POPCONSERVATIVE

Triumphant Return

2009-03-19T21:03:00.001-06:00

I like this picture...and not just because I don't like Obama.

I bowld!!

NFL Predictions

2007-08-31T17:39:00.000-06:00

OK, we are now one week away from the start of the NFL season. That means that it's time for some predictions. The important thing to remember is that, if I am proven right, it's because I am a genius, and if I am wrong, it's because predicting games is a crap shoot and unforeseen circumstances threw me off. So here we go.

AFC playoff teams:
Denver Broncos
Indianapolis Colts
New England Patriots
New York Jets
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Diego Chargers

NFC playoff teams:
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Dallas Cowboys
New Orleans Saints
Seattle Seahawks
Washington Redskins

Super Bowl: Patriots over Saints

So there it is, exactly how the season is going to shake out. It is pretty dangerous putting it in writing like this, but I am confident in my predictive powers and/or brave and stupid. But I think it's pretty obvious that the Pats are making one last Super Bowl push this season before they will need to rebuild that aging defense. The Saints looked pretty darn good against a terrible KC team in the one preseason game I saw them play in, and the defense seems to have improved (Chiefs prediction: 6-10, with fans calling for Herm Edwards' head, something that will never happen because he only got the job in the first place because he is pals with Carl Peterson). I think that Al Saunders will get the 'skins on track and they will be one of the surprise teams this year. And the Colts will have a slight letdown after their SB win, but not enough of one not to still win the AFC South. I encourage you to go out and put money on these picks. I won't, but I have no problem telling you to waste your money.

The cost of Katrina keeps rising for everyone

2007-08-30T15:05:00.000-06:00

In the wake of the Norman Hsu controversy, Hillary Clinton says she will do a better job of investigating donors in the future. Hsu has given more than $260,000 to Democrats from California and Massachusetts, all while having a warrant out for his arrest in California. I don't know who looks worst in this mess, but you can bet Hillary will pay the biggest price.

Mitt Romney is soliciting user-created campaign ads for an online contest, with the winner having his video bought and used on TV. The folks at Town Hall like the idea, and so do I.

John Edwards doesn't think you should drive an SUV, but has no plans to get rid of his. More here. There is a reason why the only Democratic presidential candidates anyone talks about anymore are Hillary and Obama. And that reason's name is John Edwards.

One of the Marines formerly under investigation for possible crimes at Haditha is planning to sue Congressman John Murtha for libel. Ouch.

While most of his Senate colleagues are calling for Larry Craig to resign, many bloggers are defending him, to some extent at least. It is clear from this blog roundup that the most egregious thing Craig did was try to use the "do you know who I am?" defense.

The state of Louisiana has received $127 billion in federal aid in the wake of hurricane Katrina. For some context, the GDP of Louisiana is $141 billion. Mississippi, meanwhile, has been awarded $23.5 billion. And guess which state is further along in its rebuilding efforts.

The New York Times says the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is in the US constitution. Well done.

The "consensus" you keep hearing about concerning scientists who believe that human activity is directly responsible for climate change is actually about 45%. Although that probably is a majority to the NY Times.

Here is some shocking news: racial preferences in law school admissions do not produce more minority lawyers. I doubt something silly like facts will get in the way of affirmative action supporters, though.

A Colorado school has banned the game of tag on its playground. I'm so glad I was allowed to have fun during my childhood.

UN weapons inspectors found weapons of mass destruction...at the UN. Oops.

The top 10 SportsCenter commercials.

A montage of people playing/singing/hand farting the Mario Bros. theme.

PopConservative: Eight months of a poor man's blogging

2007-08-24T14:20:00.000-06:00

An initiative has been proposed for the 2008 ballot in Missouri that would make human cloning illegal. Because even though the ballot language for Amendment 2 in 2006 expressly banned cloning, the actual text of the amendment did the exact opposite. Thanks again, Robin Carnahan.

Michael Vick will not admit to participating in or betting on dogfights. That seems fairly predictable; he'll plead guilty to the less gruesome counts in return for the really ugly charges getting dropped.

The National Intelligence Estimate is conveying what many have been saying for months: the troop surge has been successful enough that a premature withdrawal would be disastrous.

George Will is probably right when he says that many on the right made too much of a NY Times opinion piece that said the surge was working. Of course part of the reason was that it was so out of character for the Times. Not out of character: rejecting an op-ed by Iraq war veterans who wanted to respond to a Sunday op-ed by another group of Iraq war veterans that supported an immediate withdrawal.

The Times isn't the only paper that particularly relishes the gatekeeping and agenda-setting aspects of journalism. But when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer raised a big middle finger to those who complained that they wanted to decide what is and is not news, and what is and is not fair, they ended up looking foolish. Taking your position in society more seriously than anyone else will usually do that.

Yahoo and MSN have agreed to censor themselves and blogs they control for the Chinese market. Some things happening in China are good, such as the recognition of property rights and a free-market economy. Some things, however, remind us why Communism is so terrible, such as regulating internet content to exclude criticism of the government and endorsements of liberal democracy.

And because we are constantly reminded of why Communism is bad, it should make us take a harder stance against Hugo Chavez, who to this point has gotten somewhat of a free pass in the American press.

The construction of the security fence between Israel and the Palestinian territories has reduced successful attacks by 90%. Bet you didn't see that on the Nightly News.

More Hamas cartoon propaganda, this time attacking Fatah, the rival Palestinian Authority party (mostly) supported by the US.

Tell your kids: women are low-risk adults, men are high-risk adults. But, as Glenn Reynolds reminds us, do not tell your kids whether certain ethnic groups commit more crime than others; restrict your socialization of discrimination to gender.

It is against the law in many European countries to use an internet connection that does not belong to you, even if it is unsecured. This is of interest to me because I am writing this on a "borrowed" wi-fi connection right now. Sorry, neighbors.

Hilariously self explanatory: Goth Day at Disneyland.

Maybe this will drive up the comments from "0" to "some": if Mellow Yellow is he poor man's Mountain Dew, then PopConservative is the poor man's what?

Now I have something to call myself, since 'netroots' means 'douchebag'

2007-08-23T16:03:00.001-06:00

Barack Obama said that his wife Michelle's comments about a president requiring a strong family were not aimed at Hillary Clinton. And Bill never cheated on her, either.

Hugh Hewitt was right: the large number of terrorists and killed and captured in Iraq was not the headline or lead following President Bush's speech at the VFW Conference in Kansas City. It was a pretty safe prediction, though.

The Kurds of northern Iraq have been threatened with "cleansing" by Iran. I don't know if a federalist partition along ethnic lines would benefit the Kurds or leave them more exposed to attacks from their Muslim neighbors.

The History Channel tells 9/11 conspiracy theorists (that means you, Rosie O'Donnell) that they are wrong, always have been wrong, and always will be wrong.

I guess Town Hall has been reading my stuff: they also are reminding you that a higher tax rate does not result in higher revenue.

Newsweek reports that Bill Clinton never actually authorized the CIA to kill Osama bin Laden. Whoops. While this looks bad, since Clinton lied about it and all, I agree with Captain Ed that it makes little sense to treat this as a partisan issue. In fact, I almost never understand the idea of making a partisan debate out of any national security issue.

Way back when, Jonah Goldberg says, Republicans were said to rule the web. Now, folks are saying, Dems are in charge. Like everything else in politics, enthusiasm is cyclical on the internet. Except on this blog, where I'm always enthusiastic.
And on that note: welcome to the web, Rightroots.

I used to be of the opinion that Chiefs fans were some of the smartest in the league. Support for career backup Damon Huard to win the starting QB position, however, has me rethinking that. Fortunately, it looks like second-year player Brodie Croyle will win the role. Which is fine, because I don't see the Chiefs being that good this year anyway. It's a power-running team with an offensive line that just keeps getting worse. Might as well get Croyle ready for next year, when they could possibly compete. Although with Herm Edwards in charge, what they would be competing for is likely a 10-6 regular season and a first-round playoff loss.

Call them the Al Gore, Jr., all stars: deadbeat relatives of famous people. And what do you know, Bill Clinton even pardoned one of them.

Travis Green's last wish was to be in a movie. The result is The Boy Who Everyone Loved and Who Never Died. Until he did, because he had cancer.

PopConservative: the Obama-bashing edition

2007-08-22T16:15:00.001-06:00

It's been more than two weeks since I wrote anything; anyone miss me? Not enough to get a comment about it. Let's get back to it.

A lot has happened in the presidential races since my last post. Fortunately, Town Hall summarizes what I missed for me.

Not only did Barack Obama make the same mistake for a second time when he said he would meet with any world leader the dictator's convenience, but his staff was allowed to view the very question that caused him to stumble before the debate. Had he just come up with the answer on the fly, it would not have been too bad; watching it live, I didn't think twice about his response until Hillary Clinton responded with a more measured answer. But he didn't come up with his answer on the fly; he had every chance to respond, and thought that a jab at the Bush administration was more important than good foreign policy.
Michelle Obama has also made headlines for an errant comment about a candidate's home life affecting his or her presidency, which seemed targeted at Hillary. So now Barack has to worry about his wife doing her best Elizabeth Edwards impression while also campaigning with a second-rate staff.
And the Obama blunders just keep coming. He has played the race card, all but threatening other Democrats into making sure he is on the ticket no matter what happens. While it is probably true that a black candidate would do well among black voters, I think a 30% rise in turnout is a bit of an overestimate.
Oprah's fundraising event for Obama is gong to ban cameras and all recording devices. Nothing suspicious there.
Finally, somebody who was glad to hear from Obama. Too bad it was Cuba's foreign minister.

Mitt Romney's record on abortion has been the biggest obstacle in his run for the White House. So it is even more confounding that he is still struggling to express his stance on abortion rights and Roe v. Wade. I used to think that Rudy Giuliani had allowed this to hurt him more than Romney; after Romney also tried to apply the Federalism approach to an issue based almost entirely on when life begins, I'm not so sure who has made a bigger mess of it.

I was just wondering why Bill Richardson is not a higher-profile candidate in the Democratic race. He has a lot going for him: proven management as a governor; foreign policy experience as a Clinton-era ambassador; instant liberal cred as a minority; and he may be the most moderate candidate in the race. Well, NRO wonders why he is doing as well as he is. After rolling off a list of his blunders, including calling Al Sharpton a governor (and despite what Sharpton may have told you, he has never been elected governor of anything), they discuss his success. He has good ads, and they may outweigh his lackluster debate performances, something we may be putting too much stock in.

The initiative to split California's Electoral College votes seems to have legs. The Peddlers doubt it will pass, but could be close.

What do you know: England's single-payer health care system has resulted in a mediocre cancer survival rate. Number one on the list? The for-profit American system.

Louisiana Democrats want you to believe that the Republican candidate for governor hates protestants. Too bad their argument falls apart as soon as you read his paper from which this accusation is drawn.

And what do the open-minded netroots-types want done with the Blue Dog Democrats? They want them out of office. Welcome to the Big Tent Party, folks.

Stephon Marbury doesn't think that Michael Vick should be severely punished for participating in the "sport" of dogfighting. Thanks, Starbury. Maybe you and Clinton Portis can start your own "Free Vick" campaign.

The New Republic's handling of the Scott Beauchamp fiasco keeps getting worse. He made stuff up; admit it and move on.
Of course, it's not so easy to move on when publications that have spent years screaming about Bush exaggerating evidence about Iraq's WMD capabilities are found to be exaggerating themselves.

What does the BBC spend UK tax dollars on? Changing President Bush's middle name to "Wanker" on Wikipedia.

Two-thirds of Americans oppose new gun control laws. See, people are smart.

Glenn Reynolds points out that the rich are getting richer: Harvard's endowment grew $5 billion in the past year. Should their investment profits be taxed the way people want oil companies to be?

Obama's new foreign policy: meet 'em all, kill 'em all

2007-08-02T13:32:00.000-06:00

Rudy Giuliani has accused the Democratic presidential candidates wanting to run a nanny state and raise taxes to an oppressive level. Mickey Kaus finds his nanny crack a little hypocritical. His attacks on John Edwards and Barack Obama for poor economic policy, though, is right on target. I wonder why liberals find it so hard to understand that a higher tax rate reduces incentives to earn money, and therefore reduces revenue.
Rudy also backed Hillary Clinton in her foreign relations feud with Obama. But, then again, who wouldn't?

Mickey has some advice for John McCain: turn against the press. He even writes a speech for him.

Obama wants to send troops to Pakistan. He also seemed at least lukewarm to the idea of military involvement in the Sudan during the last debate. So I guess Obama wants the US military to be everywhere except in Iraq. In fact, he's for more military operations than the Bush administration.

The Associated Press, where a story about declining casualties in Iraq requires extra effort to be sufficiently anti-surge. And Joe Lieberman tells his fellow Democrats to take terrorism seriously. For probably the 50th time.

NRO says that, in a primary where all of the Republicans have non-conservative skeletons in their closets, managerial excellence could become a paramount concern. Because while conservatives feel betrayed by Bush's liberal leanings, they also feel burned by his mismanagement in several key areas.

Democrats promised to be fiscally responsible if they took over Congress. Recently, Bush asked them to redirect more of the subsidies in the farm bill to family-owned farms. Congress did neither, pushing through a farm bill where large corporate farms receive 75% of the benefits.

Eastern European states are embracing a flat tax system and encouraging international businesses to make their homes there. I am curious to see how well it works.

I would probably react the same way if I were doing a story about vegansexuals.

Why should you buy a Super Nintendo? Because Paul Rudd says so.

Let's make a list of reasons to watch The Procedure. Andy Richter? Check. Will Ferrell? Check. Willem Dafoe dancing? Check. Bon Jovi? Check.

There is a decent chance you've seen Steve Carrell in Street of Pain, but if you haven't, here it is.

Will Hillary's graduates come up with a Social Security plan for her?

2007-07-31T12:03:00.000-06:00

A pair of anti-war NY Times reporters recently went to Iraq...and changed their minds about a few things. It turns out that first-hand observations are more useful than third-hand opinions. This is exactly why I prefer to listen to what people like Gen. Petreus say rather than Dennis Kucinich or Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton proposed that there be a public service academy similar to the military service academies. She has subsequently written legislation to accomplish this. It's a bad idea, says NRO. John Kerry proposed tuition forgiveness for students who wanted to be bureaucrats in 2004; Hillary's plan just makes this weak idea worse.

With few and limited exceptions, the presidential candidates are shying away from discussing the costs of the aging population and impending retirement of the Baby Boomers. As a result of this, 75% of the federal budget will be entitlements by the ear 2030. Good thing we avoided implementing a long-term Social Security fix two years ago.

The rest of the world is becoming more optimistic; why are Americans becoming more pessimistic about the future? Probably because they're faking it.

Get ready to smile: 71% of Americans support the use of more government surveillance cameras. Yikes.

What do you know, international trade is creating jobs in the US. India is outsourcing to Atlanta, following the example set by American companies. Let's all say it together: protectionism is bad economic policy.

What's the good news about each side of the Iraq war debate fact checking the other side? It is often the only fact checking there is, and it raises the overall quality of the journalistic product.

Only five states require 80% of students to pass the state evaluation for a school to pass the test. Most states only require 50% passage rates. What's the point of having a test if it doesn't matter if kids can pass?

Former Duke lacrosse rape suspect Reade Seligmann has been recruited by Brown. Why Brown? Because they didn't presume him guilty until proven innocent.

Evidently, President Bush has faith in his choice to invade Iraq, because the Guardian clearly thinks he has a time machine. Or else they have a hard time understanding that Democrats could support Clinton when he does something and decry Bush for doing the same thing.

A 108-year-old British woman has been put on an 18-month waiting list for a hearing aid. Because people over the age of 100 have nothing but time on their hands. Socialized medicine is awesome!

The Hillary cleavage controversy was pretty lame to begin with, although the Peddlers do have a good line about it.

Watch Mary Katherine Ham look for one of John Murtha's earmarks. I am perfectly at ease when I don't know exactly how the CIA is spending my money; I am not at ease when some tech company in Pennsylvania refuses to tell anyone how they are.

This list of the most typecast actors is so typical of Cracked. Why don't you show a little range, huh guys?

What does she mean, 'not single?'

2007-07-28T21:08:00.000-06:00

Some follow-ups on the Democratic debate from Tuesday: do the candidates simply not learn from their previous mistakes? John Edwards has endured countless jokes about his manliness because of his all-too-close relationship with John Kerry, his expensive haircuts, and his wife's claims that he would be a better advocate for women than the only woman running for president. Despite all this, he thought it was a good idea to criticize Hillary Clinton's choice of clothes? He should know that a joke like that is only going to hurt him and cement him as the metrozexual candidate.
Similarly, Barack Obama evidently learned nothing from his previous national security gaffes and naively said he would engage in a personal dialog with any other world leader within his first year as president. In their analysis of the debate, Corn and Miniter say that this is a big deal, even though Obama and Clinton would likely chose largely similar foreign policy advisers. Most were impressed by the cabinet and advisers Bush surrounded himself with, but few have been impressed by his foreign policy acumen. I have a slightly different take; Obama's frequent minor faux pas indicate he chose a second-rate staff for himself, or he ignores them. Either way, it shows he will have difficulty overcoming his lack of foreign policy experience, even with a crack staff.

