Truth Fart

As a loyal -- some might say religious -- reader, I’m sure you are aware of my disdain for the cable news programs. However, on certain days, I like to get a quick update on things. And with Obamamentum(© 2008) kicking into high gear, I couldn’t wait, you know? Naturally, I tuned to MSNBC where my man Keith is employed. The problem with Keith is that on these special nights his partner is Chris Matthews, the most bloviating, egotistical, Clinton hating, common wisdom barfing, incorrectly predicting, self-aggrandizing no-nothing blowhard this side of Fox News. But during the few minutes I had it on, this gem plopped directly out of Matthews’ mouth and into my living room:

”I forgot I was supposed to talk, not think.”
- Chris Matthews (February 12, 2008)

It’s probably written in his contract. If anyone out there can find the transcript or better, the YouTube, I would be much obliged…

Super Happy Fun Double Whopper Tuesday

Some idle thoughts on yesterday’s activities:

• I titled my post from yesterday Super Duper Tuesday. You might not know this unless you’ve read DoG at least one other time, but I despise cable news and avoid it at all costs. However, I did watch the returns last night. It was there that I was horrified to discover that they have actually been calling it Super Duper Tuesday for some time now. You see, I thought I was making a silly joke, and in so doing made myself look like Chris Matthews. I honestly couldn’t be more embarrassed if I were caught by my friends at the Hannah Montana movie. (Which couldn’t have happened because I wore a fake mustache!)
  
  
• Personal voting experience: I typically go to the polls on my way home from work. However, yesterday my significant other insisted that I wait for her to get home, otherwise she probably wouldn’t go. (In her defense, those old ladies can be rather intimidating. I mean, what’s with the gat, Mildred?) Being the fan of democracy you know me to be, of course I waited. When we get out of our respective booths, I ask - so, who’d you vote for? Hillary! she says. (Privacy of the voting booth be damned!) It was then that I realized I had just disenfranchised myself through my own gentlemanly nature. My vote for Obama didn’t count. Ah well…
  
  
• This had occurred to me a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to say anything lest we end up with President Huckabee. (Don’t even get me started about how saying your sports team is doing well is all it takes to cause a crushing defeat.) Now that it looks like McCain will be the Republican candidate, we can note that no matter what (barring a spectacular fall) a sitting senator will be elected president. That hasn’t happened since JFK.
  
  
• Read this blog post by The New Yorker’s George Packer. It’s short but insightful, and this excerpt summarizes my big worry:

  I woke up a few mornings ago with the realization that the fall election will not be the Democrats’ to lose. Presidential races in my adult life never have been, and this year—in spite of a failed Republican Presidency, conservative disarray, and the massive Democratic turnout in the primaries—will be no exception. McCain has broad appeal; Clinton antagonizes almost all Republicans and many independents and Democrats; Obama’s real support beyond Democrats is unknown. There are plenty of reasons to wonder whether enough Americans will vote for a candidate who is black, and this Times article from Columbia, Tennessee, is a reminder of the steep obstacles. As strange as it sounds, despite a failed war, a brittle economy, and widespread Bush revulsion, I actually think that McCain would be the favorite against any Democrat. But last night made it clear that the Democratic Party is a better picture of the future. Republicans are trying to stay in power on a shrinking platform while mouthing stale slogans. President McCain would be more Jimmy Carter than Ronald Reagan—a last gasp, not a leap forward.

  I especially like that last part. McCain may win, but it’s really the end of the road for them. And here’s my other thought about McCain. I don’t want to say anything too bad, but I’m just saying - we have to pay close, close attention to his running mate. McCain’s old, and he’s been through a whole lot. You know y’alls are thinking it. I’m the only one with the onions to (almost) say it.
  
