow things from the sewer, then pitching a fit now seems like suing the tobacco companies for the bad breath you get
from smoking.

Garry Meier Returns to Chicago Airwaves

This item is admittedly of limited interest, but since I'm in charge here, it's going up.

Garry Meier, after a three year absence from the airwaves, signed a contract this week to do an 8-11 morning slot on WCKG in Chicago. He's bookended by syndicated act Opie and Anthony before and Stan Lawrence and Terry Armour, who cover middays.

Radio God Steve Dahl follows Stan and Terry.

In terms of radio quality (among other things more directly and intentionally provided by my parents) I grew up a  very spoiled child.  Chicago had a number of fantastic music radio stations including WLS in its heyday and WXRT.  On the talk side, Larry Lujack, Kevin Matthews and Steve and Garry were always on the box growing up.  The latter duo probably explain the deviant habits and sense of humor I ended up developing.

Garry's an interesting guy.  He's excellent as a sidekick.  While acting as a straight man with Steve, as well as doing character voices such as Cliff (who runs the Radio and Film Ranch for Wayward Boys in Unincorporated Grundee County), Garry Meier is priceless.  I can still remember being at an old high school job with a friend of 
mine, doubling over in pain I was laughing so hard when they did a bit about 
"Cliff's" delivery of gerbils getting lost at the station. 

But he got too big for his britches and this contributed to the duo's highly publicized breakup in the early 90s.

Since then, Garry has struck out on his own and only started to find himself part of something meaningful when he paired up with Roe Conn on WLS.  The Roe and Garry breakup followed an eerily similar script as the one with Steve.

During this time, it should be noted that Steve Dahl has, for all intents and purposes, remained continuously employed and able to reinvent himself as time goes on.

After three years out of work, I'm very curious how much staying power he has after the initial "how ya been doin?" schtick wears off.  I'm equally curious how this will play with Steve and Garry both at the same station...where Steve is no doubt playing the Alpha role.

Aside from a local bombshell reunion last summer in Chicago, the two had apparently not spoken in some 12-13 years.

I'll be tuning in to the podcasts next week....

My Sweet Lord

Predictably, the fair-and-balanced folks over at Fox are running with this story above stories about the dog food scare and a how-to video for wannabe pedophiles that is circulating.

Basically, this is the same song and dance we see all the time....attention-seeking artist comes out with something meant to offend only the most moronic of zealots (whether they be genderzealots, religiozealots, politicozealots....) and, like trained dolphins, they play the game.

Some yo-yo out in New York decided to put on a show this week with a milk chocolate replica of Christ on the cross. Predictably, Bill Donohue came out complaining as if old ladies were being beaten with the Holy Chalice on their way into morning Mass.

"This is one of the worst assaults on Christian sensibilities ever."

Bill Donohue, The Catholic League

Honestly, if your faith is so fragile that some half-cocked artist can shake your foundation by melting down some Hershey bars and molding them, then it might be time for a little bit of self-examination. And for a man whose church has had more than its share of scandals recently, Billy should remember that those in glass sanctuaries should not throw stones.

Talk About a Boob Job

I was flipping through the "news" networks this evening and had to stop on BillO's FNC show.

He had what is known as a body language expert on.  She had mildly eyecatching looks and methinks that's about all she brought to the table.  Her banal observations about the Edwards couple's body language 
during the Couric interview justified turning off the volume. 

Unfortunately, what I found did not surprise me much.  Aside from sales pitches, I could not pull together much more information on Tonya Reiman.

Tonya Reiman is a Long Island based body language expert, hypnotist and professional speaker, best known for her body language analysis of political and celebrity figures on The O'Reilly Factor. While certified in hypnosis, she holds no advanced degrees in psychology or body language.

She caught TVNewser's eye awhile back., too

"He said he had a problem," Police Said

I understand a lot of vices, and pity the people who have them.

This one is just plain funny.

Hill Brings in the Bling Bling

I really have no problem whatsoever with pols getting donations from people with money, but I enjoy these stories just like I would a "religious right" Senator's name being found in a madame's black book.

Last night, our gal Hil raked in 2.6M at the home of grocery boy Ron Burkle.  Some of you may remember Ronny from his run in last year with a New York Post gossip columnist.  Burkle claimed that the guy was shaking him down in order to avoid unfavorable articles in the Murdoch rag.  This legal controversy rages on...as does the campaign.

Another New Yorker on the Ballot?

It's now possible to imagine a scenario where we have three New Yorkers, two of them having held the title of NYC Mayor, on the Presidential ballot in November 2008.

The Washington Post has a story today citing friends of the Mayor who say he has his eye on a third party candidacy and is waiting to see how the major parties line up.

The billionaire would be less constrained by funds than any of the other announced canidates.

God Bless the Jesuits!

I've watched a grand total of about 10 minutes of NCAA basketball all season long and 7 of those were the last minutes/overtime of the North Carolina v Georgetown game yesterday.  How exciting.  As a graduate of another Jesuit institution, I will be rooting for John Thompson III and the Hoyas this weekend in Hotlanta.

Chuck Hagel's Shot Across the Bow

"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed _ if a president really believes that, then ... there are ways to deal with that."

Chuck Hagel as quoted by the AP