Overheards At The Fireworks Show

Guy 1: So yeah. I think that "Hey Vern!" guy was the first person to get his big break in movies thanks to his commercials.

Guy 2: Man, did I hate that guy.

Girl 1: So does that mean we get to blame Ernest Whatsisface for that Caveman show?

Guy 2: Now I REALLY hate that guy!

And We Are Poorer For It

Early this morning, a great mind was lost to us.



No more will he grant us his insights into the complete foolishness of humanity.

RIP.

It's Over

After a 17-month long campaign, we Democrats finally have our nominee.

Hillary Rodham Clinton ended her historic campaign for the presidency on Saturday and told supporters to unite behind rival Barack Obama, closing out a race that was as grueling as it was groundbreaking.

Ye gods, this has gone on forever. Finally we can get rid of the political fatigue that this directed-by-Peter-Jackson-length campaign has inflicted upon us. We can rest, knowing that the candidates are secured and the targets are selected. We can recover with very little additional sniping between the ranks, our very own form of political friendly fire.

...

Oh the hell with it. I need a drink. Fortunately there is always this.

See you tonight.

Bill Murray Had It Easy

Is it over? At long last, has this long cold nuclear-winter of a political season been finished? Are we through with the belly crawl over 47 miles of barbed wire? Can we stop the water torture?

Tonight, I poke my head out of my safe hole and see...

Hillary Clinton's shadow on a stage in New York. Refusing to concede.

Man, does that Punxsutawney Phil have a good life. All he has to do is watch out for his own shadow.

Let me know when the storm has passed completely, which will be the day she concedes.

Killing Memes

I got tagged. Looks like two full weeks ago, too. (Sorry, Ang.)

Would you give up one of your values / morals for $1 million?

Yes. I'd say publicly that the new Indiana Jones movie is the first blockbuster hit of the year and destined to win multiple Academy Awards, especially Best Original Screenplay for David Koepp and George Lucas and Best Actress for Cate Blanchett.

Hey, if I'm going to betray a deeply held moral value, I might as well go out in style. (That and Lucas is one of the few people that could afford that kind of payola. I expect it in the mail, George. We'll do lunch.)

As for another set of tagging... Well, I don't do too well historically with my tags. So tag amongst yourselves, but use this question:

For one million dollars, would you insult, abuse, denigrate and completely humiliate a major political figure to their face and on camera? Especially one that has a reputation for vindictiveness and vengeance?

Drifting

Take your favorite song.

Got it?

Good.

Now set it on the wayside like a well-loved toy.

I found you a new toy.



Enjoy.

[headdesk]

Via too many people to mention comes a photo of Barack Obama, all dressed up in Somali garb.

All of this proves, of course, that he is a treasonous scumbag that should be run out of the country before he can do even temporary harm to this great nation.

Soon to be revealed will be pictures of Hillary Clinton when she dressed as a witch one Hallowe'en as a child, thus proving that she truly is in league with the legions of Hell.

Also coming down the pipe are photos of Mike Huckabee being placed in a manger as a baby, thus proving that he is the Second Coming incarnate and therefore is to be the leader of the free world.

Coming later this year will be a rewrite of The Ten Commandments, where Moses will say "You can keep this golden calf when you pry it out of my cold dead hands, you damn dirty apes!"

And the Department of Defense will order Kiefer Sutherland to Iraq, where total and complete victory against the insurgency will only be 24 hours away.

And, of course, the below picture has always been the proof regarding the homoerotic nature of the Bush White House.



To quote Pat Cadigan, "Is this high enough in the stupidsphere for you?"

American Idiots, the lot of them.

The going keeps getting weirder and weirder, for all the weird have turned pro.

A Light Is Seen

Jeff Fecke:

Until we let boys onto the paths of their choosing, we're constraining just how free girls are to choose their own paths. Until we free masculinity to be as varied and expansive as femininity, we're placing an ultimate boundary on femininity itself.