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan is making national news for the changes in ballot language on the upcoming affirmative action ballot initiative. In case you forgot, there was quite a stink over the language of the embryonic stem cell initiative last fall, which she also oversaw. The proposed language is essentially the same wording used in CA, TX, WA, FL, and MI when they voted on banning affirmative action. We'll see if Carnahan can engineer a way to make her reelection more appealing on the ballot in 2008; she'll need all the help she can get.

The US is upset that China is supplying the Iraqi police with arms, but is even more upset that they are also supplying the insurgents.

The former leader of the Islamist terror group that assassinated Anwar Sadat has changed his ways, and is now writing a case against the theological basis for terrorism. In case you couldn't tell, this is good news.

The FCC doesn't want the Fairness Doctrine to be reenacted. Good call.

Support for the war in Iraq, and positive feelings about how the war is going, is increasing. Naturally, the New York Times is confused.

If anyone is surprised by this article about an environmentalist threatening someone who disagrees with him, they are evidently unfamiliar with people who consider man-made global warming to be the preeminent crisis facing humanity.

Planned Parenthood followed the Jesuits' advice and went after them while they were young with this co-venture with Marvel Comics and Spiderman.

For more proof that Washington DC is no different than high school, look no further than The Hill's 50 Most Beautiful People on Capital Hill.

The raping of my childhood continues, this time with disturbingly animated chipmunks. Also, Jason Lee needs to fire his agent.

This is the best top ten list ever. For me to poop on.

Clinton tells Obama, 'I'm not a chicken, you're a turkey!'

2007-07-27T09:02:00.000-06:00

OK, so I haven't written anything in a long, long time. Sorry about that. Of course, I don't know if any of you out there are upset, since no one has left a comment since whatshisface tried to convince us that the handicapped cannot enjoy life.

The biggest news since my last post: the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate. It was really no more interactive than the previous debates with email questions asked by the moderators, but it wasn't awful either. For the most part. What did we learn? Obama is still just a one-trick pony, but people do like his one trick ("I love bipartisanship!"); Hillary does not consider herself to be a liberal, because it used to mean someone who stood for individual liberty; Kucinich is more popular on YouTube than with anyone who will actually vote; everybody thinks Edwards is lame; Mike Gravel talked about the Fair Tax and competition in education - too bad he hates our soldiers so much; Bill Richardson had the only enjoyable YouTube candidate video, but kept blowing his moderate/conservative Dem cred; Joe Biden is completely insane, and that's why I like him.
Here is Instapundit's roundup of livebloggers; as usual, Dave Weigel's is best ("9:06: Look, everybody else is going to say it, so I will, too: Joe Biden is going to kill Dennis Kucinich and sleep with his wife.").
The Daily Show wonders if this debate properly youthanized politics, or just tuned into a stool-humping mess.

This is what continues to aid Clinton: Democrats think she can win, and don't think that Obama can. Of course, Republicans don't think she can win, either.

Mitt Romney has accused all of the Democratic candidates of lack of managerial experience and poor economic policy. That was evident in the debate when all the candidates insisted on higher tax rates on corporate earnings to raise revenue, ignoring that the Bush tax cuts resulted in record revenue in 2006. It was also clear when they all insisted privatization of Social Security was a bad idea, although none ventured to say why.

The press loves a feel-good story about people who help the poor, so why don't they write about innovators who make life easier for the lower class? Because sometimes the wealthy and/or the innovators themselves benefit, too.

Norwegians are beginning to sour on the extremely high tax rates in their country, especially on things like land transfers. The good news for us: we're paying about one-third as much for gas as Norwegians are, and they have oil.

To no one's surprise, environmentalists tend to be short-sighted on the benefits of things like hybrid cars vs. long-lasting gas guzzlers.

JetBlue has withdrawn nominal support for the Daily Kos. The author of this piece surmises that JetBlue pulled out to prevent losing money, but that Kos would lose out if he was any less controversial, which he must understand to be the case. So the brouhaha from him and Bill O'Reiley seems over thought.

I wish I had stumbled upon Faith No More's video for "We Care A Lot" while Live Earth was going on. And you can watch a live performance of the song (after Mike Patton took over on vocals) along with their seminal hit "Epic" here.
And FNM also makes this list of top ten cover songs.

And to even things out, here are the ten worst celebrity bands. So, pretty much just a list of bands with actors in them.

How could they leave this beauty off this list of awesomely bad 80's PSAs?

Does John's passion for hair make him a better advocate for women?

2007-07-18T14:26:00.001-06:00

Sorry I haven't written anything recently. I was out of town for a few days. Let's get back to it.

If it seems like the Democratic presidential candidates are talking more about religion in this election than they have in the past, it's because they are. While there is very little focus on the candidates' individual beliefs (as there is on the Republican side), all three front runners are flexing their respective Christian credentials by making more frequent broad statements about their faith and making ecumenical appeals.
I have previously mentioned Barack Obama's controversial (i.e., radical racist) pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. While the Afrocentric church is unique, it is officially a United Church of Christ member church (Note: NY Times requires free registration). Hillary Clinton is a member of the Methodist church, but she and Bill attended Jesse Jackson's ~~Politicians’~~ Baptist church in DC. John Edwards is also a Methodist.

Salon says Hillary is from Mars, Obama is from Venus. Elizabeth Edwards agrees that Hillary is not womanly enough, but insists that it is in fact her husband who is the prettiest girl in the race.
This does highlight a real problem in this race; are blacks going to assume that Obama is a better advocate for all blacks merely because of the color of his skin? Is Hillary going to be better at addressing issues important to women because she is one? Does Edwards represent whites better than Obama could, and if so, does that mean that 70% of the population should vote against Obama because he's only half white? I think the answer to all of these is no, but I fear that some may feel that way.

And while the Democrats all want to be the First Lady before being president, some of the Republicans (namely Fred Thompson) have taken hits because of who would be First Lady if they were elected. And while much of the blame can be placed on the fact that Thompson is a higher-profile candidate than Dennis Kucinich, it should be noted that he has a much younger wife as well. Just check out her myspace page, complete with Massive Attack profile song.

The good news for the Republican candidates is that none of their competitors are leading the polls. The bad news is that "none of the above" is the most popular choice.

While Rudy Giuliani is a pro-choice, pro-gay rights Republican, he does have some cultural conservative street cred. Ardent Romney supporter Hugh Hewitt recommends that he play it up.
Also, here is the Romney ad that he mentions. It is visually different than the kind of ads we've been seeing for the last few election cycles, and it does communicate his message effectively.

John Edwards appeared on Good Morning America not too long ago. Also briefly featured was a man nodding off. Sleepy, however, got disappeared at some point during the interview. Did ABC show bias in removing the sleeping audience member, or did he simply roll out of his chair and onto the floor for a nap?

And speaking of media bias, here's something that will surprise you: Americans think the MSM leans left. The networks, according to the poll, are the least-objective news sources, with NPR, Fox News, and CNN getting the highest marks, although less than 40% found any of them to be without bias.

Seemingly unaware of the potential consequences, JetBlue has aligned itself with popular lefty blog The Daily Kos. Anything political can be damaging to businesses, especially something as vitriolic and intensely partisan as Kos. It's just one more reason to fly with the industry leader in on-time arrivals, Southwest, who supports Red Friday.

The Peddlers point out that, while a withdrawal or change of strategy in Iraq is an important national security and political issue, it is also a major logistical issue.

I saw Meet the Press on Sunday, and quite enjoyed Jim Webb and Lindsay Graham going at each other. And while Webb was trying to make a point about al-Qaeda only being in Iraq because the US is in Iraq, he essentially made Graham's point for him. It's worth watching the video (for free) on NBC's website just to see Graham ask Webb if he's been to Iraq about five times in a row while Webb refuses to answer or even look at him.

Mickey says that CNN took a good idea for the Democratic debate, and then made it a bad one. As a side note, I think this is the same thing that NBC did with Last Comic Standing and Fox is doing with On the Lot. Perhaps networks, even cable news networks, feel the need to make their summer programing worse than anything in the fall.

If you are unfamiliar with XXXChurch, you may not appreciate Pete the Porno Puppet as much as I do.

If you think you've seen every Will Ferrell sketch from SNL, here's a cut sketch that didn't even make it onto one of his two DVDs.

Most attractive female SNL cast members

2007-07-13T22:40:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since we've rolled out a god ol' top list. So let's do one now.

There have been plenty of funny, talented actresses on Saturday Night Live over the years, from Jane Curtain and Gilda Radner in the good old days, to Ellen Cleghorne in the glory days, to the current show's most indispensable (arguably) member, Amy Poehler. But how many of these funny women are hot? Well, that's what I'm here for: to supply you with video evidence of the best-looking SNL alumni. And future alumni.

Remember, of course, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but, for the purpose of settling disagreements, my opinion is to be taken as gospel.

A note on the videos: I didn't look for ones that highlighted each lady's hotness, I looked for good ones that were available. And it was not easy to find videos for each, as you will see. Also, I have had issues trying to embed multiple videos before, so I'll apologize in advance in case this turns into a jumbled mess.

Without further ado, the hottest ladies of Saturday night, in no particular order:

Kristen Wiig: 2005-present.
While her Nancy Pelosi impression is not awe-inspiring, I would like to call your attention to a subtle thing she does that may be difficult to see due to the video quality. Every so often, she flashes her eyes to give just a glimpse of the Pelosi crazy eye. For me, it makes the impersonation plenty good.

Sarah Silverman: 1993-94.
Not a lot of videos featuring Sarah's time on the show out there. What else can you expect from someone who got fired after one season? In this video, she appears about two-thirds of the way through as Chop Suey. Plus, Chris Farely dancing with Kevin Nealon.

SNL - Sandler & Farley - Lunch Lady
Uploaded by rocker935

Julia Louis-Dreyfus: 1982-85.
I couldn't find any videos of Julia from her days as on the cast, so here she is becoming the first female cast member to return to host.

Amy Poehler: 2001-present.
I had to post both of these clips of Amy in action because they're both so dang good. She is a unique beauty; I would be hard pressed to call her pretty, but there is definitely something appealing about her.

Hillary at SNL
Uploaded by NEW_FRONTIER

Tina Fey: 2000-06 (Writer since 1997; Head writer since 1999).
Tina certainly does get librarian-hot points, and even though some accuse her of getting too much mileage out of a dopey pair of glasses and a chin scar, it was really no question that she was going to be on this list.

Maya Rudolph: 2000-present.
Maya's vague ethnicity allows her to play a myriad of roles, and also gives her some added mystique.

Nancy Walls: 1995-96.
Now best known as Mrs. Steve Carell, Nancy joined the cast at the same time as Will Ferrell. Here, she is seen starring in one of the first of many sketches that would feature Ferrell screaming.
Wake Up And Smile

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Cheri Oteri: 1995-2000.
Cheri benefited from having her defining character both always be on screen with Will Ferrell and always wear a cheerleader uniform.
SNL Spartan Cheerleaders (with Jim Carey)

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And that's it! 32 seasons, dozens of cast members, eight hot ladies. If you feel I left one out, let me know. But you're wrong.

At least Michael Moore and I agree that CNN is biased

2007-07-12T14:37:00.000-06:00

The budget deficit for the fiscal year is going to be smaller than anticipated. Once again, this is because a lower tax rate led to record tax revenues, and illustrates why socialism is stupid. Well, one reason.

You would think that firefighters would be some of the most ardent supporters of America's Mayor, but a firefighters' union is attacking Rudy Giuliani for capitalizing of the tragedy of 9/11. I agree with Town Hall; I don't imagine that "firefighters" is the operative word there.

Jules Crittenden has a primer on how to read an AP news story. Not that anyone thinks the AP has biases or anything.

Public schools face an interesting conundrum when dealing with Muslim students who wish to pray in the middle of the day. Or, more accurately, public schools seem to have no problem acquiescing to the prayer needs of Muslim students. While I see nothing wrong with allowing students to pray during recess time, one inevitably wonders how accommodating the same schools would be to Christian students with similar requests. Actually, the article all but tells us, when it says, "[i]n 1993, a federal court ordered the district to allow students to engage in religious activities during lunchtime," meaning that the district had apparently illegally disallowed students to act out their faith in any way. Another important quote: "Left-leaning groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have remained silent so far on the San Diego situation." Because the ACLU has never had a problem with religion writ large in the public sphere, but abhors any Christian encroachment on the secular public realm.

Embedded blogger Michael Yon has a report on the increasing difficulty that al-Qaeda is having recruiting Iraqis. It appears that the American and coalition soldiers are finally winning the hearts and minds of the locals.

This will come as a shock: academics are liberal, and use their positions to preach their views to students. The good news, though, is that many states are seeking to curb this kind of activity at public universities because a majority of the public finds it to be a serious problem.

Allow me to expound upon my previous post where I linked to Mickey Kaus connecting the dots between Princess Dianna and Hillary Clinton. Basically, if the speculation were to be true, Hillary would have taken advantage of her husband's presidential powers leading up to her 2000 Senate campaign to use secret wire taps to spy on her potential competition. That may not have been clear to those who are unfamiliar with the style of Kausfiles.
Here is why this is such a big deal, beyond the obvious: my contention has always been that Hillary is in a better position than the other Democratic front runners because she is almost impervious to negative attacks. At this point, almost everything mean that can be said about her has already been said, and so when the race inevitably turns negative, her competitors will have nothing new to say, while pretty boys Edwards and Obama could be sent reeling by a well-crafted attack. But this new accusation gives them fresh ammunition, and makes her as susceptible to a negative attack as anyone else.

Lefty bloggers seem to have a new-found sensitivity for any and all stinging remarks made by someone they don't love. Joe Lieberman was described as "Soulless Joe" by widely-read douchebag Kos for bringing up Harry Reid's claim that the war is already lost.

Michael Moore also seems to have gotten some sand stuck in his lady parts. First, he insulted all Canadians when some dared to point out that their socialized health care system has flaws, and he accused them all of losing their sense of humor. I guess a two year waiting list for a knee surgery will do that. More recently, he accused CNN of (wait for it...wait for it) biased reporting on his film Sicko. You would think that someone who makes himself as much of a lightning rod for criticism as Moore does wouldn't be such a crybaby wuss, but he is.

I'm kind of bummed that "ginormous" is officially a real word now. Kind of takes away from its cache.

You probably didn't know it, but you hate these directors.

Have you ever been afraid to have a difficult conversation with your significant other because you didn't know how it might go? Well now you can prepare for myriad situations with the Choose Your Own Adventure dating game.

...Where we're waiting for Ann Coulter to say "told ya so"

2007-07-11T16:37:00.000-06:00

Two of John McCain's top advisers have left his campaign. Depending upon who you listen to, they either resigned or were fired, or perhaps resigned because they were about to be fired. I guess this is what happens when a "front runner" has less cash on hand than longshot Ron Paul.

The Democratic presidential candidates are planning to participate in a gay debate. This will be the first presidential debate to focus solely on homosexual issues. Maybe one of them will quote Martin from the Simpsons and call for unity on the subject. I'm not sure what will be discussed beyond gay marriage, adoption rights for gay couples, and gays in the military, but the possible headlines following the debate alone have me excited about it. Imagine seeing something like one of these on the front page: "Biden slams Obama at gay debate;" "At gay debate, Hillary stands out from field;" "John Edwards debates gay issues." Feel free to write your own headlines. Maybe we can have a contest in the comments section, with the winner receiving...well, nothing. It's not like I get paid to write this.

Are Congressional Republicans finally getting the message from the conservative base of the party? That's what the Weekly Standard says after Minority Whip Roy Blunt gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
As a side note, I think that Blunt is someone to keep an eye on for a possible vice presidential candidate. He's from Missouri, so he can help offset the Northeasterness of Romney or Giuliani, he has strong conservative credentials, and his position gives him enough name recognition to make him a viable choice.

Fred Thompson is being touted as a more conservative alternative to the rest of the Republican field. Is this true? Richard Viguerie says it most definitely is not. One of the tools he uses to discern this is the American Conservative Union's ratings. Thompson has a lifetime rating of 86, which puts him in the neighborhood of McCain and Missouri's Kit Bond. And considering that one of the major knocks against Thompson is his support for McCain-Feingold, I'm not really that surprised they they are close.

Some folks who know things are of the opinion that anti-war Democrats could have a tough time in 2008, mostly because it's such a hard sell that leaving Iraq and focusing on Afghanistan will aid in preserving American security.
How about the growing number of anti-war Republicans? For the most part, NRO says, they are not to be taken seriously. Like their Democratic counterparts, they are mostly making these national security decisions based on their own poll numbers.

Al Franken, former SNL unfunnyman and founder of failed liberal talk radio station Air America, is leading the fund raising race for the Minnesota Senate seat he is gunning for. The incumbent Republican still has more money on hand, though, despite his lack of support from the deep pockets of Hollywood.

Al-Qaeda is planning a "precise response" to the knighthood of Salman Rushdie. I guess the recent rash of car bombs in the UK was just general terrorism without a "precise" reason, then. Considering he has been on the run from a fatwa calling for his death since 1988, I imagine he'll probably be OK.

If Cindy Sheehan does run for Congress against Nancy Pelosi, her first campaign commercial has already been done for her.

This list of what celebrities would tun into if they were Transformers is not as good as it should have been, but is still worth posting.

