Have a Crumb Bean Sandwich

Wow. The list of things you can make money on just got a bit bigger. Apparently you can now be paid for not wearing clothes. I don't mean like being a stripper. I mean like not wearing specific clothes. This not-to-be-named dude from a not-to-be-named "reality" program has been offered money to not wear clothes from a not-to-be-named retailer. It seems their brand is being tarnished a bit, in their not-so-humble opinion.

So I reckon I need to get what amounts to a proposal together. Here's what I have so far. Tell me what you think.

Dear Slabbercrombie & Flinch,

First off, let me say how much I admire your catalogs. I enjoy "shopping" with them in my bathroom. You certainly seem to have developed quite the brand for yourself there. And the peeps out there sure are digging it too.

Although I have never purchased any of your products nor worn them in public, and I am not a public figure nor can reasonably hope to be one in the immediate future, I would like to let you know that I am hereby requesting compensation for preventing such a situation from ever occurring. I prefer to nip things in the bud. You can't unring a bell, as they say.

I would not want to be responsible for the further degradation of the brand that you have so skillfully cultivated. I'm considerably older than your target demographic. I'm balding on top and I'm just a bit paunchy. I also eat quite a bit of garlic, which affects both my breath and my perspiration, which tends to be voluminous when compared to that of the average person. And I have a tendency to declaim quite loudly and repeatedly to whomever is within earshot just where I purchased my daily outfit, which (I must say) does not get changed or washed with any frequency. Let me add here that I live in New York City and ride public transportation, so my audience tends to be large and diverse.

I'm certain that the last thing you want is for millions of New Yorkers to be referring to "that loud, smelly Slabbercrombie & Flinch guy" and have them showing me on the "Today" show. Can you imagine? I could be like the Naked Cowboy. Tourists would have their picture taken with me. Well, maybe not with me. There is the smell. And the head lice. But near me. With me in the background. Like they do with Mount Rushmore. And your company stock, not to mention your cultural cachet, would take a beating the likes of which hasn't been seen in this country since "The Outlaw Josey Wales".

I'm not a greedy man. I'm only thinking $10-20,000 per week would be sufficient to keep me out of Slabbercrombie & Flinch couture. Just think of the upside. It's a tax write-off, if nothing else.

Please let me know at your earliest convenience when my first check will arrive. And thanks. Slabbercrombie & Flinch!

Your humble servant,
MAB

Vive la Similarité/Différence (your choice)

Joyeux le quatorze juillet! It's Bastille Day again. What does that mean for us here in America?

Well, it means that we should celebrate the fact that we're just like France. Thanks, David McCullough, for explaining it for us.

Except, wait. He's full of crap. We're nothing like France. So sayeth Edward Glaeser.

Mon dieux!

He Couldn't Get Any Lower

Or could he? I had to read the article to be sure.

Because what ESPN.com said happened to Lawrence Taylor could be taken in more than one way.

That's low, man.

Slime Machine

Okay, so one of the dangers of Netflix streaming movies is that you have no risk but your time when you decide to watch something. Before, when you put a disc in your queue you were at least committing to having a physical object in your house. If you couldn't choke it down, you put it in the red envelope and had to spend a few days waiting in shame for its replacement, preferably something of greater cultural value than "Dude, Where's My Car?"

With the streaming thing, the threshold for a queue add has been drastically reduced. Hey, I'll just watch it for a few minutes. If it's really that awful, I'll just turn it off and go on to the next thing. Instantly!

This is fine in theory, but when you have certain obsessive-compulsive tendencies it can be a trap. Some of us absolutely cannot watch a movie or TV show in which we have even the slightest interest if it has already begun. (Yes, just like Alvy Singer.) And we do not begin to watch or read something that we do not eventually finish. I once slogged through 600-odd painful pages of "The Alienist". Hey, maybe it'll get better. (It didn't.)

Which brings us to "Hot Tub Time Machine". (You can follow the link if you want a full synopsis. Not bothering here.)

I'm about the target demographic for this film. The soundtrack was the soundtrack of my teenage years. If nothing else, I figured I'd chuckle a few times and enjoy the soundtrack. Which I sorta did. Not just the obvious choices (Men Without Hats, Spandau Ballet, Serious Moonlight-era Bowie) but the few inspired oddities, both truly awesome (The Replacements!) and awesomely cheesy (Nu Shooz!).