  
• I’m disappointed in the results. I had high hopes for Obama’s chances in California. It appears that Hillary took it in a walk. And despite the fact that both camps are acknowledging that the delegates are pretty much gonna end up even, (which is crazytown, btw. Whoda thunk?), it seems to me that Hillary’s going to end up getting the nom. Which is the story of the Democrats, as far as I’m concerned. We got pumped up on Dean in ’04 and ended up with milquetoast Kerry. Bradley was the insurgent in ’00, and we got Snore Gore. (Oh, I’m a fan now, don’t get me wrong. But you know what I mean.) And it looks like we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot again. We have inspirational Obama. A man who is getting the youth out voting like never before - record turnout in fucking primaries! And we’ll end up nominating old news, has-been, Hillary Clinton and her capitulate-to-the- Republicans-because-she-thinks-it-will-get-them-to-lay-off- even-though-everyone-knows-they-never-will strategy. To paraphrase Bill Maher from Larry King the other night, if Hillary wins she’ll of course be light years better than Bush. But she’s never going to be able to make a real change in this country like Obama could. Not that he will, mind you, but he’s the only chance. She’s too close to powerful lobbyists and entrenched interests and the status quo to do the unthinkable. We’re coming upon an historic opportunity to do something right for once, and I see it slipping through our fingertips like so much water from a melting glacier that she won't do much more than Bush to stop.

Merry Super Wacky Crumbelivable Won’t You Take Me To Funkytown Tuesday, everybody! No matter what you want to happen, you've got to admit it’s interesting to watch.

Super Duper Tuesday!

Listen, I’m not going to tell you how to vote today, if you get to vote today, as I do. I’m just going to say that the hard-core Republicans have to hold their noses to vote for McCain or for Mittens. You can see by the turnout numbers in the primaries so far that they’re not so much excited about this year’s election.

It’s conceivable that with either one of those candidates a large number of conservatives will just stay home in November. Except for one thing - the one person on the planet they hate more than their primary choices is Hillary Rodham Clinton. They would trample over their own mothers to do harm to the Clintons. Do you really want to give them something to get excited about on election day?

Besides how great is it going to look on a debate stage with a youthful, fresh, vibrant Barry against a death warmed over John McCain?

Vote Obama. Sleep easy.

1/30/08 - Never Forget!

Rudy 9iu11ani’s campaign has crumbled to earth after being struck by the twin engines of Huck and Mittens. As Rudy leaps off the side of the campaign trail and plummets to his political death, we are left with the lingering stench of a hard fought battle he was ultimately destined to lose.

The brutality of this tragedy will one day be seen as a turning point in history, but for now we can look back and reminisce about a more innocent time in all of our lives - a time when we actually thought that a thrice-married cross-dressing homo-hugging adulterous incompetent fascist who is hated by all who were once close to him might be able win the Republican nomination.

Those were the days...

Update Me, Amadeus!

What’s that? Oh… OH! Hey! Is that you? Wow! It’s so weird, running into you like this. But, hey, you look great! Have you been working out? Well, I don’t know, you look fabulous! Are those new shoes? They’re very nice. Yeah, yeah, I’ve been keeping busy, you know how it goes… Yeah, no the orphans aren’t gonna feed themselves, you know? Nah, I’m no hero. It just keeps me sane, what with all this shit going down lately. What have you been up to? Oh boy, you haven’t been reading at all? You really should. I mean, that’s the thing, I just found that I had nothing to add. How many different ways can you express Bush’s douchebaggery? Ah, well, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just stop calling like that. I didn’t think you’d take it so hard. But you look great, really you do! What’s up, you ask? Well…

• Last night was Bush’s State of the Union. Do you know that this was the only one I’ve missed since he took office? Yeah. No idea what he said. Well, that’s not true. Let’s see - tax cuts are good, we’re winning in Iraq, Islamofascists, look at the hero sitting next to my wife. Did I get the gist? Probs.
  
• Oh, I guess the Washington Post isn’t sure if this is Bush’s final SOTU. Ominous, no?
  
• I’m 100% an Obama man now. And even if I were still on the fence, some of the shit that Bill Clinton has been saying and doing lately has me even more convinced. As it is, as time goes on, have you noticed the luster coming off of Clinton’s presidency? Hillary is basically running on the same platform of triangulation and appeasement of the Republicans. Have we not seen how that just does not work? You give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. Every single time. Yet here she is constantly trying to compromise with them. How do you compromise with a group that sees in such stark black and white? Aside from that, let’s not forget that it was Bill Clinton who started things like globalization, like media consolidation, and he certainly did nothing to reform campaign financing. I’m not saying that Obama will necessarily fix things, but I’m certain that the same-old same-old cannot.
  