He seems to be getting closer to the point where he will start to agree with what I said back in October.

To strive for all humans to be treated equally is frustrating. Being what we are, we attach our certain circumstances to our declarations, whether it be for our gender or for our ancestors or for our religion or for our nationality. It ranges from men’s rights, women’s rights, sexual preference rights, hyphenated-American’s rights, yet it boils down to the same thing. We want the right to be free to choose. To be free to decide. To be what we so desire to be, without anyone to gainsay against us or stop us from making the attempt.

And that is the true basis for equality: freedom. So long as you do not actively cause harm against another person with your choices, a truly free society should never stand in your way.

While part of me would love to spread the old snarks about blind squirrels and stopped clocks, the rest of me realizes that to do so would be counterproductive in the extreme. Here he is, one of the most rabid male feminists in the blogosphere, making the argument regarding the next logical step to the core argument of feminism: that one's gender of birth need not determine one's entire existence in the eyes of society.

Admittedly, he describes this situation using the traditional language of feminism. Yet that cannot be escaped completely. Jesus of Nazareth was a good Jewish man, and he couldn't entirely get away from using the words and phrases he learned as a child. And just as the teachings of the Nazarene were called by a different name to distinguish between itself and its predecessor, so to will the teachings of this brand of feminism be called something else entirely in order to distinguish itself from its own predecessor...

Equality. Pure, undiluted equality. A society where we are free to decide on the lives that we so desire, unconstrained by the slightest modicum of social concerns based on race or gender or creed or anything else, is the ultimate goal of human equality.

I can only hope that Jeff will realize the ultimate goal of his philosophy, as well as realize that you cannot have a philosophy of equality while still attaching gender-specific titles to it. For as long as you fight for one group's rights and ignore the rest, you cannot pursue equality.

Honest Question

This one goes to any and all members of the left-leaning blogosphere unfortunate enough to land upon this poor and misused hole in the intertubes.

Ezra said something this morning that makes me seriously wonder if he's paying close enough attention to the 2008 campaign:

On the same day, Romney quietly won the Nevada caucuses, giving him 18 delegates, McCain and Giuliani seem, to me, to be running momentum campaigns, hoping that their profile and earned media will vault them to victory in large states.

Why, oh why, does the Big Media One even mention the name of America's Mayor in this sentence? Does he see something in the tea leaves for Rudy's hopes and dreams in Florida? Because I don't. He will get stomped on just like he has in every contest he's entered since he said he wanted to be the Mayor of America that resides at 1600 Penn. Ron Paul has twice the delegates that Rudy has, and Paul doesn't even have name recognition outside the blogosphere.

But that is the past, you say? Look at the RCP average, you say? Rudy can win this one, you say? Or at least get close enough that he doesn't lose, you say?

I'm afraid that it still won't be enough to hope for a close loss for Giuliani. If he can't pull out anything better than a resounding 15-point surprise shocker in Florida, without voter fraud, then his campaign is dead before Terminal Tuesday even gets here. And if he even wins by a single vote, I go on record and proclaim that I will buy a full round at the next Blogger Bash in penance for my hasty words. (And if that doesn't get David to start working on the next one, then nothing will!)

Giuliani is in a car with four flat tires here. Please stop telling him to get out and push by encouraging his campaign and saying it depends on "momentum". He hasn't had a scrap of positive momentum since August of last year.

For that matter, please stop mentioning him entirely, for that is the only thing resembling momentum he has ever had in the first place.

Carpe jugulum.

Roll On The Floor Laughing

Teh Funny

[T/S: Wheels]

A Sucker For A Meme

I can't resist it. Blame David. Again.

Good For The Goose

While this title could easily be about the Clinton and McCain wins today in New Hampshire simply by following it with the rest of the old yarn, I'm afraid I have something much more important to refer.

GOSSAGE IS IN!