It's a total guy movie, which is not really my thing. But I can enjoy it if it's funny enough. In that department, it's a coin toss. I'm not quite sure if I wasted an hour-forty or if the few chuckles and titties made it a better bet at the time than another episode of "Torchwood" (which is still there waiting patiently for me, thank goodness).

But what really concerns me here are the morals we're meant (or not) to take away from this cinematic enterprise. And at this point we'll give the obligatory HERE BE SPOILERS!

The film, to its credit, doesn't cast its main characters in a flattering light. We pity them but we don't really like them. But that's what made it harder for me to swallow the ending, which we'll get to in a second.

Early in the film, John Cusack laments that all they had in the 80s was "Reagan and AIDS", the two plagues that were at their grossest back then but continue to pollute our lives today. So one might reasonably expect that, if we were to deconstruct the thing, we might find at least a mild indictment of the values we had back then. The Gordon Gekko "greed is good" era was as slick, empty and one-dimensional as Oliver Stone's screenplays condemning it.

Well, here's what happens at the end. After spending most of the 80s flashback trying to do everything that they did the first time around in a perhaps-vain attempt to avoid the Butterfly Effect, they end by saying "fuck it" and doing whatever the heck they want. Rob Corddry's character even stays behind when the others return to the present in order to take advantage of his knowledge of the future.

I found this a bit depressing. Once the three other principals made their way back to 2010, things were quite different. For all of them. But not because, as in "A Christmas Carol" or even "Back to the Future", they did things better or were kinder people or worked harder as a result of reliving the past. They didn't have epiphanies. Their lives were better because they cheated. And the movie is okay with this. It actually celebrates it.

Rob Corddry is filthy stinking rich because he knew about Google and Twitter and Motley Crue before everyone else. Craig Robinson is well-off because he pre-empted his wife from cheating on him in the future and wowed an audience by teaching his band a Black Eyed Peas song from the future instead of lamely crooning "Careless Whisper", as he did the first time around. John Cusack meets a music journalist that he ends up with instead of brooding over the girl who stabbed him in the eye (and, as he learns, would have stabbed him in the eye either way).

To boil this down to one sentence, "Hot Tub Time Machine" teaches us that the road to happiness and wealth is insider trading. It isn't a repudiation of the 80s. It's a celebration of its worst aspects, which just happen to have exploded again in this decade. Rob Corddry's character is a dick at the beginning of the movie and he's a dick at the end. But now he's a rich dick. And he isn't rich because he earned it. We're supposed to feel good?

No. This left a very bad taste in my mouth. And it wasn't because of Salt-n-Pepa. It's a total glorification of corruption. And really, not funny enough to mask that fact. The characters in "The Producers" were much funnier and much more sympathetic. And they ended up in jail.

Information Exploitation

It's too soon. We can't talk about it. No, it's still too soon. We can't talk about it. No, no. Come back to me in a little while. Yes, later. Much later. When you've calmed down a bit. I'm sorry, what were we talking about?

Jonah Goldberg seems to think that we shouldn't be referring to the recent and still unfolding nuclear disaster(s) in Japan as reasons why nuclear power may not be such a great idea. It's a tragedy. (Can't argue with that.) But it's still happening right now so we shouldn't "exploit" it for some sneaky awful political agenda. Like saving lives.

This happens all the time. Something awful happens, usually because of something the energy industry did. Some of us meekly raise our hands and say, "Um, excuse me, but doesn't this prove what we've been saying all along? That what we're doing here is inherently dangerous and harmful to the environment?" Then the captains of industry come rushing in to say, "No no, it's perfectly safe.*" *"As long as there are never any natural disasters or the hint of human error. Or terrorism."

And people like Jonah Goldberg are right there to back them up by claiming that anyone merely pointing out the fact of the disaster is using it for their own political agenda and therefore disrespecting the thousands/millions affected by said disaster. I guess if our agenda is something like "Nuclear power is bad because terrible shit happens so we maybe shouldn't use it so much" then it's considered tacky to say so when terrible shit actually happens.