Since we're still almost two months away from new episodes, here is the full version of Lazy Scranton to supply your The Office fix.

I hope my excellence does not cost me readers

2007-07-10T14:02:00.000-06:00

Now that the "comprehensive" immigration bill looks to be off the docket for a while, Mickey Kaus has to find new things to write about. Among them: the failings of the virtual fence along the Mexican border. Basically, the "fence" can have holes cut in it while any and all kinds of people willing to break the law cross the border.
And if you keep scrolling down, you will have Mickey's take on the NY Times peace that calls for the immediate withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. The Times concedes that this would almost surely result in more violence and genocide, but advises that the US should do it anyway. Hey, they're only Muslims and Kurds who would be dying, after all.

Turkey is evidently prepared for a full-fledged civil war in Iraq that would result in the Kurds in the north trying to form an independent Kurdish state. Why is Turkey concerned? Because what would presumably be Kurdistan would also like to take over the Eastern part of Turkey.

Back to my main man Mickey for a second: follow him as he connects the dots between wire taps on Princess Dianna and her gentleman friend Ted Forstmann by the Clinton administration and tapes that Hillary Clinton had access to during her 2000 Senate campaign. Oh, and Forstmann was rumored to run for Senate in New York as a Republican in 2000.

NBC's coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals was sparsely watched. It did, however, get better ratings for the network than Live Earth. I would definitely watch hockey before I watched Madonna tell me that Al Gore is a scientific genius. Heck, I'd watch the WNBA before I'd watch that.

Cindy Sheehan is threatening to run against Nancy Pelosi if Pelosi does not move to impeach President Bush. The article does not mention what specific charges the impeachment would be based on, other than the death of Sheehan's son, presumably. So at least San Fransiscans will have some choice in 2008: a crazy lady vs. the other one.

One of the things Bush had going for him in 2000 was that he overwhelming beat Al Gore in the beer test. Placing aside the fact that Mormons don't drink much beer, is Mitt Romney's excellence going to hurt him with voters? Maybe.

Colin Powell had been butting heads with Donald Rumsfeld for a long time before they were both members of Bush 43's cabinet, so his recent stance against the war in Iraq is not especially surprising. In fact, we already knew that Powell wanted to wait longer before the invasion in 2003. Still, I agree that his recent statements ring just a little bit hollow.

PBS and the BBC have both recently had their liberal biases examined, although neither organization seems to concerned with correcting it. The good news, though, is that neither is in as bad a shape as Holland's public television station. Using public funds to make left-leaning programing seems to be a common trend; just ask the folks who used to work at the Venezuelan TV station that has been shut down.

And while people in TV limit ideological diversity, the Federalist Society is accused of wrongdoing because that is the only kind of diversity they actively seek out.

When a producer used a word that Kattie Couric did not like in a script, she got violent and "sort of slapped him around." I'm sure this would have remained a minor story if he had slapped her.
Perhaps the producer should join the men's rights movement and demand he and his boss be treated equally by the network and the law. Unless that would just make him look weak and whiny.

If you've been looking for the right song to serenade your lady friend with, Flight of the Conchords has a suggestion for you.

I was pretty sure that I have posted this list of the top 10 shootouts in movie history before, but I couldn't find that I had. I also seem to remember the "I'll be back" scene from The Terminator being in it. Evidently, I am wrong, so here you go.

Do as Al Gore says, not as his rock star pals do

2007-07-08T20:02:00.000-06:00

At nine locations across the globe, ~~Getting Gay With Kids~~ Live Earth urged concert goers to obey the mighty and powerful Al Gore and ignore the hypocrisy behind the curtain. Of course, they didn't draw as many as planned, and the events in the US and UK were decidedly underwhelming. I imagine most of it has to do with what the event's planners would call the high environmental cost of trying to save the environment. A climate change activist said that it would take 100,000 new trees to reverse the carbon footprint of the event, and one of the members of Muse called Live Earth "private jets for climate change." And a similarly hypocritical global warming alarmist led Glenn Reynolds to say this: "I'll start acting as if it's a crisis when the people who are telling me it's a crisis start acting as if it's a crisis."
As for something people actually care about, several thousand more showed up at a nearby DC golf course to see if Tiger Woods could come back from a poor first day (he finished sixth), and about a hundred thousand more than that showed up for Daytona's second-biggest race of the year.

Robert Novak says that critics are once again attacking Hillary Clinton for vague ties to corporations she has criticized in the past through her top campaign strategist. It really is amazing to me that working with someone who works at a company that does public relations work for big businesses is something that Democrats can get worked up about. Of course, the easy way around this for Clinton would be to not criticize companies simply for being successful. That's where I would start.
Additionally, how long can Barack Obama maintain his warm and fuzzy public image if he keeps acting so aloof around reporters? Seriously, turn on some of that alleged charm before the 90% of reporters that follow you around and vote Democratic write checks to Clinton or Edwards.

And while Bill has been mostly helpful to Hillary recently, his confounding decision to complain about President Bush commuting Scooter Libby's sentence is a bad plan. Really, Bubba, you didn't think that people would bring up Marc Rich if you did that? Good call.
And back to Obama: he endorsed merit pay for teachers (something that conservatives have been pushing for years and that liberals and the unions have refused)...right after the NY Times had an article that said more teachers' unions support it. That's what I call playing it safe. I also call it pandering, but we expect that.

Rudy Giuliani was jeered recently for opposing a flat tax. I though that Steve Forbes was in his corner; I guess he hasn't been listening to him all that much.

The current NY mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has decided to cut down on noise pollution by silencing ice cream trucks. As the Peddlers say, "It seems that one New Yorker seeking the presidency wants to protect us from Osama bin Laden, one wants to protect us from George Bush, and one wants to protect us from the Good Humor Man."

And despite the failure of Live Earth, Ann Althouse is pretty sure Al Gore is going to run for president. Why is she so sure? Because he's lost weight.

A NY Times editorial called for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq immediately. And why not, UN peace keepers do such a bang-up job everywhere else.

These celebrities have hot daughters...and you might have a shot with some of them. And for further proof that classic rockers who look like a modern-day Dianne Keaton can produce daughters that don't, see Aerosmith offspring Liv Tyler and Minka Kelly to go along with the gang from the Rolling Stones. Seriously, those groupies must have super-human hotness genes to ward of the monkey face genes from guys like Steven Tyler and Mick Jagger.

Michael Bay tried to ruin our childhood memories of Transformers earlier this week. Here's betting that he won't come as close as these 10 pieces of crap. Then again, it is Michael Bay...

If geek is the new cool, learn how to dance like these nerds.

Happy 8th of July!

2007-07-08T10:51:00.000-06:00

OK, more housecleaning. Sorry if all this stuff is old, but the Independence Day break I took through me off.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair criticized Islamsists and Muslim terrorists for their claims of marginalization. He said, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified." So I guess you can count Blair among those who don't believe the West is responsible for all terrorist actions against it.

Deepak Chopra was upset about the recent Supreme Court ruling that made it illegal to draw school districts strictly on racial lines. So upset, in fact, that he forgot who Clarence Thomas was and blamed "five white men" for the decision.

President Bush commuted Scooter Libby's sentence. Libby was sentenced to two and one-half years for obstructing a criminal investigation that discovered that no crime had been committed. Like his veto power, Bush has used his presidential pardons quite sparingly, which probably makes the pardon of Libby seem a tad more scandalous that it really is.
Barack Obama, however, finds it very scandalous, saying "[t]his is exactly the kind of politics we must change so we can begin restoring the American people's faith in a government." No mention from either Obama or Hillary Clinton on how this compares to the many pardons of former President Clinton, some of which also involved personal acquaintances, and his brother.

Obama is leading the fund raising competition during the primaries. Town Hall says that, despite fewer connections than Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, or Mitt Romney, Obama's enthusiasm is winning support from donors. Of course, Howard Dean drummed up plenty of enthusiasm in 2004, and then one poor showing in Iowa and one viral video sent him tumbling like a handicapped kid falling down a flight of stairs. And at some point people have to realize how full of hot air Obama is, right? Just look at what he said above; his entire campaign is based on decrying partisan politics and ideologues, and yet he is rated as being more liberal and more in step with party leadership than any other member of Congress running for president.

House Republicans are pushing an enforcement-only immigration bill after the failure of the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration reform bill. Most American's support an enforcement-first bill; will most of Congress?

A film critic pointed out the flaws in Michael Moore's Sicko, and even directed readers to the documentary "Dead Meat" that I've been pimping for a while now. Oh, and the critic was MTV's Kurt Loder.

The EU wants Europeans to watch films made by EU member states. Unfortunately, even the EU marketing people think that European films are largely devoid of substance and the only reason to watch them is the gratuitous sex.

Here are some super powers that would be more trouble than they're worth.

A tribute to the classic sounds of Linkin Park.

I don't play in public very often. I really hope this blog thing works out.

2007-07-02T16:21:00.000-06:00

I haven't been paying especially close attention to the car bomb terror attack in the UK. While the attack in London was unsuccessful, the more recent attack in Glasgow was. Whatever the case, this is bad news.

So how about some good news? The anti-Fairness Doctrine bill passed in the House quite easily, which will probably dissuade anyone from trying to impose the Doctrine again anytime soon.

Bob Novak says that if Fred Thompson does well in the presidential race, then Newt Gingrich will probably not run. Newt seems like running for president isn't necessarily what he really wants to do, almost like he would be doing us a favor if he ran. Of course, he probably does think that that he would be doing us all a favor if he ran. He does take some gentle shots at Thompson, though, so maybe he really does want to get in the race.
Gingrich's biggest obstacle is probably that 53% of the public says they won't vote for him no matter who his opponent is. And since 52% won't vote for Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg could be sitting pretty.

Some good news comes out of Iraq: deaths in Baghdad dropped significantly in June, probably as a result of the surge.
And Michael Yon reminds us who we're fighting in Iraq. It is not pretty, but certainly makes one realize how disastrous a premature withdrawal would be.

Hugo Chavez supports Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon, and hopes to one day do the same. I still don't understand how nothing but a mutual hatred of the US can unite an Islamist president and a communist dictator in the making. It just doesn't make a lick of sense. Just like their ideologies!

One more reason to be glad the Senate's immigration bill failed: no National ID card.

White guilt hasn't helped poor minorities do better in school, NRO says. Here's how to actually do some good.

Even though Pam's wedding didn't work out, Kevin and the guys are doing OK for themselves.

Need to know what your girlfriend's facial expression means because she won't just tell you? Use this cheat sheet as a reference.

On its second try, the immigration bill failed again. And it was good.

2007-06-28T22:58:00.000-06:00

After passing the first cloture vote fairly easily on Tuesday, the Senate's amnesty bill failed by a wide margin today. The vote was 46-53 to end debate on the bill when cloture required 60 "yes" votes, and its supporters seem resigned to the fact that debating the bill's contents means it will fail. Because it was bad legislation from the get-go.
Mickey, of course, is happy. He says that even if the House tries to pass its own amnesty bill, this seems like a complete failure for President Bush, Sen. Reid, and the rest of the "Grand Bargainers." Town Hall ranks all of the obvious winners (Senate Republicans, society) and losers (Bush, Democrats, John McCain). Glenn Reynolds claims responsibility on behalf of all alternative media (since now-mainstream Fox was supporting it).
And while the expectancy of future generations of illegal aliens seeking amnesty was a legitimate concern with this bill, the illegal immigration problems from Mexico might work themselves out in the future. Because the Mexican fertility rate is dropping, and there will soon be a shortage of Mexican workers.

Thousands of Venezuelans gathered to protest the closure of a privately-owned television station by Hugo Chavez.
In a related story, House Republicans have introduced legislation that would prohibit funding for any bill that would reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine.

Hillary Clinton is evidently testing the efficacy of negative attacks against her opponents in telephone polls. So registered Democrats beware.

Rupert Murdoch is about to own the Wall Street Journal. And for that reason, every publication that competes with his media empire has been running features on him. Here is one from TIME, which is more-or-less fair to him.

How do prospective freshmen know if a college is good or not? US News and World Report's annual rankings is one way. Many universities don't like the rankings, though, and it seems to have as much to do with the mere fact that US News makes money on the rankings as where those schools rank on the list.

Are you excited about these summer blockbusters? Cracked is not.

Have you ever been listening to "Hey There Delilah" by the Plain White T's and thought, "If only I could see this song acted out by a pre-teen Samoan emo kid, then my life would be complete"? Well, prepare to live a complete life.

I like governmental control of media; bring on the Fairness Doctrine!

2007-06-27T20:31:00.000-06:00

John Kerry wants to correct the imbalance in the media. No, not that journalists make donations to liberal candidates and organizations 90% of the time, but what he considers the squelching of dissent by conservatives. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin also supports the Fairness Doctrine, claiming that people need to hear both sides of the story.
I fully agree with the author of this article when he says that the true desire of Sen. Feinstein and her pals is to control what opinions the public gets to hear. I find the timing odd; that on the heals of statistical evidence of the liberal nature of the mainstream media, Democrats would focus on one area of the media where conservatives are in the majority. I have a theory as to why conservative talk radio has been so much more successful than liberal talk radio, and it goes like this:
In terms of "old media," liberals are in the clear majority in print media, especially at newspapers. As someone who has worked at two newspapers, including the 29th largest in the country, I can attest to this. Even in sports departments, where we cover and support the pure meritocracy of athletic competition every day, the liberal bias is evident. Magazines are often more tailored to niche markets and so I would say that the overall liberal bias is less noticeable.
On television, Dan Rather has been the face of the liberal bias in network news since 2004. Most of the anchors and pundits on the cable news channels evoke liberal ideals, with the majority of Fox News programing being a notable exception.
But on the radio, conservatives have flourished. When someone hears the name Rush Limbaugh, his books are not what comes to mind, but rather his popular radio show. Not too long ago, Al Franken launched Air America to try to carve out a space to liberals in the talk radio world. Two years later, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. My thought is that conservative talk radio has much more of an audience because conservatives wanted some form of a news/talk format that didn't leave them shaking their heads in anger. Liberal talk radio has struggled because its audience is already satisfied with lots of options. If a liberal consumer doesn't like the network news, he can turn to CNN, or pick up The New Yorker, or read the editorial page of his local or national newspaper. If a conservative is bored of Fox News, and doesn't want to read business-heavy Forbes magazine, talk radio is all he had to turn to before the popularization of the internet. Conservative pundits became entrenched in radio because there was a market that was not being served by the rest of the MSM. It continues to thrive because the MSM continues to lean left, and liberal talk radio hosts are not going to cover stories unreported by the like-minded MSM in other mediums or fact-check the ones that are. In short, liberal talk radio offers nothing new, while conservative talk radio does.
And Feinstein, Kerry and the rest don't want the market that supports new and different viewpoints to be served.

On to immigration. Mickey Kaus continues to write muchos muy bueno things about the Senate bill, including encouraging the organization of grassroots campaigns against Republicans supporting the bill, Lindsey Graham's new-found demand for a "touchback" provision in the face of public displeasure, and the almost inevitable new wave of illegal immigrants who will assume that they will be granted amnesty in the future, too. And Glenn Reynolds notes that the hurried nature, refusal to allow amendments. and rush to vote without debate should make the public very uneasy, because most people don't know what the bill says. What else should make the public uneasy? That the bill's supporters apparently don't want the public to know what the bill says.

Ann Coulter said she wouldn't call John Edwards a faggot; everyone denounced her for calling Edwards a faggot. Recently, she questioned why it was a bigger deal that she almost called Edwards a name than when Bill Maher said he wished that Vice President Cheney had been killed by terrorists around the same time. This, of course, led to Elizabeth Edwards asking Coulter why she wished her husband was dead. In a related note, Bill Maher is a faggot and I wish he was dead*.

The Bush-era EPA has done almost everything environmentalists would have wanted. A new proposal will be even stricter on ozone pollutants and place a greater burden on much of the country. And yet, the enviros and liberals in general still hate the guy more than the conservatives who elected him and feel betrayed by his liberal policies. Like Mitch Hedberg said, George W., "You can't please all the people all the time, and last night, all those people were at my show."

A NY Times poll, co-sponsored by esteemed pollsters MTV, had some interesting findings for voters under 30. Among them: 86% want more help paying off student debt or receiving student aid; 62% would support single-payer socialized health care; and most surprisingly, 78% thought that the war in Iraq had made America safer or had not changed their feelings about security. Read the whole thing.

Sadly, The Day After Tomorrow is only on this list of the 20 most ridiculous action movie moments once.

*I'm mostly kidding.

Because people who break the law should receive preferential treatment

2007-06-26T19:18:00.000-06:00

The resurrected Senate immigration bill passed its first cloture vote fairly easily today, 64-35. Seen as a proposition mostly supported by Democrats and President Bush, at least 13 Republicans would need to have voted "yes" for it to pass by this margin. And Mickey Kaus is paranoid enough to speculate that Democratic leadership could have conspired to undercut the apparent support in this vote in the event that five or more Senators are convinced to vote "no" in the next cloture vote. Although he seems to have been heard well enough on his cry for homemade anti-amnesty ads.

Several Democrats were elected last fall by campaigning to bring a swift end to the war in Iraq. But it appears that many are growing weary of the war in Afghanistan as well. This part of the War on Terror receives considerably less coverage than Iraq (because, after all, covering the war in Afghanistan doesn't win elections for Democrats), but it is not going as smoothly as we would have liked, either.