• A $600 rebate? Are you fucking kidding me? Will someone please explain in simple terms how this will do anything at all to help the economy? And besides, when we got our bullshit refund checks last time it was because - Oh my god, the size of that surplus scares the hell out of me, we have to give it back to the people, because investing in lottery tickets is way better for the economy than roads or health care. This time it’s - Oh my god, look at the size of that deficit, we have to give people money because people buying cheap hooch on China’s dime is way better than, well, than not buying cheap hooch.
  
• The Hives at the NHL all-star game were awesome. Klippa på!
  
• By the way, have you heard the new Magnetic Fields album? It's worth a listen.
  
• Holy shit, Lost is back this week! Kick ass! Who is on the other end of that phone??
  
• And speaking of which, might the writers’ strike be coming to an end? The WGA is making side deals with individual studios. If that strategy works, do you realize what it will represent? It would mean that for like the first time ever, a labor union will have broken a management partnership. How sweet would that be?
  
• The best thing to ever happen in Park Slope: reclaiming the bars from the fucking children.

Shit, look at the time. Hey, it was great talking to you, but I gots to split. I’d really like to hang out again, though. Get in touch with my people. Honest, let’s work something out! You’re the best…

Still Hockeytown After All These Years

I haven't written in almost a month. I guess there are like voting stuff thingees happening or something. So, I'm jumping in here to talk for a spell…

…about hockey.

The boys at Melt Your Face Off be talkin' smack about your Detroit Red Wings, particularly in reference to the Wings' complete and total domination of the 2008 all-star roster.

Before I go any further, I first came across the MYFO blog after their drop-dead hilarious turn writing the NHL Closer for Deadspin last month. So, much respek MYFO. But… this Red Wings hatin' gots ta stop. And it stops now.

Putting aside jealous rivals, what is there to legitimately hate about the Detroit Red Wings? And even the rival jealousy is bullshit because the Wings have won a grand total of 10 Cups to Montreal's 24 and the Leafs' 13. For that matter, the Wings have only won 3 of the last 52. (3 of the last 10, I grant you, but still…) The Wings play a wide-open offense-based puck control game that keeps the puck moving end to end, which is exciting for fans of both teams. Contrast this with Minnesota or New Jersey and The Trap, the basic strategy of which is to do your best on-ice imitation of the U.S. in a World Cup soccer game by not scoring for 60 minutes followed by five more excruciating minutes of not scoring in overtime.

The Wings never field a team of thugs like Philadelphia and their stick-swingin' ways; like Anaheim with headhuntin' Pronger and Scotty Niedermayer (to say nothing of having a roster half of whom "unretire" part way through the season - we're at war, pick a side!!); like Colorado with the unholy trinity of Patrick Roy, Claude Lemieux and Peter Forsberg. [We're choosing to overlook Detroit's misguided and wildly unsuccessful foray into thuggery with the trade deadline pickup of Todd "I'll Break Your Neck" Bertuzzi. He's precisely the exception that proves the rule in that he didn't fit in even a little bit.]

The Red Wings' all-stars this year are Nick Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg. These men were actually voted in by the fans. This is notable for 2 reasons: the Wings have a well-rounded team rolling four lines, not allowing for the stat-padding of a Crosby or Ovechkin who play on teams where they're the only good player to speak of (or at least on the only good line). Secondly, Detroit is in a wild economic tailspin and people aren't going to the games. This means that the home vote is probably way down. Smart people who know their hockey, without just scanning the league leaders or picking the home team straight away, voted for Hank, Dats, and Nick.

Back to MYFO… They are acting as though the Red Wings have inherited a legacy of undeserved winning, or their deep pockets are buying championships ala George Steinbrenner. I'll first refer to not having won all that many championships, but also point out that these particular all-stars were drafted in the 3rd Round (Lidstrom), the 6th Round (Datsyuk), and 7th Round (Zetterberg). They were there for the taking; the Wings were the only team smart enough to take them. Back when the Wings grabbed Brett Hull, Brendan Shanahan, Luc Robitaille, even back to Paul Coffey, sure, maybe it was the pocketbook. But the salary cap era has begun. And yet, the Wings still lead the league year after year. That's not entitlement. That's solid management, solid coaching, and solid scouting.