But wait, Jonah says. You said yourself that shit happens. Shit happens! We can't stop doing everything because something bad might happen, right? So a few hundred people get their faces melted off. Hey, it could have been a few thousand. The system works! (Jonah actually makes this point, if a bit less in extremis. It's in the third-to-last paragraph.) Let's congratulate ourselves and build a few more nuclear plants. We're going to need them now that those other ones have melted down. But we'll need to build them somewhere else. Too much radiation already in that place.

Sorry, Jonah. But when we have preventable catastrophes like this it is the perfect time to bring up the folly of raping the earth for short-term gain. The truth does not take a vacation because it's inconvenient for you to look at it. We are not "thirst[y] to confirm...[our]...preferred policies". We are pained that we have to go through this again and again and again while people like you refuse to listen as more and more people die.

That Was One Hell of a Hockey Game

I like how the Boston Globe shows us the scores of the most recent games played by the local boys and their next opponent. It allows us to recap the recent history of rivalries and jog our fond memories of the last time, say, the Celtics played the Grizzlies. Good times.

Remember that freaking awesome B's-Canadiens game last time out? That was a statbuster.

I remember they pulled both goalies early in the first period. Everyone on both teams got hat tricks. It was a major boost to the local millinery economy. Let's do it again, B's!

Porn in the USA

This story from NPR caught my ear the other day.

It shouldn't be news that there are certain aspects of our society that are distasteful to religious conservatives. Gay people, the First Amendment, science... Porn is also on the list. It doesn't even have to be gay porn. It's all bad. So I wasn't surprised to hear a story on NPR about how religious groups are dealing with this particular scourge.

What I didn't expect was the tone of the piece. Porn was treated as a disease, akin to gambling or alcoholism, by the religious groups in question. That's to be expected. But the NPR piece never once questioned this. The entire piece takes porn on exactly the terms laid out by the religious groups. It's a given that porn is a disease that must be overcome. No questions asked.

I can see how people can be addicted to porn and how it may interfere with their lives. (Just like non-porn web surfing or any other form of procrastination.) But this isn't discussed. It isn't the addiction, if that even exists, that's the problem. It's porn in general. There are no gray areas. Porn is taken to be a societal problem on its face and thank the Big Guy that these guys are here to help. You can be cured of the porn just like you can be cured of the gay.

Still think NPR is some crazy liberal media outlet?

Grab Grab Grab (What I Just Gave You)

You can always count on Tea Party types to make arguments in defense of the U.S. Constitution that fundamentally misunderstand the U.S. Constitution.

Here's the latest from Fox News spokes idiot Sarah P, as quoted in Salon. Her beef is with "power grabs" by the federal government.

What we're seeing today is the inevitable result of national leaders who have forgotten the fundamental wisdom of the Tenth Amendment [which provides for America's federalist system]. Just as Mr. Jefferson warned us, as soon as we as a country disregarded the fact that the federal government's powers are limited, and that we as states and individuals hold the balance of the power, the floodgates were opened to the torrent of federal power grabs we're seeing today. Take the federal income tax, for example. We tend to think there are two constants in life: death and taxes. But America hasn't always had an income tax. The first federal income tax on individuals was imposed in 1861 to help pay for the Civil War. But the tax was never meant to be permanent, and Congress repealed it ten years after it was enacted. It wasn't until 1913 that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified and the individual federal income tax that we know today was created.

What is most dangerous about these power grabs is that they're usually done in the name of a good cause--insuring the uninsured, for example--and have a big wad of cash attached to them.

Hilarious, as usual. She's right on some things. Of course we haven't always had an income tax. And the original tax she cites was not permanent. But once you make an amendment to the constitution, that's pretty much meant to be permanent. (18th Amendment, we didn't mean you.) And that's what we did.

What's dumb about this, on first glance, is a typical case of 10th Amendment confusion, which is sadly prevalent in the TP. Here's what the 10th says.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Okay. And the 16th Amendment was...in the constitution. The constitution can't be unconstitutional, lady. Oy.

But the dumbest thing about Mrs. P's complaint is that any time the constitution is amended -- and I'd love to know, as I would with most of her pronouncements, whether she doesn't know this or she's just conveniently ignoring it -- it has to be ratified by 75% of the states. In other words, a constitutional amendment cannot, by definition, be a federal power grab. At least 38 of our 50 states have to say yes for it to take effect. And 42 of the then-48 states said cool to the 16th Amendment. (Three rejected it and three more never took it up.) Assuming that Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia's silence on the matter equalled consent, that's 93% approval from the states from whom power was being "grabbed". Nice.