Rudy Giuliani spoke today at Pat Robertson's Regent University, where Mormon Mitt Romney has also given a speech recently. This is just more evidence of how intolerant, closed-minded and bigoted Christians are. Except the opposite of that.

The immigration bill could be the final straw that will drive some republicans looking for a third-party candidate, even if the House prevents the bill from passing. So what are the Republicans' options? Richard Cohen has one idea in the WaPo: follow in Nixon's footsteps (except for the whole scandal thing). Town Hall predicts that the presence of folks like Michael Bloomberg and Ron Paul (if he runs as a Libertarian) could pull enough votes from the major parties that a relatively small plurality could win the election. Hey, 43% was enough for Bill Clinton in 1992 because Ross Perot pulled 19 percent.

More than two-thirds of people in the UK believe that global warming is a natural phenomenon. Probably because they've seen The Great Global Warming Swindle. I would like to see the actual poll questions, because a different number - 65% - say that alarmist scientists' concerns are far fetched.

Here is a movie still of the upcoming live-action adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are, directed by my boy Spike Jonze. All you can see is legs of the wild things, and I'm already giddy.

Pearl is back to torment Will Ferrell one last time.

Which band name is dumber, Limp Bizkit or Hootie and the Blowfish? Check this official list to find out.

Censorship on public television and bigotry in Germany

2007-06-25T22:27:00.000-06:00

For all his complaints about talk radio, Trent Lott says he does not support reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine. He and Dianne Feinstein both support the Senate's comprehensive immigration reform bill (as they discussed on Fox News Sunday), and talk radio hosts criticizing the bill is what led Lott to complain about them. Watching the video link on the right side is easier than trying to read the whole transcript.

And while we're on the subject of the Fairness Doctrine, someone who worked on the documentary Muslims Against Jihad, made for PBS but as-yet buried by the network, was told by network executives that he needed to fire his partners because they were conservatives. Much like the 9-to-1 ratio of reporters donating to Democrats over Republicans, this is in no way surprising. What is disappointing is that taxpayer-funded Public television is so openly and intentionally lacking in diversity.

Ordinarily I would call Fox's Sunday political show a knock off of Meet the Press. The host of MTP, Tim Russert, continues to make me rethink his show's quality, though. He misinterpreted and misrepresented several aspects of the proposed Z visa, part of the Sentate's immigration bill.

Hillary Clinton has amassed impressive support from some folks in big business. Some are not all that surprising, but winning over Morgan Stanley's CEO is a major coup. The list of supporters is at the bottom of the article.

Barack Obama said that the political right has hijacked religion and is using it to further its agenda. In the same speech (at a church), he encouraged supporters to get behind him and his agenda by (that's right, you guessed it) appealing to their faith. Ann Althouse calls this kind of hypocrisy "slight of hand." I feel like he needs to trick someone to be slight of hand; he's so obviously disingenuous that everyone must realize the incongruity of his rhetoric. But some people don't seem to mind, which is the most troubling part of all.

It's hard to talk about presidential candidates and religion without bringing up Mitt Romney. He says he's a little bothered by the constant assaults on his Mormon beliefs, and especially since John McCain hasn't personally apologized for the recent comment by one of his campaign workers.

Fred Thompson is about to make his presidential bid official. One of his secret weapons: former girlfriends that don't hate him. If you can get your exes on your side, you can get almost anyone, I would think.

Here is a follow-up about the pseudo-civil war that is brewing in the Palestinian territories from the CS Monitor.

I also mentioned Michael Moore's upcoming documentary Sicko in my last post. I have previously posted material about the problems of single-payer health care, and here is some more from Power Line.

This will shock you: Duke' president gets John Leo's award for university president that needs to resign the most.

Ah, the religious tolerance of Europe. Germany is not allowing a movie starring Tom Cruise to film at German military sites because Cruise is a Scientologist. While I agree with the German assessment of Scientology, I am actually quite offended (and scared) that Germany thinks his wacky beliefs are sufficient grounds for this kind of thing. What a bunch of bigots.

Town Hall totally rips me off and makes a list of the 10 coolest movies of the last 20 years. Of course, I would never make an amateur mistake like listing Jackie Brown ahead of The Big Lebowski. I mean, come on; Jackie Brown wasn't even very good.

Blade Runner is 25 years old, and holds up better than most early-80's sci-fi/cyberpunk/dystopian films.

Are you concerned about the issues? Flight of the Conchords is.

But I'm a blogger!

2007-06-24T18:14:00.000-06:00

It looks like Dennis Kucinich is partly to blame for the renewed interest in using the Fairness Doctrine to limit conservative talk radio. And evidently some of his competitors in the Democratic presidential races agree. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer also want a "legislative fix" for the lack of success of liberal talk radio. No word yet on their plans to require Indoctrinate U to be as widely seen as Sicko.

Also coming back around: the Senate's "compromise" immigration bill. Mickey Kaus advises that YouTubers get to work on negative campaign ads, and posts one of them.
And while most Americans prefer enforcement-first legislation, the already-passed enforcement measures, such as the virtual border fence (it itself something of a compromise), is lagging behind schedule.

The good news is that the incoming British prime minister does not foresee the UK joining the EU in the near future. The bad news is that the UK is looking more like the EU in terms of religious tolerance, or lack there of.

There is a nice piece in NRO about the virtual segregation of Hamas and Fatah control in the Palestinian territories. While Fatah is much more favorable to the US and Israel, nobody's kidding themselves about it, either.

Remind me not to tell Barack Obama I'm a blogger if I get the chance to meet him. He clearly doesn't want the public to know what goes on in his public campaign stops.

CPAC had straw polls and Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a fagot by not calling him a fagot. The liberal Take Back America conference had Truthsters (9/11 conspiracy theorists), security dodgers and a rambling Jesse Jackson. No wonder CPAC got more press.

Mike Nelson is a super cool guy, and here he is being super cool.

Here are several comedians you've probably never heard of, and a couple that you almost surely have.

I'm the guy that writes his blog. You must be the other guy.

2007-06-22T11:10:00.000-06:00

The confidence rating for Congress is a whopping 14%. This is not the same as approval rating, even though Glenn Reynolds confuses the two here; remember, I posted just a few days ago that Congressional approval was at 24%. Frankly, that seems a little backwards to me. I have some degree of confidence in the institution of Congress, but I disprove of most of the current Congress' policies. Anyway, the Gallup poll suggests that Americans don't have a lot of confidence in many long-standing institutions, as their confidence in organized labor (19%) is almost the same as confidence, or lack thereof, in big business.

The Peddlers say that this kind of political climate, where voters lack faith in their elected officials, is good for outsiders. They rank the presidential front runners to see who has the most outsider cred.
The Politico also wonders if this is a good environment for newly-independent Michael Bloomberg or multiple-race-loser Ralph Nader, who recently called Hillary Clinton a political coward for pandering to her audience.

John Edwards may be running a frugal campaign, but he has currently raised just one-fifth of what Clinton and Obama are expected to raise this quarter. Maybe that's why Edwards' own daughter thinks Hillary is the best candidate.

Liberal talk radio station Air America has been an abject failure. The next course of action for liberals who don't want to put up with the Rush Limbaughs of the world: the ironically named Fairness Doctrine to eliminate conservative talk radio. As I pointed out yesterday, liberals control newspapers and television news; why is it so confounding and threatening that conservatives would dominate in other mediums? This is essentially the same strategy as the media constantly reminding us that conservative Rupert Murdoch own Fox News parent company News Corp, and rarely mentioning that liberal Ted Turner owns CNN. The irony, of course, is that Murdoch is a naturalized immigrant, and Turner is a life-long Southerner.

Similar to the depressing racial role reversal shown in the Duke lacrosse case, the reactions to The Dangerous Book for Boys are revealing the same kind of girls good-boys bad mentality that we all knew was becoming prevalent in our society.

The Democratic presidential candidates are flexing their muscles and baring their teeth against each others' health care plans, while the Republicans are saying very little. Even Mitt Romney, who seems quite proud of the universal health care system he helped install in Massachusetts, rarely brings the subject up. NRO says that this gives one of the candidates a chance to come to the fore on the issue and take a conservative stance and argue against universal coverage and the current employer-based system.

The Bush administration has been touting a $30 billion wage bump if comprehensive immigration reform were to take effect. It avoids mentioning the $350 billion wage loss that results from the same calculations.

There have been 99 film and television adaptations of Stephen King's work. Here are the five best.

This list is pretty lame, but I like the idea behind it: the top 20 movie insults.

Is the "liberal media conspiracy theory" conspiracy fact yet?

2007-06-21T10:29:00.000-06:00

Nearly 90% of journalists who make political donations give to Democrats. This is in no way shocking, and only disappointing insofar as it's evidence of groupthink and socialization in newsrooms and classrooms, as well as a lack of diversity of thought. As I and many others have said before, the real danger is when a liberal (or conservative) views himself as a centrist and the public views him as a liberal. This happens because many political reporters want to believe that they represent the majority, and when they have leftist ideas, they assume that the general public does, too.

Speaking of liberals perceived as moderates, why do members of the far left and netroots-type folks keep booing Hillary Clinton if her numbers amongst self-described liberals keep climbing? Probably because the netroots wackos hate any and all things associated with the Iraq war that they are willing to do crazy things like vote Joe Lieberman out in Connecticut even when the AFL-CIO loves the guy. In short, many liberals have become single-issue voters, and the issue they focus on is something that cannot be changed. So if you want to vote like it's 2003, then bring on Obama!

Should we brace for global cooling even while His Holiness Al Gore keeps telling us to cut our carbon dioxide emissions? That's what a Canadian researcher says based on sunspot research collected from sea mud. The Solar Hypothesis is hardly new - I posted it here - but still somehow outside of the common global warming discussion.

It is no longer legal to obey the law in New Hampshire. There is a new statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. I don't smoke and don't especially enjoy being near others while they're smoking, but shouldn't establishments (especially bars) be allowed to make their own decisions? And, more to the governor's point about health concerns, shouldn't citizens be allowed to make their own decisions about where they eat or drink, and take their business to places that ban smoking if they so choose? Once again, the nanny state wins out over common sense.

The American left is not the only place where communism has come back in vogue: a Berlin hotel has furnished itself in the pre-1989 East German drab, complete with pictures of communist leaders. Because everyone pines for the days of poverty and oppression.

Piggybacking off of the Duke lacrosse case story I posted yesterday, here is an article noting the parallels between this case and the infamous 1931 Scottsboro rape case.

Town Hall is not generally where I go to get my sports news, but I was impressed by this piece. It notes the fact that equipment changes are the most notable rise in homeruns during the "steroids era" of baseball, and also correctly points out that steroids help pitchers more than batters. Not that Bonds haters (and there are many) would bother to consider how he has been disadvantaged by cheating pitchers.

Cell phones on planes is just one of the many reasons to fear the future.

I already posted the video of Michael Cera being "fired" from Knocked Up. Now Judd Apatow has posted a video of James Franco being "demoted" as well. Be careful where you watch it; there are some no-no words.

The 10 best scenes from comic book movies, and the six worst scenes from any movie ever (so, mostly modern B-movie classic Shark Attack 3).

Asians don't count as minorities, silly

2007-06-20T16:01:00.001-06:00

New York City mayor and possible presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has changed his party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated. I'm not sure what that means for anyone outside NY, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Also interesting: I, too, missed Barack Obama calling Hillary Clinton the "Senator from Punjab" until he apologized for it. Was it not a story because the press likes him, or is not particularly fond of Indians and their success in America with limited governmental assistance?

Something that Hillary finally did right: this Sopranos spoof video to reveal her campaign song. Sadly, it was ruined when it turned out that it was not Don't Stop Belivin', but some Celine Dione song. Yikes. And, as Town Hall points out, a video with Bill and Hillary Clinton based on the series finale of a show about a mob family could raise some questions about political dynasties, especially with so many people dissatisfied with Bush 43.

Speaking of dissatisfaction, 70% of Americans say that the economy is getting worse, despite a rise in wages, low unemployment, and a bullish market. Perhaps they only polled the same people who saw no problems with China's continually growing power.

Also disappointing voters: Congress. Congressional approval is down to 24%. I doubt the train wreck that was the Senate's immigration reform bill helped matters much. And as Mickey Kaus points out, the House could still pass a very similar bill because he thinks that Democrats in Congress are lowballing the support they have for it.

A Duke law professor has a few ideas about what might happen if the US were to quickly withdraw from Iraq. Guess what: it's not good. He foresees self-partition along ethnic lines, followed by more violence along those borders.

And while we're talking about Duke, NRO says that the Duke lacrosse case is a sad reflection of what the modern civil rights movement has become. As the author says,

"The sad and tragic fact is that the civil-rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against."

Muslims want to have footbaths installed at the University of Michigan, but don't want to pay for them. Freedom of religion doesn't mean the government is going to pay for everything you want, people.

If you happen to work in an industry that is dominated by unions (skilled labor, education, etc.) and you choose not to join, most states will protect you from having "agency fees" automatically withdrawn from your paycheck, but will not protect you from agency fees. Once again, unions hold everyone hostage (including the workers) and benefit only themselves.

Ted Nugent has written an article (yes, I am serious) about Paul McArtney firing roadies for eating cheeseburgers. He rightly points out that the "tolerant" left isn't tolerant at all, and that vegan McArtney's actions are no different than an employer firing an employee for being a vegetarian.

Which Batman is best? The intrepid reporters at Cracked get to the bottom of the issue. Regardless of who is the man behind the mask, I still say that Tim Burton's 1989 version is the best film incarnation of the character.

Thirsty? Try some Kimchee-flavored Coolpis, or any of the other frighteningly bizarre Japanese drinks on this list.

100th Post!

2007-06-19T14:08:00.000-06:00

Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong has been disbarred for his actions after he jumped to conclusions and ignored evidence. What about the Gang of 88 Duke professors who did the same thing?

Town Hall has an interesting piece about Mitt Romney's pro-life conversion. One good point they make about when he was "effectively pro-choice" is that Ted Kennedy's supporters and groups like Planned Parenthood still didn't like or trust him because of his personal opposition to abortion. Essentially, he told the people of Massachusetts what Rudy Giuliani is telling America now, and thankfully changed that ridiculous position (personally opposed without seeking to change the law) while he was governor.
You can also watch Romney on PBS production Iowa Press, along with several other candidates.

Newsweek has an article about probable presidential candidate Fred Thompson. It's mostly laudatory, but does question the "true conservative" reputation he's gained in the last few months.

Hillary Clinton has a feminist problem. No, not that she is one, that old-school feminists hate her. I guess staying married to your chronically cheating husband and parlaying that into personal political gain is not what an "independent" woman does in their minds.

Right after I congratulated the Obama campaign for finally doing something right and seeking out former Secretary of State Colin Powell for foreign policy advice, it once again turned into amateur hour. Obama has received more than three times the amount of money he had claimed from a disgraced Chicago businessman. Just because you get rid of the money, Barack, doesn't mean we're not going to find out.

It's no longer all immigration, all the time over at Kausfiles, although Mickey is still cranking out lots of good stuff on the (temporarily) failed immigration bill. Here's a nice non-immigration topic: he takes a fellow Slate writer to task for blaming Bush for some kind of conspiracy against health food chains, while neglecting to mention that "Wild Oats' biggest shareholder is Bill Clinton's business partner and bachelor buddy who's also busy trying to buy up seemingly every available media property in advance of Hillary's 2008 run."

Congressional Democrats not only want to repeal the Bush tax cuts, but they want to create new surtaxes on prosperous individuals and corporations. This is another example of liberals (and, sadly, it's not just the Democrats in that group) not understanding basic macroeconomics. The federal government took in record revenues last year, in part because a lower corporate tax rate induces businesses to make more, and the tax revenue collected at the lower rate surpasses that collected at a higher rate. It's not that difficult of a concept, people.

Apparently, a majority of Americans see no problem with China's growing economic and military power. I do. They're f***ing communists!

Chris Matthews, evidently under the impression that Thomas Paine was an 18th century Rupert Murdoch, says that America was founded on biased reporting. While it is true that early American newspapers often had obvious and explicit agendas, it is not exactly accurate to say that objectivity is a new journalistic concept. And, as the author points out, the real danger is when news sources that claim to be objective fail to be (like, say, the BBC or Mathews' own MSNBC).

Missing from yesterday's collection of Chris Farely videos: Matt Foley, motivational Santa.

It seems to be official, or at least an official rumor: the long-awaited all-inclusive Twin Peaks boxed set.

Happy Fathers' Day, Mike Nifong

2007-06-17T20:36:00.000-06:00

The prosecutor of the Duke lacrosse case has been disbarred for his actions. Like Pete Rose, he tried to make up for a year's worth of lies by claiming responsibility at the last moment and stepping down as District Attorney. Like Pete Rose, he's still a piece of crap and did not receive the mercy he was seeking. Don't run your campaign on a promise to zealously and shoddily prosecute all alleged white-on-black crime, Mike.

You may have heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger said that Hispanic immigrants should turn off the Spanish-language TV if they want to get ahead. It predictably resulted in shock and anger from the left. Of course, it's always fun when the immigrant bodybuilder-turned-Governor gets accused of being insensitive and ignorant on immigration issues. That's not a NoCal accent, folks.