After falling short eight times, Gossage received 85.8 percent of the vote Tuesday, easily surpassing the 75 percent threshold for baseball’s highest honor and becoming just the fifth reliever in Cooperstown’s bullpen.

I've said before that I've been a long-time fan of San Diego sports teams, and I'll say it yet again sometime soon enough. Gossage and Gwynn were two of my childhood sports heroes. Few people could close like the Goose. Few people could hit it like Tony. And never unless they were also in a Padres uniform.

Last year was Tony's year. This year is the Goose's year.

Congratulations, Rick. You deserve it.

(And may Trevor Hoffman make it on the first ballot.)

No More Feel Good

David J., commenting over at the King of Drunkblogging:

I’m still trying to figure out how Hillary can claim to have been an Agent of Change for the last 35 years. I mean, she can’t even claim to be the wife of the Agent of Change for the last 35 years. I mean, he was an incumbent in there a few times, and that doesn’t translate into Agent of Change status, does it?

I would still take her over the other Democrats, but that’s just because I think she would do the least harm of the bunch.

Sorry to Teh Zomby, but I have to disagree somewhat. For a given value of "somewhat", that is. After all, a slight disagreement in theory isn't quite what causes a volcanic spit-take, you know.

Regardless of who wins in November, nothing will actually get done and nothing can actually change unless and until the New Do Nothings, with the charming [snark] Nancy Pelosi on lead vocals, start actually accomplishing things and stop the self-congratulation for winning control of Congress.

It's been a year now and they've done... [Cricket-cricket-cricket] Yeah. Pretty much sums it all up. Their greatest efforts of last year seem to be with non-binding resolutions and Sense Of The House votes that fail to do anything but make the rabid fanatic progressives happy that someone is "raising the consciousness" regarding certain issues. That is precisely the problem with the theory behind non-binding resolutions: they don't mean anything.

Majority Leader Reid has at least made some effort to move forward, trying to get bills on the table that could possibly accomplish something. However, he is faced with an opposition that possesses a masterful control of parliamentary procedure. Anything that the Republican minority doesn't like, they block. What they can't block, they delay. What they can't delay, they obscure. What they can't obscure, they dismantle. What they can't dismantle, they pass through and let the President veto.

(As much as I hate to say it, I have to hand it to the Republican leadership in the Senate. They are playing the game of the minority better than the Patriots are playing the game of football. Well done.)

Regretfully, the only thing that will change after this political season is in the record books will be that the GOP minority in the Senate won't have a Republican President standing behind them with the veto pen.

How to fix it? That should be the next question on your minds, right? How do we accomplish the merely possible: getting away from simply re-building the consensus that we already have and move towards wielding it like Hacksaw Jim Duggan's trusty 2x4, stomping the terra and becoming what the social-conservatives have feared ever since the Gingrich Revolution stalled in place.

First, and this may seem like an idea from the politically oblivious, stop talking about what the other team is doing and start talking more about what your own team is doing. Exhibit A: The website of the Democratic Party's Recent Legislation page. Glance through this for a moment and you will notice one obvious fact. They talk more about what the Republicans are doing, specifically President Bush and those vying for the nomination, than they do of their own accomplishments. (Plus a good four entries in the gotcha politics surrounding the Graeme Frost flap from last year.) Of course, this leads directly into the next point...

Second: Where were the goals? You know, that handy-dandy 6-Point Plan from the start of the 2006 session? Let's see here. Honest Leadership and Open Government? The only actual advancement on this front came primarily from Republican Tom Coburn, with Barack Obama as his co-sponsor, introducing the Federal Funding Accountability And Transparency Act, with the rest of them being along the lines of show trials and public humiliation. (See Point Four below for more on this.) Energy Independence? All signs point to "no". Health care? They made the effort, but it got blocked by the veto pen and humiliated by the aforementioned Graeme Frost debacle. Real Security? Maria Cantwell got the Coast Guard Authorization Act through, which tries to keep the boys and girls in CG blue at current levels, for they are the ones that really stand on the front lines for the safety of Americans at home. Economic Prosperity and Educational Excellence? Well, first they failed for tossing two different points into the same bullet, and then they failed by not being able to accomplish either of the above. Retirement Security? [Cricket] Yeah, sure.