This nitwit continues to say dumb shit on a regular basis. And our media continue to quote her dumb shit. Please stop. Or at least have the common decency to say, "Hey, that is some dumb shit right there. And here's why." It isn't all that difficult. What are you people going to do when you come up against an actual skilled sophist (like, say, Karl Rove)?

Free Mountain Dew for Everyone!

Really? This is a controversy? People are actually up in arms about restricting food stamps so they can't be used to buy soda? Oh no! They're "playing God"!

This is the kind of crap that gives welfare a bad name.

People, listen. It is not "playing God" to say that government money that is given to people to keep children from starving should actually be used to keep children from starving and not just loading them with sugar and empty calories.

Holy crap. Not a controversy. Really. Not a controversy. Thanks, ABC News, for pretending it is.

It's Sex With Someone I Love

Okay, so the Tea Party has just handed another seat back to the Democrats. Thank you, Delaware Republicans.

Two things about Christine O'Donnell.

Thing 1: What the hell is this?

Why are you in the picture? Honey, let me explain something to you. Your husband wasn't masturbating all these years because he was trying to perfect the sexual experience flying solo. He was doing it because there didn't happen to be anyone else in the room with him. He didn't have a vagina to stick his thing into so he improvised with whatever was handy. Now that he does, if you really think he's going to prefer masturbation to that sweet sweet part-of-God's-plan vagina that you're sporting, then yes, I would question why you are in the picture. But not for the reason you think. It's either because your husband is gay or that you're just really terrible at the nasty. Any straight guy would prefer a female body that is sleeping, lethargic or outright dead to their own hand. Maybe you should have practiced a bit yourself.

Thing 2: The folks on the news are talking about this like it's some kind of tidal wave that's sweeping the nation. But look at the numbers here. No, really. Look at them. They're right here.

Machine		Absentee	Total	Percent
Votes		Votes	Votes	Votes
UNITED STATES SENATOR	325 of 325 Districts Reported
REPUBLICAN PARTY
MICHAEL N. CASTLE	26201	820	27021	46 . 9 %
CHRISTINE O'DONNELL	29882	679	30561	53 . 1 %

30,000 votes. That's it. A nation of over 300 million. A state of about 885,000.

She got 53% of the votes cast in the primary. But overall, only 3% of the people in her very dinky state voted for her. 1/100 of 1% of the nation. And it's being treated as a historic event and a triumph for the nutjobs in this country. Please.

Some more perspective? There are slightly fewer than 30,000 people in the town of my birth. And nobody pays any freaking attention when those people vote on anything. Staten Island has almost half a million people, not much less than the whole state of Delaware. And they're considered irrelevant not just in the country, not just in the state, but in New York City, where they account for less than 1/16 of the city's population.

Enjoy playing the masturbation videos and having another Palinesque nitwit to focus on for a little while, American media. But don't kid yourself that this is a significant event. All it is is the fringe forfeiting another decent shot at Republicans gaining another seat.

Dr. Laura Jumps the Shark (Again, But This Time She Gets Eaten on Purpose)

Okay, this is puzzling.

So Dr. Laura spends 30 years insulting people on the radio and basically being just a nasty bigoted person. Then one day recently, a black woman calls and complains about some mildly racist things said by her white husband's friends. Dr. Laura responds by ranting about why it's okay for some people to use a certain word while it isn't okay for others to use it. Some people criticize Dr. Laura. (Nothing new here.) Dr. Laura then apologizes. (Definitely something new there.) Then Dr. Laura quits her show.

Wait. What? She quits her show? What the hell for?

It isn't like this is the first time she's pissed people off. She didn't quit then.

Frankly, I don't think that what she said was all that controversial, in the grand scheme of things and in relation to some of the other crap that's come out of her mouth. Certain black comics do use that particular word a lot. And the rules can be confusing. (Tip to Dr. L and everyone else: When in doubt, don't use it.) She was just basically an insensitive ass about it. Which is the norm for her. Even if her viewpoint has some validity, she still wasn't sensitive to other people's views of the word, regardless of how it's used by certain entertainers (and people in my neighborhood). And she particularly wasn't sensitive to her caller, who asked her to refrain before Dr. Laura used the word several more times.