Speaking of liberal hypocrisy, the Clintons are selling off "embarrassing" stocks from their blind trust. These include oil and drug companies, military contractors and Wal-Mart. So they happily and intentionally turned a blind eye to which stocks made them at least $5 million, but have now sold them off to avoid being criticized by her Democratic competitors. Of course, Obama has his own Wal-Mart ties through his wife, and Elizabeth Edwards solidified her husband's status as a limousine liberal when she said she had never spoken to her neighbor, but would not like him no matter what he was like. So having her broker buy some blue-chip stocks is not going to sink Hillary in that race.

Several Republican candidates were in Kansas City Friday speaking at the National Right-to-Life convention. As usual, Mitt Romney claimed to be a true pro-life convert, while hard core pro-lifer Sam Brownback questioned him. He softened his criticism a hair, though, but I still don't think that Brownback is on Romney's list of potential running mates.
Speaking of Romney, conservatives seem to have been justified in their skepticism of President Bush's core values based on his father's liberal (well, Populist, really) tendencies. Does that mean that conservatives should be wary of Romney because of his father's opposition to the conservative wing of the party? I don't know; I like Romney, but I still have some questions about him.

Tony Blair is evidently trying to use a loophole to get the European Union constitution ratified, a move that would presumably make the UK a full-fledged member of the EU. I think that is a bad thing.

Oh, and hey, guess what: the BBC has biases. A new report says the BBC suffers from goupthink, that its reporters do not challenge their own beliefs enough, and that the pseudo-governmental corporation is anti-American.

Hamas militants won't wear masks anymore in the Gaza Strip. Unless they're shooting at Israelis, of course. Then it's acceptable to wear masks.
No wonder Palestinians in Gaza are seeking refuge in (that's right, you guessed it) Israel.

Is there going to be a The Office spinoff centered around Dwight? I hope not.
Of course, it wouldn't be the most ridiculous show to ever see the light of day. Just ask Tom Hanks in drag about that.

Weekend link-o-rama

2007-06-16T12:24:00.000-06:00

OK, so we have a lot to get to today. I'm going to do a little housecleaning in this post, and then hopefully get back on a more regular posting regimen.

He's not giving an endorsement yet, but Colin Powell has given Barack Obama foreign policy advice. This is probably the best thing the bumbling Obama campaign has done so far.

George Will asks how big a problem economic prosperity is for Democrats. The rapid demise of the "compromise" immigration bill showed how politically difficult it will be to push through some of their agenda, and convincing Americans that higher taxes are necessary when the government took in record revenues last year is going to be a hard sell.

While the biggest news story that came from President Bush's visit to Albania was the theft of his watch, there was a lot more to it than that.

And whereas Albanians welcome a visit from an ally, a Kenyan economist begs the G8 to stop sending aid to Africa. He explains that the aid money almost never affects average citizens, and developmental aid actually depresses local economies, further hurting those intended to be helped.

Power Line has a nice, long entry on what the CIA told Bush about Iraq. The lack of communication within the intelligence community was one of the major concerns after 9/11, but the CIA still got a lot of flack for the intelligence that lead to the invasion of Iraq. The author quoted here, however, says that the CIA did its job properly.

One of the scientists that cloned Dolly the sheep has an idea to circumvent ethical questions about human embryonic stem cell research: inject human DNA into animal eggs. Even if this becomes a wide-spread practice, I don't anticipate the fight to using human embryos to go away anytime soon.

If the rationale for leaving Iraq before a semblance of peace is established is that a majority of Americans want the withdrawal, is that an argument for other things? Like, say, the death penalty, which is supported by 62% of Americans? I say no, because I think that the founding fathers rightly feared direct democracy and the "tyranny of the majority."

Communism and Islamism don't have a whole lot in common, but that didn't stop this guy from putting Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega together on a poster and calling them the alliance for justice. I guess that these anti-American leaders have concluded that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, no matter how little sense it makes.
And, evidently, you should put Hu Jintao on that poster, too, since China may be funneling weapons to Iraqi insurgents through Iran. What a bunch of great guys.

Planned Parenthood performed a record number of abortions in 2006, and received a record amount of public funding to do so. It also turned a $56 million profit. So that's where your money goes.

It turns out that journalists may have an agenda when it comes to reporting hate crimes. Who knew?

What's more important, effective disaster warnings or never having to hear an opinion you disagree with? If you're a Florida Democrat, it's the latter.

Let me tell you a little story about a kid who didn't follow this link. He thought, "hey, I have a lot going on right now, I don't have time to follow this link." You know where that kid is now? He's LIVING IN A VAN, DOWN BY THE RIVER!
And while on the subject of tragic SNL alumni, the top 10 Phil Harman moments.

What do Paul Anka, Tori Amos, a high school orchestra, and others have in common? They all smell like Teen Spirit.

From the same guy who wrote the song "Ron Mexico" set to Learn to Fly, here is a nice little tune about Vick/Mexico's dog fighting allegations, using the melody from Cats in the Cradle. It's pretty mean, and very funny.
Update: You can watch all of BradyFan83's brilliant NFL-themed song parodies here.

Ding-dong, the Senate immigration reform bill is dead

2007-06-09T14:22:00.000-06:00

Mickey Kaus gleefully says adios to the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration reform bill, but Democrats (and president Bush) tell him to get ready to say hola again. Just keep scrolling, everything he's written about it is good.
Was the failure of the once-unsinkable bill purely political? Not really, unless the fact that most people were opposed to it makes it a legislative tactic.

The third Republican debate was Tuesday, and candidates debated the issues, established positions, and blah, blah, blah. What did we learn? That John McCain supports the immigration bill he cosponsored, that the Senators and Congressmen who said they would vote against it don't support it, that Baptist minister Mike Huckabee believes in God, and that BYU graduate Mitt Romney is a Mormon. The highlight was undoubtedly the moment when lightning cut out Rudy Giuliani's microphone while he was answering a question about being a pro-choice Catholic. Other than that, it was pretty much a waste of everyone's time.
Here is the obligatory NRO roundup, along with my new go-to liveblogger David Weigel's take.

While none of the members of the National Review symposium found Romney especially impressive in the New Hampshire debate, he is ahead of second-place McCain by 11 points in polls following the debate. Of course, that might have something to do with Romney being the former governor of nearby Massachusetts.

The American trade deficit declines in direct correlation to the strength of the dollar. Currently, the dollar is weak, and the deficit is getting smaller. I am less sure than Glenn Reynolds that this is in fact a good thing.

In the vein of Jack Ryan's confoundingly damaging sex scandal, it seems to be a big deal that Fred Thompson looks like he wants to have relations with his own wife in this picture. Didn't he learn anything from Bill Clinton? You only have sex with women you're not married to, Fred.

The restaurant that gave us everyone's favorite $.99 frozen pizza is closing. I just hope it doesn't affect the cost of party pizzas.

How to survive five different versions of the end of civilization according to the movies.

While clearly not the definitive list, here are a bunch of good SNL commercial parodies.

I thought my only problem was that I'm perfect

2007-06-05T21:31:00.000-06:00

Update: I sure hope that this is true.

Which Twin Peaks character are you?

You're Special Agent Dale Cooper. You're often too brilliant for people to really follow, but your infectious enthusiasm makes up for the fact that you're frequently incomprehensible. You are smart, intuitive, clear-headed, compassionate, and cute as hell -- about your only flaw is your insane coffee consumption.
Take this quiz!

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CNN gets the Democrats knocked up

2007-06-04T10:39:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since my last post. Sorry about that.
The second Democratic Debate was last night. I tried to watch it, I really did. I got through "part 1 of 4" on CNN's website before I gave up. Question askers' microphones were not working, camera men were walking all over the stage, Wolf Blitzer was making statements and passing them off as questions like he was Charlie Rose, the Big Three each spoke three times before Gravel or Dodd said anything...basically, it was a bad debate. Oh, and then there's what was said, most of which was terrible. Instapundit has a roundup of livebloggers here, the best of which is this one.
You can watch the video on CNN's website, or you can read the AP story.
As a side note, I think we should always refer to Sen. Biden as "Joe F***ing Biden." He might be my second favorite Democrat in the Senate, even though I almost always think he's full of crap. When he gets wound up, he can be very entertaining. Also, he's completely insane.

If you feel like you've heard more about the Democrats running for president than their Republican counterparts, it's because you have. Democrats are receiving 61% of the media's attention, although part of the reason is that conservative outlets are focusing on them. Still, it's going to be good news for the Democratic nominee when voters just don't know much about the Republican nominee.

Also, if you feel like John Edwards is a phony, it's because he is one. John Kerry chose him as his running mate in 2004, and he thinks he's full of crap. This revelation in a book by Kerry's campaign manager says a lot about Edwards, but just as much about Kerry. And, once again, the fact that Edwards thinks he can now beat Hillary Clinton or the Republican nominee when he couldn't even outlast John Kerry.

So apparently Bill Clinton was all set to divorce Hillary, and she talked him out of it, because "there are worse things than infidelity." Like losing your meal ticket back into the White House.

Influence Peddler has an interesting piece on the Republican party trying to recruit more black candidates. I think that the important thing is making black voters realize that things like affirmative action and redistributive taxation are not helping poor blacks, and I suppose that convincing black candidates to run is one way to do that.

Here is a good but overly-simplistic analysis of gas prices over the last 50 years, with some odd number massaging going on. The point is that prices really don't change that much, and that a good part of the change is in taxes. But it still makes light of the oil shortage of the 70's and doesn't take into account the vast improvements in fuel efficiency in the past 30 years. The meaningful thing to take away from it, though, is that there is a reason why people are not changing their driving habits.

There is an interesting piece in NRO about how the soon to come minority-majority will affect the US, and more specifically, if people will resent their tax dollars going to either the young Hispanic majority or the old white minority. And, of course, if whites will receive preferential treatment like blacks and Hispanics now.

Glenn Reynolds has more on legal immigrants getting the shaft.
He also has more on blaming American policies for terrorism instead of the killers themselves.

Knocked Up is second at the box office and is getting good reviews. I would expect nothing less from Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen.
You can read an interview with Rogen here, and watch Michael Cera get "fired" from the movie here.

Oh yeah, it's that guy. I like that guy.

Ten weird TV shows that thankfully never were.

Happy Memorial Day

2007-05-28T10:18:00.002-06:00

So did you make yourself uncomfortable during the 2004 campaign, John?

2007-05-24T18:44:00.000-06:00

John McCain took some shots (pun intended) at Mitt Romney when he criticized his stance on the immigration bill by bringing up his "varmint gun." It would probably be more effective for him if anyone who opposed the McCain-Kennedy bill actually supported McCain for president.

Meanwhile, John Edwards made some strong statements about the war on terror being "a bumper sticker, not a plan." Again, this might have been more effective if it hadn't come out recently that he was "not comfortable" around gay people. Or if Bill O'Reilly hadn't dug up the 2001 video of Edwards saying that the Senate Democrats would stand united with President Bush throughout the war on terror. Or if Romney didn't blast Edwards today for not taking terrorism seriously enough.
Frankly, I don't know how Dean Barnett can say he thinks Edwards will be the nominee. Again, this is the guy who had to play second fiddle to John Kerry in 2004. What has he done to make himself a better candidate than Hillary or Barack, or even Kerry, since then? A doofus with a $400 haircut is still a doofus.

Why are so many in government willing to give amnesty to illegal immigrants? Maybe it's because the Federal government hires them, too.

Mickey Kaus continues to rail against the McCain-Kennedy bill. Here are his best lines from the past days:

"At some point the search for authenticity in state-of-the-art politicians becomes fruitless."
"[C]onservatives can't count on Fox to keep the immigration debate boiling. Fox isn't the conservative cable channel. It's the Bush cable channel."

What pork barrel lobbies do you support? Before you answer, remember that taxpayers' money goes to to lobbying groups.

I'm sorry, I won't serve you, I don't like your shirt.

It turns out that NRO is opposed to the newest legislation that "regulates" trade with OPEC. Who'd a thunk it. It is a waste of time for the House to do things like this, though, for all the reasons listed herein.

"God hates fags" and Illinois hates free speech.

I remember watching Ebert and Roper review Home of the Brave (you know, the masterpiece with Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel, and 50 Cent) a while ago, and one of them pointed out that it would be much more effective if even one of the returning soldiers still supported the war in Iraq. Maybe one of the reasons why those soldiers were not in the film (beyond the obvious Hollywood political reasons) is that many soldiers choose to stay beyond their required tours of duty.

The Sun says that women find good looking men boring. That must be my problem.

Earlier this week, Tom Verducci wrote an article in Sports Illustrated about playing in the Hall of Fame Game with the Toronto Blue Jays. More importantly, there is a link to his 2005 article about going to spring training with the Jays. It's long, but one of the best articles you're going to read for a while.

Seth Rogen (and Judd Apatow) gets some love from Time.

And you thought the sex talk with your parents went badly.

That's what she said, C3PO.

Finally, Uber tries to make a list of the top 10 moments from The Office, which is really just a futile effort to rank the cold opens.

Someone read the immigration bill, and tell me what it says

2007-05-22T12:13:00.000-06:00

Updating some previous items: Jimmy Carter called his comments about President Bush "careless." I'd say so.
Also, some U.S. officials are not so sure that the new British PM will call for a quick withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Hugh Hewitt has written a lot about the immigration bill in the last few days. This is as good a roundup of his stuff as I can find.

Speaking of the immigration bill, the Senate has voted to end debate on the bill. It will not be voted on, however, for at least a week, and possibly as long as three weeks. Why? Because they had the cloture vote before anyone actually read the thing. But, based on public comments by Senators and estimates about who will vote how, it does not look good for the amnesty supporters.

Maybe the "compromise" in the immigration bill is that Congressional Republicans give the Democrats what they want on immigration, and the Dems remove the timeline from the Iraq spending bill. Since, you know, that's exactly what has happened. The only person who wins twice: Bush.

There was a recent article in the WaPo about Rachel Carson, who led the charge to ban DDT worldwide. Forbes picks up on a buried non-number in the article about how many people may have died from malaria because DDT is no longer used to kill mosquitoes in third world countries. The figure is about 800,000 children per year.

Clearly Hillary Clinton is reading my blog, because she is asking America to pick her theme song. Like I said a few days ago, she's a Maneater.

Glenn Reynolds has an observation about European (and especially British) anti-Americanism.
Also, the Baby Boomers tell the next generation to do as they say, not as they do.

I know everyone was shocked that 60-year-old Sylvester Stallone used performance-enhancing drugs to get in shape for Rocky Balboa, but the court showed leniency in the fine leveled at him.

Bloggin' Big Willy style

2007-05-20T22:03:00.000-06:00

The Bush administration has fired back at former president Jimmy Carter. Carter's initial attack, saying that Bush was the most damaging president in terms of international relations, was unprecedented for a former president. Bush's response was equally unprecedented, as most sitting presidents show nothing but respect for former executives. I also noticed that the complaints he has (preemptive war, aggressive foreign policy) is reminiscent of JFK, who invaded Cuba and started a war in Vietnam to contain communism. I guess Carter thinks he's the second-worst president ever.

Bush is also bracing for a change in the UK's Iraq policy now that Tony Blair is no long prime minister. That's not surprising, but it will still be a burden on our troops.

Instapundit links to an interesting story about post war Europe, and the generally depressed attitudes of the liberated French and Germans. Maybe the difficulty of adapting to freedom is not unique to Iraqis and the former Soviet Union.

Reynolds also comments on the potential boom for the domestic oil industry. It makes sense.

The Washington Post notes that the term "flip-flop" has become grossly overused since the Bush campaign accurately and effectively applied it to John Kerry. In his case, he was called a flip-flopper for not only campaigning against the war despite his vote in support of it, but because of his tendency to pander to any audience put in front of him. Mitt Romney has changed his mind on one singular issue, and he can point to a specific moment when he became pro-life. It's not quite the same.

Power Line points out that Duncan Hunter has had good showings at both Republican debates, but still is lagging way behind. I don't know if a Californian is who an Easterner like Rudy or Mitt will look to as a VP, but he has been solid in the debates.
Power Line also links to an article about the strange new respect John Ashcroft is receiving from WaPo.

This is why you don't trust every war protester's story.
This is why you don't listen to every state Senator who supports laws against cell phone use while driving.

One high school senior has been show An Inconvenient Truth in class four times this year. I wish I was surprised.

If Fox News likes Michael Moore's new documentary about health care, who doesn't? Well, Canadians don't, that's who. Moore praises the Canadian system in the film, but, as I posted not too long ago, many Canadians face serious delays and other problems with their socialized health system.

I am officially endorsing Greg Oden for the first overall pick in the NBA draft. Unless, of course, Kevin Durrant rocks out to "Parents Just Don't Understand," too. It's also nice to see a black journalist remind us that not every black athlete grew up in the projects. Maybe Jason Whitlock's Imus article tour is going to start a trend.