So of their 6(but-really-7)-Point Plan, they got 2.5 points, and that's being generous. In the words of the LOLCat: FAIL. If they were serious in trying to create changes in the capitol, they would have put much more effort into crafting bills that effected the way the country is run and less effort putting together photo opportunities like the various feel-good non-binding resolutions.

Third (and this is where any progressive still reading will file me to the right of Bill O'Reilly): Get rid of the feel-good politics of Nancy Pelosi. She is much better served as being the party's Whip in Congress, keeping people in line and putting votes on the tally board. For that, I can give her all the kudos and salutations in the world. Yet the substantive policies and efforts seem to be lacking. Listening to Pelosi talk about policy is like listening to a certain South Carolina beauty queen talk about policy; they just don't get it.

Running a government is not all about looking good for the cameras and giving good sound bite for the talking heads. Given the state of American politics, some of that must certainly come into play, just as the Gingrich Revolution taught us. Yet beside the photo opportunity must sit the actual substance, which is also what the Gingrich Revolution taught us. A photo-op for the sake of a photo-op is useless. (Exhibit B: Teh Dubya) It may make your base feel good, but feel-good doesn't accomplish anything. (Unless you are actually living in an Orwellian society. But if you were, then you would be outsent to an unfree facility in Greenland just for reading this doubleplusungood unpatriotic drivel.)

Fourth: When you put someone on the ropes, you don't let them stand back up again. Look at all the investigative hearings that happened over the last year: Gonzalez, Schlozman, Doan, Taylor, Sampson, and far too many more to list before dawn. And what really came of them? One significant resignation in Alberto Gonzales, one resignation of a man that outlived his political usefulness in Karl Rove, a bunch of personnel shuffling behind the scenes at the DoJ and DoD and OEOB and the rest of the alphabet soup, and tons upon tons upon tons of feel-good photo ops.

And what did we do afterwards? Nothing. Congressional Democrats had the ball, were charging for the goal line... and dropped it at the 2-yard line to have themselves a premature celebration. Fortunately, not all of them took the time to pat themselves on the back so hard that they sprained a shoulder. Henry Waxman has pounced on the loose ball and kept it from being a turnover. Given the constant and consistent train wreck of fiscal (and personal) irresponsibility coming from the White House these days, there isn't enough time for a Democratic Congress to rest on their rather limited supply of laurels.

Fifth, and potentially the most damaging: When you say you are against something, do not then turn around and act like you are for it in order to score political points. See: Iraq "war" funding. After the 2006 elections, the huge talking point coming from Speaker-Select Pelosi's office and every other Democrat in Washington, D.C. was that the electorate had issued a mandate against the Mess In Mesopotamia. Yet what have we continued to do? Vote for it. Fund it. Give the President his special appropriations. What have they failed to do? Anything and everything they claimed they had the support of the people to accomplish. Why? Because it would not be feel-good. It would be hard. It would be difficult. It would make people not like them. And, least important to us talking heads but most important to them as political actors, it would be held over their heads. Simply talking about the possibility sent them onto the sound-bite defensive. And in feel-good politics, being on the defensive means you aren't doing what is right, simply because you're doing something that someone does not like.

Bull.

Congressional Democrats need to realize that, regardless of what they do, the GOP will not be their philosophical allies. They need to realize that doing the right thing, the good thing, the thing they swore up one side and down the other that they would accomplish regardless of all opposition, is not something that will win friends and influence people across the spectrum.

All Democrats need to realize this, whether they are running for the House, the Senate, or reaching for 1600 Pennsylvania. If they want to get something done that is difficult, they have to be willing to take the hits.