The drafting isn't just about stars either. It's about the right kind of stars. And that all leads back to The Captain, Steve Yzerman. I don't even think the playa-hatas at MYFO could find a bad word to say about Stevie. We all know his heart, his understated command, his determination to win. The longest serving captain in the history of all North American sports, the Red Wings have been Stevie's team for over two decades, and they remain his team even now that he's retired (with all due respect to Nicklas who carries on in true Yzerman fashion). He taught these Red Wings the values that they now embody. He demonstrated that winning and losing is about what's inside, not about running your mouth. This is a man who led the Wings to their 2002 Stanley Cup on one leg, in the twilight of his career and still managed to be the best player on the ice despite being surrounded by a roster full of all-stars. This is the man who had record-setting seasons stats-wise, and when his coach asked him to take on a more defensive role, he did so – and excelled. His quiet leadership brought the team to where they are today, and you don't hear about our superstars "makin' it rain" or wrapping cars around telephone poles. The Red Wings' proud tradition isn't just about the pride of winning. It's about being a team you can actually be proud of.

So I beg of you - without being intellectually dishonest, what bad can you possibly say about the Detroit Red Wings?

This Is Your Team On Drugs

The best argument yet for kids to stay away from performance "enhancing" drugs: the just-released list of names from the Mitchell Report.

Yeah, Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are on there (which could explain Clemens' penchant for fits of rage). But for every Clemens there are 10 Nook Logans and Cody McKays.

And on a side note, someone should have told Mo Vaughn that you're supposed to lift weights after you take steroids, not eat a bakery.

Wal-Mardello

A Feministing reader came across the item pictured below at her local Wal-Mart.


In case the scale is out of whack, it is a pair of panties from the junior department that says, “Who needs credit cards…” I suppose we can presume the … to be short for, “when you have a pussy.”

So at first I thought to myself, this is Wal-Mart, the savior of moral values; the place where you can’t buy Eminem and Maxim and your choice of birth control; the place where Jesus is safe to roam free and His birthday is a holiday to be declared merry - and they are encouraging pre-teens to fuck for money?

But then I thought again… This isn’t hypocritical or paradoxical at all. In fact, it makes perfect logical sense. In the Wal-Mart ethos, women are empty vessels to be used for reproduction, cooking, and house cleaning. Barefoot and pregnant, if you will. So, this tween panty isn’t about whoring it up for diamonds and rides in Ferraris. It’s preparing these young girls to understand early that the only way they are going to survive in this world is to get married, get knocked up, and get to scrubbing those tiles.

Well played, Wal-Mart. Well played…

Minor Penalty - Two Minutes For Freakin’ Me Out, Man

If you liked Hostel, then you’ll love Canada’s new PSAs about preventing workplace accidents. I’m told (by Will at Deadspin) that they’re actually being run on the Ceeb during Hockey Night in Canada. Jesus. And there’s too much violence in hockey?



But wait, there’s more. Then you have to go to the PSAs’ website. Click on Enter Now, and you’ll be greeted by a cartoon severed hand squirting blood like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail impatiently drumming its fingers waiting for the flash movie to load. The movie begins with said bloody severed hand parachuting down to its presumed previous owner whose stump isn’t having the best time getting over the injury. From there we get to watch several different examples of a day in the life of a guy with a bloody stump, which is to say he gets blood all over everything! If I learned one thing, it’s do not help your girlfriend get food off her face with a bloody stump.

It’s the most hilarious thing you’ve seen in a while.

Yessuh, Missuh Presdint, suh…

Julie Myers, assistant secretary overseeing Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division -- herself a recess appointed, grossly unqualified nepotism case -- was part of a three-person panel selected to judge Halloween costumes at the Homeland Security Department office Halloween party. As an aside - a three-judge panel for a Halloween party? Can DHS do anything without bureaucratic red tape??

Anyway, the winning costume, you’ll be horrified if unsurprised to discover, was a man dressed up in prison stripes, dreadlocks, and you guessed it - blackface. I mean, DHS says it was just “dark makeup” but that sounds like some bureaucrat hair-splitting to me.

Third place was dressed up as Chief Wahoo, the lovable scamp from the Cleveland Indians uniforms. First runner-up, who will take over for the now disgraced Prisoner Sambo was dressed as Slowpoke Rodriguez, the laziest, slowest, most unemployedest mouse in all of Mexico. Sounds like a great party!