Maybe "angry John McCain" from the debates is just...John McCain

2007-05-20T19:42:00.000-06:00

Get ready to hear this...conservative bloggers don't like the Senate's "compromise" immigration bill, nor do they like the Republican Senators who favored it. Glenn Reynolds hasn't made up his mind about the bill itself (because it's very long, after all), but he does say this about the Republicans: "At this point, they've either mis-sold a good bill, or produced a bad one."
Mickey Kaus has written lots about this issue recently, but this post is pretty good. Even though President Bush led the Republican charge for comprehensive immigration reform, he still had to "compromise" the issue of illegal immigrants granted asylum paying back taxes.

Also not surprising: John McCain, one of the other Republicans who was in favor of the bill, has had heated words with his colleagues. Perhaps to the extent of calling them chickens*** and shouting "[Expletive] you! I know more about this than anyone else in the room," although he denies that he claimed to know more about immigration than anyone else. Ann Althouse has no problem with him dropping f-bombs behind closed doors, but Instapundit thinks the bigger issue is that McCain continues to treat his own party like the enemy. He also includes a funny picture.

Still not surprising: the false accusations in the Duke lacrosse case are having far-reaching repercussions, and it is making life more difficult for prosecutors.

This actually is surprising: Jimmy Carter has called the Bush administration the "worst in history." Also, this is what he had to say about Tony Blair: "Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient." I love that he includes "loyal" in his string of mean things to say. The worst president in history got two terms, Jimmy; how many did you serve?

The Las Vegas city council has ordered a car dealership take down its American flag. To be fair, those who forced the issue have a strong list of grievances:

At Wednesday's City Council meeting, some residents showed up to complain about the noise from the flapping flag when the wind blows and the aesthetic effect of the looming flag pole.

Let's hope that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. (Yeah, I know, I just couldn't resist.)

Venezuelans are protesting Hugo Chavez's planned closure of an independently-owned television station. The important thing is that Venezuela is becoming ever more communist and totalitarian, but the main reason the public is outraged is that the station broadcasts popular soap operas. And no, that's not just another rejected Tonight Show joke like the one above.

Barack Obama reaches out to the poor and young in the workforce in a commencement speech where he tells them...not to try to make money. I agree with what he said in spirit (that there's more to life than money), but he kind of just told them not to reach for the stars, maybe just the clouds instead. Inspiring.

Tim Russert honors the dead from the 9/11 attacks by not honking his car horn. What are you doing to honor their memory?

Donald Trump quits his television show, merely days after it's canceled. That's the kind of good timing that made him a billionaire.

Speaking of The Apprentice: the most insane TV shows of all time.

And finally, an epic battle for control of the Geek Galaxy that only Uber can solve: Star Wars v. Lord of the Rings.

Watch out, Barack, she'll chew you up

2007-05-17T16:24:00.000-06:00

Republican debate number two came and went with less fanfare than the first. It may have been more entertaining and beneficial to primary voters, though. There were fewer questions, but the candidates had more time too answer them. The Fox News moderators were able to coax some personal attacks out of the contenders, and, in the highlight of the night, Rudy Giuliani went nuts on Ron Paul. Seriously, Rudy should send Paul a fruit basket for setting him up so well.
You can watch the whole thing at Fox's website (more manageable than MSNBC's), as well as read liveblogging from Influence Peddler and Instapundit has a collection of responses in one post.
And, once again, NRO has a panel response.
NRO also put together a montage of questions from the first debate and from the second. I agree that the questions were much better in the second, although I found Chris Wallace's style oddly confrontational. Still, Fox's lead reporter and White House correspondent are better suited for a debate than Chris Matthews.
While I agree that Huckabee looked good Tuesday night, I still can't get over how few people found his protectionist rant in the first debate damaging. Could you really see Rudy's new pal Teve Torbes let him choose Huckabee as his VP candidate after that?

Mickey Kaus once again points out how much wishful thinking is going into the immigration-amnesty bill that is on the verge of passing in the Senate, and again compares it to Bush's extreme optimism when invading Iraq.
Townhall says it's crap, too.

Allow me to write this one like Drudge: Alarmists say there is only five years left to take action before global warming does irreparable damage to our planet...
...even though average temperatures fell in April.

Glenn Reynolds links to an article that points out how much out of character, and how unexpectedly effective, the American response to the 9/11 attacks was.

He also has an interesting and informative, albeit disappointing, look at interrogation techniques used by Japanese police and courts.

Amazon.com is going to start selling music downloads. Up yours, Apple.

Prince Harry is not going to be deployed to Iraq after all. The British army decided that the specific threats made against him were too much of a liability, despite the obvious issues of military secrecy and uniform appearance.

Probably in response to my recent post where I noted that Hillary Clinton had no profile song on her official myspace page, a contest has begun to find her campaign song. My vote, at least for the election cycle, is Maneater by Hall and Oats.

Evidently Judd Apatow doesn't need me to give him a nickname, he's already the Mayor of Comedy. I still think The Most Trusted Man in Hollywood is better.

Pearl is back at Will Ferrell's apartment, but this time she doesn't want the rent...she wants blood.

If I got Obama to exaggerate my readership, it might look impressive

2007-05-14T14:57:00.000-06:00

Newt Gingrich says it is a "great possibility" he will run for President. He also says that the Republican field needs to champion reform instead of arguing over points that have already been established, such as Rudy Giuliani's stance on abortion. I find it odd that a probable candidate would tell his competitors to prepare to tackle the issue that has been his career calling card, but that's the kind of guy Newt is. There's no denying that he was an effective Speaker and that the Contract with America was successful, but he stands no chance of winning.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he's not running for president. A NY Daily News poll not only says that voters think he would be a better president than Rudy, but that he has been a better mayor. Things could get pretty interesting if he and Newt both jumped into the race.

On the Democratic front, Bill Clinton stars in a campaign video for his wife. It could be pretty effective, although it's impossible to watch it without adding your own lines, such as, "When I had two public affairs while governor of Arkansas, and another while president, Hillary stood by me because I was her meal ticket to the Senate."

Something that is not effective: Barack Obama saying that "everything should be on the table" when it comes to fixing Social Security...until he's asked about partial privatization. Don't say everything is on the table if you refuse to consider one of the long-term solutions.
Similarly, don't say that Toyota's cars average 45 mpg when Toyota says they average 30. In his defense, he got that number from a Media Matters story that relied on numbers from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Those numbers, though, were for cars in Japan, and the fuel economy numbers had to be finagled to get there. Still, telling American auto makers to meet the standards of Japanese sub compacts is absurd, and irresponsible if his campaign was aware of how that 45 mpg figured was derived.
Also, Sam Donaldson points out that people in the front row of an Obama speech were put to sleep. Drudge has the picture on the main page.

What's the difference between a Sam Brownback campaign error and an Obama campaign error? When Brownback makes a mistake, he immediately recognizes it. Also, his mistake is implying that Peyton Manning is a better QB than Brett Favre while in Wisconsin. Dumb, yes, but not an outright fabrication. Still, Favre would never throw his teammates under a bus like Manning did after last year's playoff loss, and that alone should be reason enough for Brownback to take Favre over Manning.

Dean Barnett is looking for a candidate to pass the "beer test," and Mary Katherine Ham reminds us that that is why George W. Bush is in his second term.
And after Barnett advises the candidates to be more accessible, David Frum gives the Republicans some personalized advice.

Barnett also wonders why Al Sharpton's brand of crazy has become legitimized. I don't really have an answer, but it probably has something in common with why Mitt Romney's religious background is more of an issue than Obama's. At some point, religiosity for personal gain became more acceptable than religiosity for spiritual growth.

Here's something Europeans have in common with Shartpon: anti-Semitism.

A new proposal would reduce the tax burden on commercial airlines and expand the tax burden on producers of small and private jets. You would think that the global warming folks would be all over this, but, in a surprise about as big as finding out that Europeans still don't love the Jews, the Al Gore crowd isn't wild about it. Instapundit has a long internal debate on the subject.

Turns out you can spend more than two years in jail before going to trial in Canada, even when you are a minor celebrity:

"On the date of his trial Tony Rosato will have spent more time in custody on a harassment charge than any other convicted prisoner in Canada has ever spent on the same charges," says Brodsky, who took on Rosato's case in March. "On average, someone convicted of criminal harassment spends one day in jail and two years on probation."

The lesson: don't get arrested in Canada, unless you plan on pleading guilty.

I got another shout-out from the Peddlers, this time for my investigative report into presidential candidates' myspace profile songs.

YouTube "star" Lisa Nova has a mildly humorous video about the Democratic race.

Put on the darn hat

2007-05-12T22:03:00.000-06:00

I watched exactly 30 seconds of this video about Rudy Giuliani at a campaign stop at Houston Baptist when I realized I needed to write about something else. I, like the video's poster, will get back to it soon.
One of the experiences of my youth that got me interested in politics was when I went to Missouri Boys' State in the summer of 2000 before my senior year of high school. When Rudy thanked his host college for the shirt and hat, it reminded me of some of the first speakers we had at Boys' State. As you probably remember, incumbent Sen. John Ashcroft and outgoing Gov. Mel Carnahan were engaged in a fierce battle for Ashcroft's Senate seat, that remained close after Carnahan's tragic death and the appointment of his widow as his replacement. Well, even though most of us wouldn't have been able to vote in the 2000 election, both candidates came and spoke on the second or third night we were there. Ashcroft had the benefit of going second, which may or may not have been an accident, given the American Legion's conservative nature. I must give both candidates credit for playing to the audience; given the fact that few of us could or would vote in the election, they easily could have given some nicey-nice Obama-esque speech about how partisanship is bad and that government should work for the people, and blah, blah, blah. But we were teenage boys, shut off from the outside world (i.e., girls), and we wanted blood. Both candidates gave it to us; after watching two grown men essentially call each other names we all felt a little better that by the end of the week our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had successfully run on a campaign of essentially yelling in a high-pitched, nerdy voice, "I HAVE A 4.0 GPA! I GOT A 34 ON MY ACT!" while doing the "raise the roof" motion.
Anyway, Ashcroft came across as the clear winner, and the popular choice amongst the crowd. What pushed Ashcroft over the top, though, was what happened after the speech. Whenever a guest speaker was done speaking, the Boys' State director would hand him a t-shirt and say something to the effect of, "We would like to thank you for coming to speak to us, _____________, and offer you the newest in Boys' State apparel." When he gave Carnahan his shirt, he pulled the classic "hold the shirt for a second, smile, and toss it to an aid" routine, and we politely clapped. When Ashcroft was done speaking (and remember, he was fired up from getting to listen to Carhahan bash him and then respond), the director handed him a shirt. Ashcroft immediately ripped off his suit coat and pulled the shirt on over his shirt and tie. The crowd erupted. That is the only standing ovation I remember that we gave anyone all week, although we may have given everyone a standing-o.
My point is this, Rudy: when you're on camera, and the audience's reactions are going to be part of what is taken away from your speech, put on the darn hat. You can take it off before you actually start giving your speech, but you'd better put it on when they give it to you.

It’s because cutting taxes creates wealth, dummies

2007-05-12T13:10:00.000-06:00

Tony Blair has stepped down after 11 years as the British prime minister. I don't know what his legacy will be in history, but I will remember him as the UK liberal who had more in common with a semi-conservative American president than any of his European counterparts.

I have never listened to Opie and Anthony, especially since it's on satellite radio now, but I am a fan of guys who were a fan of them (Colin Quinn, Jim Norton, etc.), so I was very disappointed to hear their little bit about sexually assaulting Laura Bush and Condoleezza Rice. As of yet, they have not faced the same fate as Imus, probably because it's politically safer to say you want to rape a Republican than to show mild racial insensitivity.

Gateway Pundit has some reactions from survivors of the Kansas tornado to Gov. Sebelius. To no one's surprise, they think she's full of crap.

The Federal government has taken in more money in tax revenue so far in the 2007 fiscal year than ever before. Most are pointing to the economic stimulation of the Bush tax cuts as the reason. More revenue through lower taxes; what a perfectly predictable idea. Too bad the public typically gets the media's view of basic macroeconomics, so lots of people continue to live under the assumption that socialism helps poor people more than capitalism.

And speaking of government money, John Edwards wants to spend more of it. Lots more.

Perhaps he can spend some of it on failing schools, instead of listening to what the school wants. Hey, what do you know, the Department of Education is already doing that. Mickey Kaus has a great blog about the way we overspend on large, ineffective schools instead of experimenting with charter schools, and remove officials who don't fall in line. And if you scroll down far enough, he reminds the Republican presidential candidates that Ronald Reagan was last president 18 years ago, and that it may be time to move on. While I, too, adore Reagan, I agree. It's not like liberals are still hung up on JFK and FDR. Oh, wait...

Quick reminder: Congress' approval rating is still just as dismal as Bush's.

Even Democrats seem to have gotten bored with trying to force Attorney General Gonzales out of office. He seems to have successfully mismanaged his own defense to he point that those who want him out are at a loss for bad things to say.

The terrorists hate our culture, but steal our iconic cultural figures to teach kids about hating Jews and, now, the Pakistanis. These guys can't come up with their own cartoon mouse, and the Palestinians elect them to be their leadership? Good call.

Turkey's Kemalist military is once again threatening a coup if an Islamist president is elected. Except that the "Islamist" party might not be that bad. I have supported Turkey's sacrifice of some democratic principles to avoid the imposition of sharia law, but I have not supported it's strict limitations on religious expression. It seems that NRO and I see eye to eye on this.

Speaking of religious hostility, Hugh Hewitt engages in a little shameless self-promotion by posting some reviews of his book about Mitt Romney. The important thing to take away from both reviews is that they acknowledged how disastrous it would be if Romney did not get the nomination, or did not win the general election, simply because he is a Mormon.

A brief debate over at Power Line about which is to blame for Obama's stumbles: his substandard staff, or his "disconcerting tendency to make things up, as well as a lack of common sense." Neither one is good.

I can't really top the wording Glenn Reynolds uses when discussing the hypocrisy of those who favor hate crime legislation, so I'll just let you read it yourself.

Turns out Townhall has a blog dedicated to The Office. It's not very good; nobody wants to read your predictions based on what the show all but writes in neon letters just before the credits, but still, the fact that it's there makes me happy.

Some good stuff in the Roundup, especially the sale of the Terminator franchise and the Ferrets for Freedom video.

Even Bill Simmons, a former political science major who has said he couldn't point out Israel on a map, realizes that a premature withdrawal from Iraq is a bad idea:

Q: Any chance that the U.S. pulling out of Iraq could have Ewing Theory implications? You know, we pull out and suddenly and inexplicably democracy flourishes and everyone gets along? --Jeff, Philadelphia
SG: No.

A collection of Bob Saget videos, including the very funny (and vulgar) "Danny Tanner Was Not Gay."

Will Ferrell and his frat brothers confront their own mortality.

Some of the cheesiest movie death scenes, including the always-popular double hook eye gouge.

If you didn't catch last week's episode of My Name is Earl (not the season finale, but Get a Real Job), go find it somewhere. It's stuffed full of Rudy references, and also a Rush song.

A convenient fudging of facts

2007-05-10T17:51:00.000-06:00

Well, Rudy Giuliani isn't the only Republican candidate who has had ties to Planned Parenthood. Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, donated $150 in 1994, during a time when Romney considered himself to be effectively pro-choice.
And, unfortunately, he recently had a slip of the tongue similar to Barack Obama's "10,000 dead" gaffe; he said he was under the impression that marriages in France are sometimes limited to seven-year terms, which seems to be completely untrue. That's the sort of thing you might want to double-check next time.
The PP donations are important because of this sentiment that Townhall expresses, which I'm not sold on. I think a lot more goes into voting for a candidate in a Primary than the degree to which the candidate adheres to an ideology, but donating to PP is not going to help anyone win a Republican primary.

A new study concludes that immigrants, mostly from strongly Catholic Latin America, are not as socially conservative as once thought. As I've written before, part of the Republican support for amnesty for illegal immigrants (i.e., President Bush) seems to be based in wishful thinking that if these illegals are legalized en masse, they would be so thankful to Republicans that the party would gain inroads in the Hispanic vote. If, however, they are socially liberal, they will most likely continue to vote Democratic (except for Cuban immigrants, who are overwhelming Republican).

A Boston Globe writer says that Obama is next in line to be the Howard Dean/Bill Bradley/etc. of this race, the Democratic candidate who can't turn apparent popularity into votes. We shall see.

Nancy Pelosi has threatened to take Bush to court if he issues a signing statement to go along with the passage of the compromise reached on the emergency spending bill for the war in Iraq, even though the court would probably not here it. That'll show him.

Mickey Kaus writes about a Bloggingheads that you can watch here. It is extremely interesting. Bob Wright talks to embedded military blogger Eli Lake, and is then joined by the commanding officer of the company Lake is embedded in. If you've ever wondered what the troops are doing in Iraq, this is the place to find out. Or, if you're the kind of dummy that doesn't follow my links, then you just wasted 30 seconds.

Remember that video I linked to a while back about the Mickey Mouse-style Hamas character that was teaching kids to hate the US and Israel? Well, CNN, in all its wisdom, did not run that video as soon as it should have, because someone who does not speak Arabic thought there was a translation error. Good one, CNN.

Let's go ahead and talk some more about traditional media sources bungling and obscuring facts. Andrew McCarthy writes in NRO that the big-name newspapers focused almost all their attention on the loose al-Qaeda affiliations of the captured Fort Dix terrorists, but paid little attention to the motivation for trying to kill "as many soldiers as possible." Perhaps it is because these papers assumed that their readers were well versed in al-Qadea's ideology, or perhaps it is because many journalists continue to miss the point about why defeating the ideology of the terrorists is so important.