But she did apologize. And her apology was startlingly coherent and (it seemed) sincere. I thought she'd just go back to being this horrible...person (I refrained from using another word that people find offensive here) on the radio with a niche audience and that would be that.

But she quit. Okay, fine. she quit. But here's the problem. Why did she quit, according to her? (Do you want to wait for it? No? Okay.) Her First Amendment rights are being violated.

Oy. Presumably this is what she was talking about. Not sure how it applies, but whatever.

Dr. Laura, this is an honest question for you. Did the government come in and tell you that you couldn't say what you said? Did they shut down your show? Did they threaten to? Because that's how your First Amendment rights get violated. Not by other people exercising those same rights to tell you that you're full of shit and a bunch of sponsors siding with them. You don't have a constitutional right to have a bunch of corporations pay you for being a bigot.

I don't think the First Amendment is the problem here. I think it's you. I think you were sick of doing your show and wanted a way out that could be used to paint other people as the problem. Sorry, no. I actually had a bit of sympathy for you for a few seconds there. You're welcome to go away now.

Or not.

Freedom of Religion*

* Some restrictions may apply. Not valid for muslims within a two-block radius of specific construction sites.

Oh no! The president has stated matter-of-factly that our constitution means more than the paranoid ramblings of Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and everyone else who thinks that allowing a muslim community center to be built (and really, do they need our permission?) is tantamount to treason.

"As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable."

Really, in a sane society this would be about the most non-controversial thing a president could say. And all of you "strict constructionists" out there may want to stop and think how you feel about this. But, as much as a non-issue this should be, the people on the news seem to have another thing that they can milk for ratings. Controversy!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"Will this be an issue for Obama and the Democrats in the fall?" Crikey, I hope so. Let's have them point out just how bigoted and non-strict-constructionist the knuckleheads on the right are being here. Can we please please please have this debate with the tea party people who are soooo in love with our constitution? I'd love to see them attempt to defend their position on constitutional grounds. That'd make a fine and tasty pretzel, I'm sure.

Listen, people. There is nothing remotely controversial about saying we should follow the law and let private citizens build a legal building on a site that they own. And do not bring up the sensitivity thing. It shouldn't come into play. That's not a legal argument. If we need to be sensitive then should we knock down the existing mosque (not community center, like this new "controversial" thing, but an actual mosque) that sits just four blocks from the "sacred ground"? And what should the sacred perimeter be? Ten blocks? Twenty? Slippery slope, anyone?

Free Speech = $$$$$

Here's Mitch McConnell on "Meet the Press" regarding this week's Supreme Court decision, giving corporations carte blanche to spend as much as they want to smear candidates they don't like. (Transcript here.) Host David Gregory has just asked McConnell if he thinks this will benefit Democrats or Republicans.

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, I don't know who it benefits, but it's an important victory for the First Amendment. Right now if you're General Electric and you own NBC, you can say anything you want to about any candidate right up to the day of the election. But if you're a corporation or a union that doesn't own a media outlet, you haven't been able to. So you've had this big gap in the First Amendment applying one standard to media-owned corporations, another standard to unions and corporations that don't own media outlets. Now the Supreme Court has said the First Amendment is for everyone. I think that's a step in the right direction.

Say what?

This isn't bullshit but it is serious spin. He makes a fair point about some corporations owning media outlets and others not owning them. (They just give to the candidates directly.) But the issue here isn't corporation vs. corporation. It's corporation vs. common citizen, the former a legal construct created by the state and the latter the subject of all of those supposed protections in the Constitution.

McConnell is basically saying that everything is fair now because Exxon/Mobil can now spend as much as GE to get its message out. But can I spend that much?

Well, I suppose I can. All I need is several billion dollars and I can have the same rights as Exxon/Mobil or GE. "Saying something", which is protected under the First Amendment, has now officially been equated with "spending buttloads of cash to influence an election".

David Gregory, of course, just lets the statement stand and doesn't once mention the effect on regular people.

Thanks, David, for your hard-hitting journalism. No wonder McConnell is like a barnacle on your freaking show.