More Selfish Bastards Sticking It!

In case you don’t watch TV (yeah, you’re so cool), or just don’t pay attention, the Writers Guild of America, aka - the writers union has gone on strike. What does that mean? It means The Daily Show and Colbert are not on tonight. Damn.

But the interesting thing to me about this is it seems to be the very last union left in the United States that gets the support of the people. Why is that? Let’s compare it to the New York City transit strike of 2005. MTA (The Man) - rich, corrupt and incompetent. MTA workers (The Little Guy) - underpaid, overworked, and constantly looking over their shoulder, worrying about getting laid off. Hollywood producers - rich, corrupt, and probably incompetent, although I can’t say for sure. Hollywood writers - probably paid very well, (but definitely not as well as they deserve, at least not if they work for Lost, 30 Rock, Pushing Daisies, or other such brilliant programs. More than they deserve if they work for Two and a Half Men or anything with Dane Cook), constantly looking over their shoulder with the rise of reality programming, probably overworked and underappreciated.

So what is it about the writers that makes people side with them? During the transit strike, the entire blame fell on the union, as though asking for a living wage was fine as long as it doesn’t inconvenience anyone. “I’d rather bring back indentured servitude than be late for work.” In the case of the automakers or Wal-Mart, it’s all the union’s fault that cars are so expensive with the former, and the lack of a union is why I get a DVD player for $14 at the latter. So why is the writers’ union held in such high regard? Why are people lauding Tina Fey or Jon Stewart for making impassioned pleas on the writers’ behalf, but ridiculing me for favoring unions the rest of the time?

Don’t misunderstand - I agree with them 100%. The writers deserve all that they can get, and god knows many of them are quite talented - talent I wish I possessed. But what is it about literally every other union in the country that inspires such disdain and mistrust? Why is it if the teachers strike so they don’t have to buy their own fucking loose-leaf paper and text books for children that it’s the teachers’ fault, and not the fault of tax-slashing administrations or tax dodging multi-national corporations for underfunding city services? The auto unions are so powerless thanks to dwindling membership and a lack of public support that they stage a phony one day strike to make some sort of arcane point, and then happily lap up whatever table scraps the automakers offer them. Why is it that when the MTA is raising fares, decreasing service and letting the subway fall into complete disrepair, making a handy salary for the fat cats, all the while laying off hundreds of union employees, that it’s the transit workers’ union who bear the brunt of commuter rage when the workers decide enough is enough?

Why is the writer’s union of Hollywood, of all places, the one union held in any esteem whatsoever? God bless ‘em and good luck! Honest. Hell, I can use a break from TV, so I’m with the workers, as always. But what is it about America that except in this one situation, always makes people side with The Man over The Little Guy?

All You Need to Know

Not for nothing, but if you ever set out for a short boat ride, a two or three hour tour say, do yourself a favor and keep an extra can of gasoline on board. That’s all I’m sayin’…

So what’s new?

FEMA has learned the lesson of Katrina. That lesson? If you hold phony scripted press conferences, you won’t get any liberal media types like Anderson Cooper asking nosy questions.

Looks like Jin is about to get killed off.

Alberto Gonzales may be in bigger trouble than we thought.

Chris Dodd’s got a pair.

Without question, Garry Kasparov is my favorite politician alive in the world today. Seriously, he’s essentially risking his life and those of his family just to fight to be allowed to lose to Putin’s handpicked successor.

This year’s World Series is thus far proving the old adage, Jesus can get you to the dance, but the devil wins you championships.

Radiohead totally rules.

Bring Out The Gimp

The Right Wing is a big tent, don't you know. Any and all are welcome. From your run of the mill "straight" guys who suck dick in airport bathrooms, to guys who rape their daughters, your attracted to 5-year-old girls types, and on down the line to the dirty, dirty BDSM bitches. And I don't just mean those who would "surprise" his wife with a trip to the slave club, bark out some orders and make her cry. The Republican party and extreme fundamentalist religious right even has room for the submissives too! Take, for example, Liberty University graduate and employee, and Jerry Falwell disciple "Reverend" Gary Aldridge and the tale of The Spanking to Die For... (Click on image below for close up.)