A little closer to home, Powerline tries to get to the truth in the numbers concerning the Kansas National Guard and the tornado cleanup efforts. How do you reconcile the seemingly incongruent numbers? Well, the second-to-last paragraph from this story in the KC Star on Tuesday seems to do just that:

Maj. Gen. Tod Bunting, the state's adjutant general, said the Kansas National Guard was equipped to about 40 percent of its necessary levels, down from the 60 percent it had at the start of the war. About 850 soldiers have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, that didn't stop one of our illustrious columnists from writing this article on Wednesday, where he conveniently neglects to mention that the Kansas Guard was only at 60% of its ideal levels to begin with, or that Gov. Sebelius didn't seem to take any interest in the Kansas Guard's equipment until December of 2005, two and a half years after the Iraq war started and more than three years after she was elected. I hope you don't think I'm playing politics by stating facts, Mike. I'm so glad I work in sports, so I don't have to fight the urge to punch guys like him in the head every day.

Prince Caspian, the next film in the Chronicles of Narnia series, is under production right now. Could an adaptation of The Screwtape Letters be in the works, too? It would be interesting to see how a series of letters, where the narrative is only implied, could be turned into a movie. Let's hope we get the chance to see how they do it.

One of the original purveyors of man-made global warming theory, who actually treated the subject as a benefit to mankind at the height of the global-cooling scare of he late 1970's, would probably not get along too well with the doomsayers like global warming prophet Al Gore. Not that he hasn't ignored his share of scientists in his day.

I don't want to make a habit out of responding to comments, and I certainly don't want to attack commenters or do anything that would limit the amount of feedback I get. However, I do feel the need to say something about the comments on my last post. No matter where one comes down on the abortion debate, the main issue I have with the large percentage of abortions when the mother is aware that her child will have Down syndrome is that some, like my first commenter, make the decision that those children are incapable of enjoying life, and that we should engage in eugenics to eliminate the disabled from our society. How big is the moral leap between terminating a Down syndrome fetus and a fetus that is predisposed to obesity? After all, obesity can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and lower quality of life. Why should we let fat kids ruin our perfect society? Have science fiction and distopian writers taught us nothing?

On that cheery note, here is the conclusion to Operation Kitten Calendar, as well as the obligatory reunion show. It kind of lost steam, but the first couple of episodes were pretty funny.

Here is a list of the top 10 comedies of all time. Not surprisingly, it skews a little towards the classics of the 70's.

Eugenics via abortions…Hitler would be so proud

2007-05-08T22:40:00.000-06:00

Rudy Giuliani has donated to Planned Parenthood, the leading abortion advocacy group, at least six times. The donations add up to about $900.
I agree with Townhall here, to some extent: we already know Rudy is pro-choice, so what's the bid deal? Well, the big deal is that he has asserted during this campaign that he is personally averse to abortion, but does not want to limit a woman's right to choose. Beyond the inherent incongruity of opposing abortion while not wishing to make it illegal (as I have explained before), this makes his recent statements look like lies. But for someone who has refused to back down from saying that he supports government funding for indigent women to receive abortions, this really isn't very shocking.

More shocking: Fred Thompson, the slowly-fading undeclared Republican savior of the primaries, was not as tough on abortion as he (and his supporters) would have you believe. There are a handful of surprises in this 1994 Project Vote Smart survey.

And while we're still on the subject of abortion, about 90% of women who are given notice that their unborn child has Down Syndrome choose to abort it. That's ninety percent. 9-0. Think of that next time you see a Down syndrome patient.

It's not that Barack Obama misspoke at a campaign stop, it's how egregiously he did so. Obama said that the tornadoes in Kansas had killed 10,000 instead of "at least 10," which is apparently what was written in his speech. And he made sure to remind us that this disaster, too, was the result of President Bush's war in Iraq, just like hurricane Katrina. Yes, the Kansas National Guard is depleted because several battalions were part of the troop surge, but that had nothing to do with search and rescue, only rebuilding efforts. And Gov. Sebelius is the only Kansan I have heard complain about it.

The growing income gap that we hear so much about has had little effect on how people live, and the consumption gap is actually shrinking. While this is proof that the rich getting richer does not necessitate that the poor get poorer, it also demonstrates why the idea for a national sales tax will never happen; the rich just don't outspend the middle and lower classes enough to reach the equivalent of the 38% income tax bracket.

Here's a surprise: Al Sharpton is a bigot. Who are the people who "really believe in God," Al? Obama's racist pastor who gives speeches about the war instead of sermons about salvation? Makes this recent Mallard Fillmore strip look pretty accurate.
Don't worry, the State Department will not do electronic surveillance on you or your home to protect you from terrorists. Newspapers will, however, do electronic surveillance to make more money. Liberal hypocrisy wins again.

Conan O'Brien goes to Napa Valley and drinks wine like only Conan can.

Operation Kitten Calendar, part three.

A little less talk, a little more blogging

2007-05-07T22:18:00.000-06:00

Really, Al Gore, you're making things too easy for me. Not only do I use religious analogies when I discuss his version of the global warming situation, but I went so far as to start an official Antichrist watch because his religious fervor was so intense and well-received, despite its publicly-noted flaws. But Gore went so far as to call global warming a spiritual crisis when speaking to some architects in Texas. Does he like being called a false prophet, or is all of that masked by his delusions of grandeur?

Last thing on the Republican debate, I promise*: Mary Katherine Ham and Katie Favazza debate the debate over jelly beans.

In New Hampshire, Mitt Romney is leading Republicans (and undeclared-yet-omnipresent Fred Thompson is fourth) in the latest polls, and Hillary Clinton leads over second-place Barack Obama by 16 points. I'm sure his Massachusetts connections play a big role in that (as does Hillary's own Northeasternerness), but leading in the second state in the primary race is a big deal.

Speaking of every one's favorite Mormon candidate, Mickey Kaus wonders why Obama's religious views aren't more of an issue. I posted the article referenced here several days ago, and like I said then, it is very much worth a read. Obama's pastor is not someone who will make a presidential race any easier to win. And by that I mean that he's an ethnocentric crazy person.

And the Peddlers take Obama to task for seizing the myspace page that his campaign had once supported, this time from a property law standpoint. Pretty interesting take. I'm beginning to think that when Hillary finally takes the gloves off, in six months or so, she can and will make Obama's life miserable. One benefit of living such a public life and being widely despised is that Obama will have nothing to throw at her that she hasn't heard before, but his meteoric rise based almost solely on vague speeches about partisanship and media support could make his fall especially painful.

Since Obama's myspace page has gotten so much attention these last few days, I decided to analyze the presidential race through the most important of criteria: the candidates' profile songs. Rudy Giuliani is the only major candidate without a site that I can easily identify as "official," although the most official-looking one has Hail to the Chief as the profile song. Seems like that wouldn't be his; too presumptuous. Hillary, Obama and McCain don't have songs on their profiles. Of the candidates who I've managed to track down, these are their songs:
Sam Brownback: Kansas, "Carry On My Wayward Son." Not surprisingly, the Senator from Kansas likes the band; in fact, they are one of two listed under his favorites, along with Michael W. Smith. Overall, I think this is my favorite song any of these candidates have.
John Edwards: Foo Fighters, "Times Like These." It is a Foo Fighters song, even though it is listed as "John Edwards Intro" as the band. A decent song from a current, once-great band. It is important to note that the whole song does not play, only about a minute's worth. What else would you expect from the guy who couldn't even beat out John Kerry three years ago?
Dennis Kucinich: Dennis Kucinich explaining how to pronounce his name. His 28-year-old far-too-attractive-for-him wife has "Yellow" from Coldplay, incidentally.
Mitt Romney: Elvis Presley, "A Little Less Conversation." Hard to argue with a song that starts with the line, "a little less conversation, a little more action please." Plus, that guitar hook is pretty classic.
So Edwards' song is the edgiest, and yet somehow only less lame than Kucinich's pronunciation guide. Pretty well sums up his whole campaign.

Someone tries to compete with my list of sequels that surpass originals, and mostly fails. Back to the Future 2? Come on!

*No I don't.

Still debating the debate

2007-05-07T14:16:00.000-06:00

So I've been reading lots of Republican debate recaps, and while I'm not surprised that there are differences of opinion, I am surprised that the opinions can vary as much as they do. I also feel like many of the reviewers simply missed some things, most notably Huckabee's protectionist rant. Otherwise, he did very well, and several people have noted this. All but one of NRO's eight analysts here (or nine, counting this one) completely ignored the fact that he called outsourcing criminal. The closest to a consensus that I can reach in these recaps is that the format was bad, and the questions (especially from politico.com readers) were occasionally terrible. And I agree.
(Update: Townhall's Dean Barnett also ignored Huckabee's protectionism, but still disliked him.)
This guy was the only liveblogger I found who picked up on Huckabee's anti-free trade statement, and his whole thing is pretty good, too.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both dusted off an old chestnut: socialism in women's wages. As NRO warns, "Whenever the word 'fair' features so prominently in Democratic legislation, the odds are that it is economically illiterate, and this legislation doesn’t disappoint." For all of his positives and likability, Obama embraces policies that are not only bad ideas, but have proven to be both unnecessary and unsuccessful in achieving their designed goals. Unless the only goal is to win votes...

Speaking of proposing legislation just to win votes, remember those six items the new Democratic Congress promised to accomplish, some within the first 100 hours? Neither does the new Democratic Congress.

The British government is using electronic surveillance on individuals' trash cans to promote recycling. Who has the time to monitor all of the various kinds of surveillance that the UK employs? I guess it is easier to watch a surveillance monitor while you're boiling every meal.
(I think that is my first official culturally insensitive joke on my blog. I'm so proud of myself.)

Much of the discussion that followed the drunk-driving death of Josh Hancock was about MLB teams serving beer in the clubhouse. While I think that this is one more example of Baseball slavishly holding to tradition to the detriment of the game, it is important to note that Hancock did not have just one beer. After doing the math on his blood alcohol content, a 220 pound male would need to consume more than 5 beers (with 5% alcohol content, like Budweiser) within an hour to reach a .157 BAC. While it is dumb for an employer to provide employees with alcohol, the individual has to be held responsible for drinking that much and then choosing to drive. He clearly had a substance abuse problem, since he also had marijuana in his car, and the blame rests solely on his shoulders. Nevertheless, how many other professional sports offer athletes beer in the locker room? Of course, what other sport has stadiums named Busch Stadium, Coors Field, and Miller Park?

I was recently remedied of something I wrote in my old myspace blog, concerning the most attractive character in a Disney cartoon. In my experience of discussing this with others, Jasmine is overwhelmingly the top choice, followed by Ariel. I would say that one's opinion on the subject is quite telling, but that may be just because I think Belle is so far out in front of all the others. She would have even more of an advantage if she had blue eyes, but I'm nitpicking now. It is a mildly disturbing topic, but don't act like you've never thought about it before.

Maybe Andy Bernard's Greatest Hits will be part of the season three DVD set.

Republican Debate Number One

2007-05-03T21:36:00.000-06:00

I just watched the Republican debate on MSNBC's website, which is not especially user-friendly. I mean, they show Meet the Press every week in one video, but they have to break up the debate? Come on. I thought that Giuliani continued to struggle unnecessarily with the abortion issue; he creates his own problems every time he tries to talk about it. Otherwise, he was good. McCain likes to be angry too much, and it's weird to see him glare into the camera, say he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of hell, and then smile after Chris Matthews tells him time's up. Mitt Romney was pretty good, even though he had to answer every "down the line" question first. Mike Huckabee impressed me; as a supporter of Sam Brownback, he looked frighteningly good. As for Brownback, the most significant thing he said all night was that he could get behind a Republican nominee even if they were not as adamantly pro-life as he is, essentially answering the implied question of whether he could be Giuliani's or even Romney's running mate. Tom Tancredo did not look good on his home turf, and Ron Paul, for all his Libertarian sensibleness, seems kind of crazy. No real reason, he just comes off as a little nuts. I don't think any of the other candidates did much to raise their profiles, but nobody said anything crazy.
The thing that stuck out most to me was that Chris Matthews is a terrible person to moderate a debate. He and the producers of the show had an awkward format, and some of the questions, especially submitted by viewers, were not especially good. The biggest problem with Matthews, though, is that he is the host of Hardball, one of the more aggressive political shows, and a debate should be moderated by someone very neutral, not loud and bombastic like Matthews. The best example was when he tried to instigate something between Huckabee and Romney (which, as I have mentioned before, seemingly needs no instigation) when the comment he brought up was fairly benign.
I haven't found a full transcript yet, so I will instead post the first AP story on the debate.

One of the criticisms of Romney that Matthews and company brought up in the analysis of the debates (also severely chopped up on the website) was that he was too polished in his answers, almost like they were pre-orchestrated. While I'm sure he was well-coached by his advisers, part of it is just that Romney has a somewhat slick manner of speaking. It may be off-putting to some, and others may welcome or admire it; it's just his style. Here he is in a very different context, on the Tonight Show. Unfortunately, the video is edited, but it's still worth watching.

Hugo Chavez is threatening to nationalize even more private businesses, this time the country's banks and steel industry. And since he's done it before, I won't be surprised when this comes to pass. Glenn Reynolds links to an article about Marxism coming back in vogue in Latin America, and the consequences of its return.
Instapundit also links to an article about a film that finally revolves around communism. As he says, there is just one problem. It is, however, a big one.

Townhall has a big wrap up of the current situation in Israel, whose prime minister could step down (or be forced out) at any moment.

Everyone hates earmarks, but no one is willing to get rid of them. A good start would be to make the legislator who inserts the earmark accountable by actually naming the member who puts it in.

In last week's Democratic debate, one of Barack Obama's questions was about his comment that nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people. He said at the debate that this quote was out of context, and that he said they had suffered because of the Palestinian leadership. Except that he didn't say that, an aid said it for him after the fact.
And here is Ann Althouse's assessment of the Obama myspace situation.

While we're here, let's do some more follow-ups to stuff I posted earlier today.

President Bush says he will veto the hate crime bill if it comes to his desk. Good call.
Here is video evidence of how much Barbera Walters hates you.
In response to one of the SNL Digital Shorts I posted, here is "Dear Duck Hunt."

Duck Hunt segues nicely into this next video, the top 10 eight-bit video games. Overall pretty good, although I still prefer the original Mario Brothers to MB3, and I do have a little issue with Zelda being second and not first.

If you ever wanted to see someone out-nerd one of the tour guides at Industrial Light and Magic, watch this video of Conan O'Brien's visit.

Update: I was unaware that the Dear Sister short was a parody of sorts of The O.C. Here is that clip, which is the apex of unintentional comedy. If I ever could have brought myself to watch it, I'm sure I would have enjoyed myself, for all the wrong reasons.

Second update: Instapundit's roundup of various folks live blogging the debate. Clearly I missed some things watching it online.

Third update: I lied, everything is there online, I just didn't bother to scroll down all the way, and used the "up next" button instead. Also, Tancredo is from Colorado, not California, and Huckabee showed a little protectionist sentiment towards the end. That was bad. As was Tommy Thompson's answer that employers should be allowed to fire an employee because he or she is gay; rendered him unelectable despite an otherwise fine performance. I'm sure I missed lots of good points, but I hope I hit the highlights. The MSNBC link is here.

Al Gore + False Prophet = Apocalypse

2007-05-03T15:01:00.000-06:00

In a surprise move that nobody saw coming, President Bush vetoed the House military funding bill with the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Equally surprising was the failure of the House to override the veto. So now we can look forward to a "compromise" bill, which is probably the bill that should have been voted on in the first place.

Who would benefit the most from Al Gore entering the Democratic race? Mickey Kaus thinks it would be Hillary Clinton, since she and her husband keep mentioning that he might run. I agree that it would hurt her the least, because the conventional wisdom is that, if voters are not in her camp now, they won't be. The only potential downside for her (beyond the possibility that Gore could beat her) is that she may lose a handful of people still in love with the Clinton administration, but someone like John Edwards or, to a lesser extent, Barack Obama has a lot to lose.
Speaking of Barack, his campaign has taken over a supporter's myspace page against the supporter's wishes. Glenn Reynolds calls it "small potatoes" (along with Obama's opposition to the Iraq war despite his belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction), but it does put a blemish on his pristine image.
And if you're looking for some ideas from Edwards, Don Surber suggests looking back at some former Democratic presidents, since that seems to be where he gets them.
Any moderate-to-conservative Democrats would seem to have had their choice in the race gift wrapped for them: New Mexico Governor Bill Richards.

Rudy Giuliani's position in Republican polls has slipped, and NRO has a suggestion for him: stop over thinking the abortion issue, because it makes for terrible sound bites. His record on abortion, in the few instances in which he has had any input, comes off as moderately pro-choice. For someone who is popular with conservatives in spite of a few positions, he sure isn't making the campaign easier on himself.
John McCain has proposed a "league of democracies" to impact international affairs. Couldn't be any worse than the UN.
And if immigration is indeed the "it" issue in the Republican race, as Townhall suggests it is, the lower-profile candidates could make a splash in the debates. I am most interested to see how Brownback, Huckabee, et al go about it, and if they continue to target Romney and remain genial towards Rudy and McCain.