But hits don't feel good. And that is why the politics of feel-good have to be set aside, right alongside their champion in the House: Nancy Pelosi.

Feel-good works with the progressive base of the Democratic Party, the Atriots and Kossacks and FDL'ers and TAP'd. Feel-good does not work when trying to bring about the very changes that you claimed were the reasons why you retook the majority. Feel-good does not beget change. Feel-good is the comfortable, the traditional, the (Dare I say it?) conservative position.

Democrats are not conservatives. So why be feel-good when that is precisely what the other side wants you to be?

[Linked to by Teh Zomby aforementioned]

The Off Colfax List Of Best Books Of 2007 That No One Has Heard Of

Well, here we are. Another holiday season gone by, and you were actually fortunate enough for your Great-Aunt Sue Ann to give you a gift card to Borders or Barnes & Noble or Amazon rather than the usual pair of puce and cream macramé socks. But what to get with it?

Here are my unsung, or sometimes sung at too low of a volume, gems of the past year. This won't be a list with your Skinny Bitches and Looming Towers and Eat Pray Loves and Ann Coulters and Water For Elephants and Oprah Book Clubs and Age of Turbulences and James Patterson's team of ghost writers and et bloody ceteras. (C'mon. You can't tell me that you expect a single person to crank out 5 new novels in a calendar year without using ghost writers, even with such incomprehensible twaddle as Patterson usually releases under his name. That's just crazy talk.) This is for the real book lovers that can venture beyond the best-sellers list.

I know what you're thinking. Dude. How come this strange OC person could be qualified to judge what could be a good book, much less one of the best books of the year. Simply put, and most of you don't know this, I've been working at the bookstores in Denver International Airport for the past 6 months. So I'm constantly picking up random books and leafing through them. And when I start unconsciously reaching for a handy place to sit, I know I have a good one. (Now all I need is a way to spot my manager before he spots me first.) (And no. I don't get any kickbacks from these links. So click away without fear of accidentally supporting an anonymous blogger.)

First, for the occasional high-school girl that randomly gets to this page via the Next Blog button while still laughing at the incompetent emo threatening to cut his fingernails, I give you the Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. Gabrielle Zevin brings us the occasional daydream of every high-school student: What if I was able to start here at school all over again? In this one, one high-school junior is is about to do so after falling down some icy stairs and waking up to zero memory of the last four years of her life. Remarkably well-written and highly accessible, even to those odd socialites that insist they only read the Clique series and are very stuck-up about it.

Next up on the list... Hmmm. Let me guess. You've heard of the Dangerous Book for Boys, right? And the Daring Book for Girls as well? Good. Now have you read the Dangerous Book for Dogs? I didn't think so. This is every good dog's essential companion in the ever-lasting quest to become the bad dog that they always wanted to be. From proper ways to get out of the yard undetected, to cat-chasing tips, to a taste comparison between Dolce & Gabanna leather slides and Kenneth Cole moccasin-stitched loafers, it's all here. Pay special attention to the etiquette section on crotch-sniffing. Please. Your humans will thank you. (And yes. It is a parody. But I'm still waiting for the Daring Book for Cats to come out.)

Now, for you cooking fanatics out there comes this collection of sordid tales of the kitchen called Don't Try This At Home. All of us have a war story about when things go horribly wrong in that strange place-where-food-is-put-together-place. (Yes, even when you accidentally microwaved the foil-wrapped leftovers because you were too hungover to notice. That counts.) With little of the pretension of Anthony Bourdain's ego-stroke known as Kitchen Confidential, this collection of Murphy's Law-related stories will cheer you up immensely. Whether it is the lobsters that are off or the kitchen is flooded or the cake is in 15 pieces on the Long Island Expressway, it is proof positive that the more (self?)important the chef, the larger the associated screw-ups.