There's a lesson here, kids. A) Don't trust anyone who tells you not to masturbate; he's probably got a contraption in his house that would scare Satan himself. And B) If you go to your preacher/minister/teacher/senator's house - bring a parent or guardian. And pepper spray.

On the other hand, it is refreshing to see Rev. Aldridge use his moment of death to illuminate a lesson he's been teaching his whole life - Jesus cries when you have protected sex with a boy or girl your own age. As the Good Book says, condoms are only for use on the dildos you shove up your ass. Is that from Leviticus? Deuteronomy?

Children Are Our Future And Other Flotsam

First off, I told you a while ago that I wouldn't have as much time for you as I used to. We appreciate that you miss us, but can you call off the attack dogs? I'm busy enough as it is trying to sort out the scam Nigerian princes from the real ones, and now I have to deal with what can only be described as a coordinated effort to make me write more. We at DoG love getting your emails at DelusionsofGrandeurBlog [at] gmail [dot] com, but cutting and pasting an email you found at the online petition loses its effect after the thousandth reading. Move on, people!

But please don't move on, check back from time to time. We miss you too!

Secondly, is it just not having enough time? To be honest, it's not. I may have lost the fire, DoGgers. Yes, Bush still enrages me, but you can only say douchebag and twatwaffle so many times before it loses its intrinsic oomph. Take this Blackwater kerfuffle, for example. The fact that we have more mercenary troops in Iraq than the 160,000 U.S. military solders, and that those mercenaries have no oversight by anyone in the world has been common knowledge for years now. In a single Google search, I found a story on PBS from 2005. And that was just the first page on the search. So should I have been beating my head against the wall for the last two years, or been even a little surprised when they sent Blackwater in to "patrol" New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina? It's maddening. So I just keep it to myself. The knowledge is out there; I'm not bringing anything new to the party.

The Democratic congress has been a bigger failure than one could have possibly imagined. I'm not talking about getting the troops out of Iraq. After reading this article by George Packer, I'm not convinced we should ever leave Iraq. No, it's one thing for the Republicans in congress to give Bush his monarchical powers, but when the Democrats bend over and take it up the ass, giving Bush unlimited authority to do anything and everything, it's easy to get tired of the blogging game right quick.

So what am I doing here today? Because today, I have a point of view that is counter to most liberals, from what I can tell. I feel that I have something different to say on this one.

Are you ready?

I agree with Bush for vetoing the child health care plan but I disagree with his reasons for doing it.

In a nutshell, Bush vetoed the child health care plan because of his dogmatic adherence to the principle of the free market. Or to put it another way - to keep the commies at bay. This, in my opinion, is stupid. It's always been stupid. For them, it's always been less a principle, and more of a way to keep the rich richer. Which is to say, not at all a principle and only about keeping the rich richer. The "free market is always right" meme is the rich's way of tricking the poor into following them backwards though time to their Dickensian utopia of starving proletariat in their slums eating their own dead, completely ignored by anyone who can afford to.

However, I agree with Bush's veto because of how the child health care plan was going to be paid for - a tax on cigarettes. Now before those of you who know me personally come down on me for protecting my own self interests, let me assure you, without specifying why, that this tax would not affect me. I'm against it for two reasons:

1) Regardless of how you feel about the supposed immorality of smoking and its inherent dangers, a tax on cigarettes ends up being a regressive tax, meaning it is paid by the people who can least afford it - the poor (much like the lottery, which I am also against). People lower on the income scale smoke in much larger numbers than those with higher incomes. You can call it a moral failing of anyone who picks up the cancer sticks, or you can make a claim that they smoke more because of less access to education about the dangers of smoking. You could even suppose that they have a bleaker outlook for their future with a cigarette providing a small, however brief escape from the daily rigors they must endure. All of that is beside the point. If we are going to expand the federal government -- and we should, particularly by giving our children health care -- it should not be on the backs of the poor. (And as a 1(a): do we really want to rely on people continuing to smoke so that lower income children can keep their health care?)