Karen Hughes Lies to Us ... Again

It's astonishing to me what some people think other people will believe. Not because I don't think they'll believe it. The Tea Party "movement" is a prime example of being able to get people really fired up about something that doesn't exist. I mean, after all, I'm even impressed that there's a bunch of angry people complaining about how their taxes have gone up and are out of control (Taxed Enough Already, if you buy that) when 95% of them, assuming a representative sample of the tax base makes up the movement, are seeing a tax reduction under this crazy socialist re-distributor of wealth. The re-distribution is going your way, people. Quit complaining. Unless this is really about something else that they don't care to confess. Which it probably is. No, what gets me is how people can spew complete crap like that with a straight face. And get paid big bucks to do so.

Today's jaw-dropper came from Karen Hughes on NBC's "Meet the Press" this Sunday. (Watch it here. Read it here.) The roundtable was discussing how BO has done in his first year and Ms. Hughes, former aide to guess-who, had something really dumb to say. And this is after, by the way, defending Dick Cheney's inappropriate and hypocritical criticisms and calling for criminals to be unilaterally declared enemy combatants and stripped of their rights, which we won't get into.

Bob Woodward had just put the lie to the idea that Obama is some kind of European-style socialist. (Thanks for that, Bob, by the way.) I'll give you the full context.

MR. WOODWARD: But, you know, what's interesting from, who is Barack Obama as president? And, and, and there are people who tried--there was a column The Washington Post Friday in which Charles Krauthammer tried to essentially say he is a European-style socialist because of health care and he's trying to do these other things. Now, I'm trying to do a book on President Obama, and calling him a European socialist is just not even in the ballpark. It's like taking and calling President Bush, because he arranged and worked with Teddy Kennedy on No Child Left Behind, or a prescription drug plan for the elderly, calling George Bush a European socialist, which would be absurd.

MS. HUGHES: Well, I'm not in the name-calling game...

MR. WOODWARD: Barack Obama is not that.

MS. HUGHES: ...but, Bob, would you, would you admit that he has governed far to the left of the way he campaigned? He campaigned as a centrist and has not governed that way.

WHAT? To the left? Far to the left? What the hell are you smoking? You people were all complaining about how left-wing his campaign was. Now, when it's convenient to do so, you act like you all liked him way back when and he's so disappointed you by not being that person you met and fell in love with not so long ago. Come on.

I've noted many times that there is spin and then there is utter bullshit. This falls squarely on the bullshit side, particularly as she states it as if it's just common knowledge and poor Bob Woodward has to just come out and admit it.

Let's review.

Campaigner Obama pledges to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

President Obama has talked about pulling troops out of Iraq but hasn't done so. And he has severely escalated the war in Afghanistan.

MOVEMENT: To the right.

Campaigner Obama pledges to cut taxes for folks making under $250,000 per annum and raise them a little for folks making more.

President Obama does just this.

MOVEMENT: None.

Campaigner Obama pledges to shut down Gitmo within a year, end torture, release those held without charges and prosecute terrorists the old-fashioned way, through our highly useful legal system that we used to be so proud of.

President Obama has not yet shut down Gitmo. He has made the decision to prosecute some, but not all, suspected terrorists in the courts. Many more are still being held without charge or sent to military tribunals. And we'll just have to take his word that they aren't being tortured. Let's hope not.

MOVEMENT: To the right.

Campaigner Obama pledged to fight for universal health care.

President Obama not only didn't put universal health care forth as the starting point (with an expectation that compromise would be necessary) but he started with a simple public option, which was then jettisoned along with almost every thing else worthy of the word "reform". And the bill is still in danger of not passing. And he doesn't seem all that concerned about the situation.

MOVEMENT: To the right.

That's most of what anybody gives a crap about these days. He's moved the country slightly to the left. (It was already so far right under the Bushies that this is not even an accomplishment.) But to even make the suggestion that he's governed to the left, let alone the far left, of what he campaigned on is the most ridiculous nonsense one could possibly hope to spout. He's either done exactly what he said he would or he's gone to the right. If anyone can tell me one area where he's gone left of what he campaigned on, I'm all ears. But I'm not seeing it.

Good to see you, Karen. (Not.) You haven't changed a bit.