Music lovers and musicians alike will enjoy this book by Daniel Levitin called This Is Your Brain On Music. A former music producer turned cognitive psychologist, Levitin delves into such obscure elements as neurobiology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, empirical philosophy, Gestalt psychology, memory theory, and neurochemistry; and all in language that is easily accessible to anyone, regardless of whether you can carry a tune in a bucket or not. Read it. Love it. Pass it on. Only try to get it back afterwards. Unfortunately, my copy is still in the hands of my manager's family in El Paso. Hopefully I can get it back one of these days. (Then again, I'm on my 9th copy of Ishmael, 6th copy of Atlas Shrugged and 3rd copy of Shampoo Planet, so probably not. I have a habit of buying books that migrate.)

For us science-fiction lovers out there, a new release of an old trilogy has hit the shelves. The Chronicles of the Black Company, from way back in the '80s, has returned to print once more. Not individually, mind you, but in an onmibus edition that will keep you well and truly happy with life for a serious stretch of time. This is one of those books that most of the "professional" booksellers never believe would sell, but it marches straight out of the store whenever new copies arrive, in lockstep with a very happy new owner.

For you current affairs fanatics, I have three words for you: Band of Sisters. With the ever-increasing number of females serving in the military, and particularly in the Iraqi theater of operations, this is one of the first books to chronicle their stories. If I had time, I could wax poetic for hours about this book, but I would run out of metaphors far too quickly for my taste. Pick up a copy at the next possible opportunity. Just don't ask me for one. I'm sold out.

And finally, for those fiction lovers out there, comes my one extraordinary odd choice: The Gum Thief. Of course, for those that know the Me-Behind-The-Keyboard, any Coupland novel is far from an odd choice. I've been a raving fanboy since I first read Generation X in college. It's practically expected that I love and promote a new Coupland novel, sometimes before I even read it. Which, unfortunately, was what I was doing with JPod, which I tossed aside in disgust at the self-aggrandizing and self-promotion even while chortling at the occasional self-abuse. In the Gum Thief, he returns to what he does best: real people in real situation talking about their real lives... and how much they really suck. Most people wouldn't expect a novel about a 40-something alcoholic and 20-something overweight goth girl, both working at a Staples, to be interesting. Most people would be sadly mistaken.

So what are you still reading this for? Go and read something with quality for a change. G'wan. Shoo.

Fuel For The Mind

It’s 4 a.m., and I’m gacked to the teats on energy drinks. Four cans of Red Bull, four cans of Full Throttle, two cans of Rockstar, and a 10-ounce plastic cup full of some nameless yellow drool they dispense straight from the beverage gun over at the pub across the way. I’m bug-eyed, red-eyed, itchy, twitchy, anxious and sweaty and grinding my teeth, talking to myself and talking to the walls and talking to my dog. Which isn’t unusual—the talking to my dog part, that is. I do that all the time. Except ordinarily he just looks back at me, like he’s bored, or he needs a biscuit, or something. This time, he just looks too scared to answer.

Is that a bug crawling on the wall?

Maybe I’d have been better off with Neuro Fuel. What’s a Neuro Fuel, you ask? Well, really, you didn’t ask. I asked for you. Because I’m the one sitting here in a paranoid frenzy, trying to make a late-night finish on a story about Knoxville’s own contribution to the energy-drink market. And talking to myself, and to the dog, and to the walls. And now I’m talking to you, too. Wait, this isn’t making any damn sense.

Hmmmm. I wonder if this guy has been peeking at some of my draft posts. Still, it is an interesting concept: re-evaluate the energy drink concept and provide one that actually gives the consumer what they actually expect from the neo-magical 8.6 oz. can and remove all the negatives that they really don't want.

Check out Neuro Fuel for yourselves. The website is highly Flash-oriented, so you might want to be sure your script-blockers are bypassed for this one. And then hope for Internet-based distribution, so that one can answer the most important question when it comes to energy drinks:

Does it mix well with vodka?

[T/S: the man that posts so much that he has a Red Bull IV drip.]