2) Sin tax. The libertarian streak in me finds sin taxes abhorrent because of the slippery slope it presents. We already tax cigarettes and alcohol to great extremes. What's next? What happens when the exerstapo decides that television leads to sloth, a deadly sin, and slaps a tax on sitting on your ass in front of the tube? (Or as the immortal George Harrison put it - If you try to sit, sit, I'll tax your seat.) The fat police are already in action in New York City shutting down anyone using transfats in their cooking. When's the tax on ice cream going to kick in? I don't think it should be anyone's job in government to decide which products that are going to kill me are bad and should be taxed (cigarettes, alcohol) and which products that are going to kill me should be subsidized (high fructose corn syrup, pharmaceutical industry, chemical industry, petroleum industry, lead-based children's toys industry). Make it illegal, or leave it be. We should be allowed to legally kill ourselves however we see fit.

So I'm glad Bush vetoed the bill, but only because I think we should pay for the children's health care by stopping every and all government subsidy and corporate bailout scheme funneled to massive corporations in the drug, food, oil, and chemical industries. Where's your free market religion when it comes to them, Mr. President?

Come to think of it, if we dropped all the corporate welfare, we'd all have free health care for life. Think about that.

Tomorrow I Woke Up Sucking On A Lemon

What’s going on over at radioheadlp7.com?

They’re counting down to something happening tomorrow morning. We are all aware of a forthcoming Radiohead (greatest band ever) album, but what’s going on tomorrow? Pitchfork tells me that this site has nothing to do with the band, so it’s probably a big scam.

Or is it? I Might Be Wrong, but… I Will remain… Optimistic. If we’re… Lucky, they won’t leave us… High and Dry, and make me look… Idioteque.

(Entertainment Tonight, Extra, anyone else may contact me at DelusionsofGrandeurBlog [at] gmail [dot] com.)

Paranoid Android!

Mad skillz.

UPDATE: Full-on hoax. (Nice Dream)

UPDATE II: However, the new album does come out next Wednesday, October 10th. With a catch. It’s only available for download at their website. Apparently, you can buy the whole liner notes, old school CD whatnot for 40 quid. But for the download, they’ve gone Shatner on us, as we can “name our own price.”

See for yourself. What an interesting ethical conundrum to have placed before me. I love the band, hate the labels, enjoy deciding how much to pay for stuff. Yet, I also hate spending unnecessary money. Hmmn…

UPDATE III: Through further research, I’ve come to discover that Radiohead would typically make in the neighborhood of $1.50 per album sold when working through a major label. That is something to bear in mind when having that selfishness vs. sticking it to the man debate you’re going to be having all this week. That is to say, it’s going to cost you at least $1.50 to demonstrate to the labels that they’re dinosaurs on the verge of extinction if they don’t wake up, and soon. After that buck-fitty, it’s all about how much you respect the band.

Mommy, Make The Bad Man Go Away!

Aren't Republicans supposed to be the tough guy father figures? Aren't they supposed to be able to keep their shit together when the going gets tough? Doesn't look like it from my point of view. First, they curled up in a fetal ball and cried their eyes out because MoveOn.org called General Petreus "General Betray-Us" (Get it? Get it??). Now, people are positively apoplectic because Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in town and speaking at Columbia today.

Oh my god, get a hold of yourself, people! The dude is talking, he's not ethnic cleansing the city. Furthermore, in our history, we have celebrated and met with people much worse than the virtually powerless Ahmadinejad. Mahmoud talks about wiping Israel off the map. Nixon met with Chairman Mao, and he had slaughtered hundreds of thousands. Bush is BFF with the leadership in Saudi Arabia, and they will stone a woman to death for being pregnant. Reagan, the mannest man of all time, met with the leaders of the Soviet Union many times.

This is America. The great thing about America is you can speak your mind, no matter how much of an asshole you are, and other people can just fucking ignore you. Get over it!

Lines I Wish I Wrote

From Bill Maher on The Huffington Post the other day:

Republicans sex scandals are getting to be like Iraqi car bombings. By the time you hear about one, there's been another. Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, Bob Allen, Vitter, Craig...

It's like "Clue" only the answer is always "A Republican... in the washroom... with his cock."

Oh, Lord, won’t You please stop sitting around reading blogs and grant me a slice of Bill Maher’s talent?