Skunks!

Okay, I ordinarily don't write about personal things on this blog, but this is just too cool.

Here's a bit from The Rachel Maddow Show about skunks invading New York City. Some of you may recognize the music in the background of the piece. I almost crapped my pants when I heard it.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

After all these years, ASCAP may finally be sending me that first check. Glad it wasn't on Faux News or I never would have known about it.

Meet the Press and Play It for a Sucker

If you have the stomach for it, watch this lengthy clip. It's hard to sit through just a few minutes of it, but I managed to hold my vomit in and make it to the end. It saddens me to report that I am not a better person for it.

But, if you want to know what the problem with "bipartisanship" is, this is a fine place to start. Representative (and House minority leader) John Boehner and senator Lindsay Graham are, how shall we say it, not exactly dealing in good faith here. And, as someone has pointed out previously, bipartisanship is a two-way street. And the traffic's only going one way right now.

These guys are regulars on shows like this. But if any of these shows had any journalistic standards at all, they'd be laughed off the sound stage on a regular basis. There's spin and there's complete bullshit and Mssrs. Boehner and Graham are way on the stinky side of that equation.

David Gregory occasionally interjects The Tough Question, as he always does to make himself look like a real journalist, but when one of his guests says something patently false, he just lets it go. This is why shitheads like this love these shows. It makes them look like they've run the gantlet, when they've done nothing of the sort. They control the message totally.

Here's the video. Have the Tylenol ready. And the Rolaids, for that matter. What the hell, get the whiskey too.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The transcript is here, if you can't handle looking at the crumbs. And believe me, it's tough.

Some choice moments, refuted (naturally) by Yours Truly.

BOEHNER: And if you look at what the president has been supporting, it’s this big government plan that has some 51 new agencies, boards, commissions, mandates that is going to get in the way of delivering quality care to the American people.

And your evidence for this is...what? How exactly is this going to "get in the way"? Are they going to be in the hospitals telling doctors not to treat patients? Like the insurance companies do now? We'll never know because Gregory doesn't ask.

GRAHAM: The president is selling something that people, quite frankly, are not buying. He’s been on everything but the food channel. Just a few weeks—you know, last week he was addressing the nation.

His problem is when he says the public auction—option won’t affect your healthcare choice, people don’t believe that. ... It’s about the president selling something that people inherently believe sounds too good and doesn’t add up.

People? What people? Here's what a Harris poll said last week.

Based on what you've read, seen or heard, how would you rate the health care plans proposed by each of the following?

President Obama: 53% good, 47% Bad
Democrats in Congress: 46 / 54
Republicans in Congress: 35 / 65

See, Lindsay, you would be one of those "Republicans in Congress" up there. You too, Boehner, FYI.

BOEHNER: Americans today are getting more news about what’s happening in their government than they have ever gotten before, and Americans are genuinely scared to death. Scared to death...

And if this is one of those "news" sources, I can see why. Imagine how scared they are if they watch Fox News, where you guys are the only ones whose "opinions" are considered worthwhile.

BOEHNER: There’s been no bipartisan conversation on Capitol Hill about health care. At some point when these big government plans fail—and they will, the Congress will not pass this—it’s really time for the president to hit the reset button, just stop all of this and let’s sit down and start over in a bipartisan way to build a plan that Americans will support.

You lie! There have been over 160 Republican amendments added to the current bill. Well beyond this, the "public option", which doesn't even seem to be on the table anymore, was a compromise to begin with. If the Democrats had any brains in their heads, they would have started with single-payer (which 60% of doctors support, by the way, those radicals) and the public option might have been a disappointing but fair compromise, not that they deserve one. This is a complete failure of politics.

And you know what, fuck you guys. You didn't give a shit about being "bipartisan" when you were in the majority. Public opinion is not on your side, and yet you speak as if it is not only on your side, but overwhelmingly so. Piss off.

This next one is my favorite.

GRAHAM: [Obama]’s changed his rhetoric because the speech was a disaster. What he’s trying to sell to the American people, they don’t buy. ... So the president’s saying things that people want to hear, but the details don’t add up.