The Great Satan

Wonkette made a nice catch, seen above, of President Bush once again pledging his undying support (and eternal soul) to the Devil at a 9/11 ceremony yesterday.

I have a simpler, more benign explanation. I think he thinks he's planning a quick escape as his alter-ego, Spider-Man.

Slave 4 Us

As I'm sure you've heard by now, the trainwreck that is Britney Spears made a stop at the MTV Video Music Awards over the weekend, and it was everything you'd expect and worse.

As her life has slowly unravelled before our eyes and millions of cameras, I've quickly found myself in the camp of just feeling sorry for her. I'm not typically one who pities those who are given everything and piss it all away of their own volition, but there are times when I feel complicit in their self-destruction. I don't read TMZ myself, but I read people who do. And where there's a demand for salacious details of people's private lives, there are going to be writers and photographers to fill that demand. As such, there's an element of Schrödinger's cat in a breakdown such as Britney's, which is to say that the act of observing it necessarily affects the outcome. When you're an 18 year old superstar, living your life completely in the public eye and developing an addiction to that praise and attention, it's probably pretty difficult to find your way when it's time to develop a private life.

All of that is prologue for this article you should read in Salon by Rebecca Traister. As she goes on to point out that we are all guilty, not least MTV and Britney herself, she composes some moving paragraphs which are staying with me.

As has been pointed out before, she embodies the disdain in which this culture holds its young women: the desire to sexualize and spoil them while young, and to degrade and punish them as they get older. Of course, she also represents a youthful feminine willingness -- stupid or manipulated as it may be -- to conform to the culture's every humiliating expectation of her.
...

No one would think that the performer, whose music has historically been catchy, but whose live performance appeal has rested on her super-fit ability to writhe around in athletic dance routines that could only succeed if rehearsed with Waffen-level discipline, could pull this off. She was hired by MTV to attract viewers eager to see her make an ass of herself. And she was complicit in her own public flogging, apparently doing nothing to prepare, making no effort to learn the words to her own song, or the dance moves she was supposed to execute.
...

There was also the harsh but deserved criticism of her performance and, more horrendously, of her physique. Spears, it seems, two children and five years of self-abuse later, no longer pleases the public with her hourglass shape. No, her ill-fitting outfit showed off a figure that was not as compact and pink as it was when she was a teenager. Sure, she looked better in a bikini than probably 98 percent of the Americans sitting on their couches and howling at her, but she was no longer porn-star perfect. And in the American lexicon, that equals fat. Wonder why your daughters have eating disorders and hate their bodies? Maybe because they're reading reports that label the thin young woman dancing around in a bra and panties physically unappealing and obese.
...

When I was a kid, my mother told me a story about some men she once saw on a lake in northern Maine. They were in a motorboat, chasing a swimming moose around the lake. They chased it and chased it and chased it until, finally, the moose got so tired and confused that it drowned. This, of course, was the idea: torturing an animal too stupid to swim for shore until it died, all in the name of good fun for the guys at the wheel.

And that's the part that gets me. Let's give her a break. And Lindsey Lohan into the bargain. Are we Romans watching the murder of Christians in the Coliseum? If we stop watching, she'll have no choice but to try to get her life -- her real life -- back on track.

I know my plea falls on deaf ears, but it warrants saying.

Republican Party Rotting From The Inside

You know, I write these articles about the Family Values Republicans and their perverted private lives with a touch of tongue-in-cheek, primarily because were it not for their own religious fanaticism and hypocritical homophobia-mongering to win elections, their so-called perversions would be perfectly fine and dandy. They could blow whomever they wanted, and in the public eye (metaphorically), instead of taking a “wide stance” in the airport crapper and getting busted by the vice squad.

And then you come across a real Republican pervert, and it turns your stomach. St. Petersburg City Council Chairman, Republican John Bryan sexually molested his daughters and once he was found out, he offed himself in the garage. I’m against the death penalty, so I’m not thrilled with his choice, but there are worse things to have happened.

Thing is, that’s not the worst part. Although, I suppose his daughters would disagree with that. They’d be right. Politically, the worst part is that the Republican Party in Florida has known about this man’s sexual deviancy and danger to children for twenty years! That’s fucked up.

The Republican Party - Protecting families by protecting reputations. One sexual deviant at a time. (The children can fend for themselves.)