Really? His approval rating went up after the speech and support for a public option, which was always at least in the 50% range before all of the bullshit started spewing, went up again too. To 76%. The speech was only a disaster if you wanted those numbers to go in the other direction. No honest person would ever call it a disaster. And no honest person would ever call Lindsay Graham an honest person. The American people, apparently, are buying it. But you'd never know it from watching "Meet the Press".

Trauma

Well, this makes perfect sense. A giant Times Square-sized advertisement for an undoubtedly entertaining television program. Fire up the Tivo!

Here in New York City we enjoy seeing larger-than-life-size images of things on fire and people in states of panic (trauma, one might say), particularly on a lovely mid-September morning.

Thanks, NBC. Nice work.

Robert Novak

Good riddance, you lying motherfucker.

I'm sure you had family that loved you. To them, I offer my profound condolences.

For the rest of us, you were a smug, deceitful right-wing apologist and propagandist who cared less about the truth and the safety and well-being of everyday Americans than you did about promoting your own ghastly ideology.

It's fitting that you died of a malignant brain tumor because you had the most malignant of brains.

You were the kind of person that makes me dearly wish that I believed in an afterlife, particularly the hot and crispy place, where right about now you would undoubtedly be checking in for an extended stay after a hasty triage to determine your proper infernal stateroom.

The world is a better place without you. You would probably take that as a compliment, as it implies that you "made a difference". Feel free. We'll get on with our lives without you to pollute our air any further.

Sarah, Plain and Simple-Minded

Sarah Palin can't even accept an apology properly. Is it possible for this idiot to comment on anything (anything?) without saying something that's either a) self-serving, b) factually wrong, c) immaterial, d) conservative red meat or e) some combination of the above?

So Letterman makes a stupid joke. Not in the best of taste but no worse than some things that were said on late-night TV during last year's campaign. But she got plenty of publicity last year. Now she needs to work harder to get her face out there more on her own. So she takes a joke about her and her stupid family (yes, I said stupid and I mean it) and tries to make it about "all young women" and "rape". It couldn't possibly be just about her and the poor choices she and her family have made.

The guy apologizes. But this is too easy a way to end the news cycle. She needs to keep it going. So she hammers some more. He apologizes again, which I think was totally unnecessary and played right into her media-grubbing little hands. The apology is so humble, obsequious even, that it would be virtually impossible for her to do anything but accept it graciously. (Which may have been Letterman's secret plan all along, come to think of it.) And does she?

Almost.

Here's the first part:

"Of course it's accepted on behalf of young women, like my daughters, who hope men who 'joke' about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve."

Okay, that's not really what it was about, but that's fine. As good as we could have expected from her. Then she goes on:

"Letterman certainly has the right to 'joke' about whatever he wants to, and thankfully we have the right to express our reaction. And this is all thanks to our U.S. military women and men putting their lives on the line for us to secure America's right to free speech -- in this case, may that right be used to promote equality and respect."

What the...? Can you not just accept an apology without bringing the troops into this? What the hell do they have to do with anything? Are they in Iraq and Afghanistan right now because our U.S.-installed puppet governments there are somehow threatening to come over here and shut down our media and our legal system, silencing all who may exercise their 1st Amendment rights? How exactly are they doing that? Was somebody there posing a threat to our constitution? Argh!

And that last bit about promoting "equality and respect". Is that like when she promoted equality by calling people in small towns "the real America", essentially saying that we city and East Coast types were somehow inferior? Or when she promoted respect by saying that Barack Obama was "palling around with terrorists"?

Go away, you stupid, ignorant Barbie doll.

Man Killed by His Own Reputation, Sez NBC News

This is not a post about the abortion debate. It's a post about language and how its subtleties can distort truth.

Dr. George Tiller was murdered yesterday. He was a provider of abortions and was somewhat controversial for providing late-term (but legal) abortions. Although it is suspected that he may have performed some later-than-legal abortions.

This is how NBC Nightly News reported on the murder.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Did you catch it? It was right at the beginning. "His notoriety cost him his life." Not a bullet. Not some crazed person who didn't agree with what Dr. Tiller did. Dr. Tiller himself caused his death. This is an irresponsible use of language.

I guess if I go murder Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld they'll have a news report saying that they were magically killed by their own notoriety. I'd have nothing to do with it.

No matter what you think of this man and his actions, he did not kill himself and he did not bring his death upon himself. He was murdered.