South Park called hate crime laws "a savage hypocrisy." I think of them more as unjustly protecting some groups more than others. Either way, a federal hate crime laws are dangerous, and NRO points out the slippery slope implications.

You know what else is bad: protectionism. Lou Dobbs, CNN anchor, loves it. And that's why economists watch Fox News. (Note: I have no evidence about the TV viewing habits of economists; I made it up.)

It's a little strange that, given the well-founded concerns about oil consumption and future supply, we don't talk more about how much coal we have, and how to take advantage of it. Probably because environmentalists don't like coal, so the media doesn't like it, either.

I like to use religious allusions when I write about Gore and his global warming crusade (see, I did it again). The Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa has taken it to a whole new level, though, replacing the standard Gideon Bible with An Inconvenient Truth. Let the official Al Gore Antichrist Watch begin.

Need proof that Barbera Walters hates you? Check out the possible replacements for departing host/professional idiot Rossie O'Donnell. Someone needs to give Elisabeth Hasselbeck her own show so I can stop feeling sorry for her, and also so I never have to think about The View again.

David Lynch is going to end school violence. I have my doubts. I love Lynch's work, as you may have noticed by my numerous mentions of Twin Peaks, but it's hard to take anything a 9/11 conspiracy theorist says seriously.

I mentioned the film Indoctrinate U recently, and you can watch a trailer here, along with some other films from its production company, several about the dark side of Canada's health care system.

Here is a list of the top 10 SNL Digital Shorts. Pretty predictable, but pretty great nonetheless.

Soccer is the only thing more disastrous than Social Security

2007-04-30T17:05:00.000-06:00

Happy National Tax Freedom Day, everyone! You, the average American, will pay all income earned up to this point in taxes, but the next eight months of earnings are yours. Could be worse: the effective tax rate in Italy is 60ish%, which puts their tax freedom day sometime in July.

The Florida House of Representatives has passed a bill that requires women seeking an abortion to wait 24 hours and view an ultrasound of the fetus before going forward with the procedure. The article's author did not seem optimistic that the bill would pass the Senate, though.

There is a very interesting article in the New York Times about Barack Obama's "conversion" to Christianity, his controversial pastor, and how he tries to appeal to mainstream Christians, secular liberals, and his unique religious leader all at the same time. Very much worth the time it takes to read it.

Does John McCain support building a physical fence along the Mexican border or not? His straight talk can get a little convoluted on the issue. Someone from a border state should really have a more consistent plan, or at least present his plan more consistently. McCain is at his best when he's not pandering to anyone, but he seems legitimately unsure of what his own position is on the fence issue.

And speaking of those who support "comprehensive" immigration reform, could the Democratic Congress be President Bush's b est friend twice over? Not only does he see eye-to-eye with Democrats on immigration, but threats of impeachment for disagreeing with them on the Iraq war make him look like the good guy, and the anti-war Democrats look politically driven and petty. Especially the ones who voted for the war.

The upcoming documentary Indoctrinate U is just the kind of film that gets screened on college campuses, but its subject matter is the kind that universities dislike. It will be interesting to see if the market for this movie can overcome the forces that oppose it.

And while we're talking about censorship, Iran will filter out mobile phone messages that it finds immoral. And, as the US is about to sit down for talks with Iran for the first time since the 1979 Iranian revolution, we are reminded that holding American diplomats hostage and imposing Sharia law is what Iran's government considers moral.
Iran, however, is not the only country with Big Brother on its side. There is one surveillance camera for every 14 people in the UK, and an ever increasing number of them have microphones in them. Speak softly on the streets of London, lads.

The media is apparently loath to report it, but al-Quaeda is behind much of what has previously been called sectarian violence in Iraq. I mean, who would have thunk it, that a known terrorist organization would be more dangerous than Muslims praying in a mosque?

To fulfil today's quota on climate change articles, it appears that global cooling is once again going to be the disaster de jour in the near future. Is Al Gore going to make a movie about that, too?

Quick reminder: Social Security still has not been fixed, and will officially begin overdrawing within the decade.

This is a few days late, but I was looking for a clip of Jason Whitlock on Oprah when I came across this video of him on Tucker Carlson's show. Too bad Tucker wasn't wearing his signature bow tie.

Slate waxes nostalgic after watching the second season of Twin Peaks on DVD (warning: contains spoilers!). I'm still waiting on that boxed set.

Baseball blogger Alyssa Milano makes a very good point about female fans and free agency. Yes, I am serious.

For old time's sake: Will Ferrell, dog lawyer.

I tend to make a point not to post anything from what you might call a men's magazine, but this was too good to pass up. Gorillmask calls it "the top 15 videos of soccer players being complete p***ies," and I can't say it any better than that.

At least last year's draft was good

2007-04-29T19:14:00.000-06:00

I haven't written since before the first Democratic debate, so I apologize if this seems a little dated. I'll try to keep up from now on, but no promises I'll actually do it. Hey, now I sound like one of them!

I didn't watch the debates, but it seemed like everyone said much the same things we've been hearing for a while: no one who voted for the war in Iraq should be allowed to say they are now against it becaue they're not real Democrats OR I think we should get out of Iraq because Bush abused my vote, I would get us out of Iraq immediately through diplomacy, a chicken in every pot, etc. None of the lower-profile candidates were willing to say anything mean/crazy/scandalous to the big namers, the only real reason to watch this thing. Joe Biden did provide the highlight of the night, but not for calling out Hillary for her efforts to always do the politically safe thing or calling out Obama for running for president with little more than media support and a smile, which is why I want him around. Maybe the gloves will come off next time.
You can read Instapundit's roundup of the debate here.
Not that the AP needed to wait until the debate actually happened to figure it out, but a plurality of pollees said Obama came out on top. Funny how the name-brand candidates were the only ones who got double-digit percentages.

Speaking of Obama becoming president, the Economist seems to think that he is poised to receive the guilty white vote. While I agree with that assessment, I was disappointed that the author neglected to mention how awful that really is.
Although, in Obama's defense, he may win because voters will be impressed that he would "potentially take some action" after a terrorist attack. You've got the Islamists on the run now, Barack Husein. Barack Husein Obama, I mean.

Harry Reid gets the Dr. Seuss treatment from HamNation after he says that he would not listen to Gen. Petraeus if he had anything positive to say about the future of Iraq. Nancy Pelosi may not have been able to get enough people to side with her, but at least she had the foresight to not want Reid to be majority leader. That bumps her up a notch in my book.

Not surprisingly, Don Imus' producer, who lost his job because Imus lost his job, is not a fan of Al Sharpton. And I agree it's a shame when we can't make jokes, or, more accurately, that certain groups are allowed to say certain things that other groups are not. That is the real issue with the Imus case; it's not about what can be said (like word copywriter/d-bag Russel Simmons thinks), but about who can say what about who.

And speaking of who can say what, a student was arrested when he wrote about a dream in which he shot and killed people, then had sex with the corpses. Not sent to the school counselor, arrested. He just so happens to be Asian, like the VT shooter, but his Chinese immigrant father "would not comment on whether he believed authorities acted quickly because his son is of Asian heritage." Unlike, say, the Rutgers women's basketball coach might.

John McCain is placing campaign ads over at The Daily Kos. Hey, advertise on my blog, Sen. McCain! I support at least some of what you stand for, plus I'm not pure [bleep]sucker like Kos. Someone should shoot him and have sex with his body. (Just kidding! Oh, wait, saying just kidding didn't work for that high school kid. No, I didn't mean it, ow, the handcuffs are too tight, what are you doing with that pepper spraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Well, I'm glad that's over. The NFL draft was this weekend, and I was underwhelmed by the Chiefs' picks. Dwayne Bowe will give us (yes, us) two NFL caliber receivers, but I can't say he's my dream pick. Tank Tyler was a nice value pick in the third round (although clearly made second-rounder Turk McBride look like a mistake), and the second day added some depth to the RB corps, a possible long-shot O-line starter in the sixth, and a possible replacement for our inconsistent kicker. But McBride was a reach, we still don't have a single good CB under the age of 30, and Larry Johnson is going to be asked to carry the team behind an ever-declining line. I was hoping Brady Quinn would have fallen to them so they could have traded down to Cleveland or Baltimore, drafted Justin Blalock (high scorer on the Wonderlic and a stud against top competition at Texas), then moved up to take Sydney Rice or Dwayne Jarrett, both almost as good as Bowe. Again, why am I not GM?

If you were wondering why Ryan Kalil went high (for a center), look no further than his training video with Will Ferrell.

Here is a collection of Pulp Fiction parodies. They forgot my favorite, though.

And since Pulp Fiction is great, let's even it out with the 10 worst blockbusters of all time.

How hard can it be...eezzz?!

2007-04-24T15:06:00.000-06:00

My thought on the Alberto Gonzales hearing has been that he should remain in office because he didn't do anything wrong. Lots of other people have been saying it's a waste of time to fight for him, since he hasn't done much right, either. Power Line says that one reason to keep rooting for him is that the longer this drags on, the longer the Senate will have to wait to vote on immigration reform that is fairly similar to that which President Bush proposed. Because the Senate bill is likely to pass eventually, it looks like a loose-loose situation no matter what.

Here is some shocking news: lots of people don't like Hillary Clinton. Are they more likely to say they dislike her to a machine than to a person? Evidently so.

Up next on PopConservative: the documentary PBS doesn't want you to see! Well, not yet anyway. I am willing to believe that it does have as much to do with quality as it does politics, but PBS has a reputation, and it's not a conservative one.

I'm still surprised that the dwindling bee population hasn't been blamed on global warming yet. Scientists can't seem to figure out what else to blame it on. Weird wild stuff.

Where's my 10%?! Men who work part-time make just 90% of what part-time female employees make. There are, of course, good reasons for this, just as there are good reasons why full-time men make more than women (few of which are mentioned in the article). Needless to say, it is more politically correct to ignore the circumstances in which men make less money and play up the circumstances in which women make less money.

So a few days ago I said it looked like Sam Brownback would not be Mitt Romney's VP, and now Mike Huckabee also seems out of the question. All of the second-tier candidates want a piece of Romney, probably because he is claiming to be the "true conservative" option, when that is what Brownback and Huckabee want to be known as. Also, it is a waste of time to attack McCain (although he does seem to be gaining life, if not poll points), and getting nasty with Rudy Giuliani is probably not going to end well for anyone. Plus, it's better for both of them to spar with Romney than with each other, since the both of them are really running for vice president, anyway.

I finally agree with Rosie O'Donnell about something.

This isn't what I meant when I said I thought we would either have some cool 80's robots or flying cars by now, but I'll take what I can get.

This throws a monkey wrench in the plans for the next Superman sequel.

Did you ever wish you could watch a late-80's Jason Bateman teach a barely-legal Alyssa Milano how to play Super Mario Brothers at the Ice Capades? Me neither (since she was actually not quite barely-legal at the time), but here it is anyway.

And here is Bateman's Arrested Development co-star Tony Hale in the newest Switchfoot music video, with a couple of other real actors. Hale's IMDb page says he met his wife at Bible study, so chances are he's a fan since the Legend of Chin days. The video is pretty good, and he song is above average, as well.

P.S. The title of this post comes from here. Mildly related to some of today's topics. And it really is one of the funniest shows ever.

The “humans are melting all the ice” man cometh?

2007-04-23T16:10:00.000-06:00

My suspicions are looking ever more correct: Al Gore is apparently assembling a campaign team. I really am afraid of Gore, although I might be overestimating him. I think there is a lot of "we would be so much better off if he had won in 2000" sentiment out there, but that probably has more to do with people hating President Bush than thinking Gore is a great candidate. Also, besides the war in Iraq that Gore probably would not have pushed for, I seriously doubt the US would be in better shape had Gore been elected.

And if Gore jumps into the race, will he take a stance against amnesty for illegal aliens? Mickey Kaus says he should, and his Senate voting record indicates that he might. Of course, he might want to ask Joe Lieberman if siding against party leadership on just one issue is enough to hurt you in a Democratic primary.

Speaking of failed presidential candidates, Al Sharpton evidently has finally deemed Barack Obama black enough to garner his endorsement.
And while professional punchline Sharpton may be embracing Obama, will other blacks? It would seem that black voters would identify with him, but a new book suggests that he (and Democrats/liberals in general) may eventually lose the black vote because of his liberal record.

Barack Obama wasn't the only Democratic presidential hopeful in NYC this weekend. Hillary Clinton also spoke before Sharpton's National Action Network audience, and once again put on some sort of terrible fake accent. Seriously, she should just shut up and let her name and record do the talking for her.

Here's the good news: at least half of all news reported by Russia's largest radio network will be positive. The other 50% could be about the US, since they will not portray America as an ally. So, for instance, a radio program could outweigh the bad news about Americans actually having food to eat, or that we drink more water than vodka, or that our elected officials don't try to declare themselves reelected without an actual vote with good news that a bunch of capitalist pigs were shot to death at Virginia Tech. Good to see the Cold War has come back in fashion in Russia.
Speaking of which, what did we learn from the Cold War era? Well, that liberal democracies are better at promoting and protecting human rights than international organizations and international law. Just don't tell anyone naive enough to think that the UN is the most relevant actor in international affairs.

And while it may not have the overall problems with telling the truth that Pravda and other Russian media outlets do, CNN does have difficulty writing truthful headlines. Influence Peddler includes an entire article that fails to substantiate the attention-grabbing headline about the US attorneys case.

The mayor of San Fransisco would like his city to be a haven for illegal immigrants. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard an elected official from San Fran say, and Nancy Pelosi represents that district.

Concentration on global warming may be hurting other environmentalists' causes, says the LA Times. Like I said a while ago, it's a hard sell that all fossil fuel power plants are bad if you are simultaneously blocking ultra-efficient (albeit initially more expensive) nuclear power. Not that man-made global warming isn't a bit of a tough sell in and of itself.

Think of this SNL sketch as a follow up to my recent post about the top five (and then some) videos that ruined people's lives. And note that future star Michael Cera has parodied two of those life-ruining videos, one on AD and one included in the updates.
This also makes me think; who does SNL want to run for president? Either Gore or Hillary are covered by Darrell Hammond and Amy Peohler, respectively - assuming they're both still on the show in 2008. I don't know who would play Rudy Giuliani (besides himself, inevitably), but I imagine he's the Republican they're rooting for. Hammond probably does a mean McCain (unless the general election was Gore v. McCain), and I don't remember who did John Edwards last go-round, but that doesn't seem like an especially difficult impression. Nor does Obama, although I think that Kenan Thompson is the only black man on the cast right now, and he looks nothing like Obama. Romney seems pretty simple to do, too, so I imagine that they're covered pretty well. Of course, John Kerry isn't an especially difficult person to imitate, and Seth Meyers didn't do an exceptionally good job two years ago.

Finally, these videos of drunk celebrities is probably much funnier than it should be.

Rutgers tells Hillary thanks, but no thanks

2007-04-21T22:00:00.000-06:00

The Rutgers players had plenty of time and energy to cry on Oprah's shoulder, but suddenly found themselves too busy to sit down with Sen. Hillary Clinton (who found herself too busy for them, as well). I don't necessarily blame them, but it still looks like they lost interest in their own story, along with the rest of us. All of which should serve to remind us that a man lost his job over an incident that nobody cares about anymore.

Everybody loves the backup quarterback, and similarly loves the undeclared candidate. So what warts does Fred Thompson have on this candidacy? Slate lists several, all of which are big deals. Except for the paragraph about federalism, which is stupid. And they forgot to mention the James Dobson "not a Christian" bomb, which, according to Pajamas Media, really bothered Thompson.

Jeff Goldstein wonders why "progressives" like to spend so much time in 1968. Probably because that was the last time they offered up a progressive idea.

The city of Boston is censoring the internet. Or the mayor is using the city-run wi-fi system to pick and choose what the citizens can read on his/their dime, which is just as bad. Remind me again why I support privatization?

Evidently, the Yale drama club thinks that you suffer from retarded sexual and emotional maturity.

Buddhism is a religion of violence! OK, maybe it's not, but a monk fight is blogworthy no matter what religion the monks adhere to.

A relatively un-terrible list of the hottest active female athletes. Active in their sports, sicko.
It was a sad day for mankind when Jennie Finch toppled Anna K in Page 2's annual hottest athlete competition a few years ago, so I'm glad she's not too high on this list (and that they mention the fact that she's mildly scary looking). Still, Hantuchova had her shot at being Anna K's successor, and Sharapova came along and took it away from her. I'm not saying Daniela's unattractive, I'm just saying that Maria was in the Swimsuit issue, and Daniela was not. And SI usually knows what they're talking about.

Something to look forward to for fans of The Office.

Face-to-face and back-to-back, you see and feel my blog attack

2007-04-20T22:08:00.000-06:00

Is Barack Obama a gasbag? I vote yes, and so does Ann Althouse. She reacts to a reaction to Obama's reaction to the Virginia Tech shootings, and I have to agree, it's a stretch to say his speech was coherent, much less good. I said after his accidental momentary lapse into the pro-life camp while in a church that I was surprised by how hard Obama works on the campaign trail, given that he is praised as a great speaker. I would say that he isn't as polished at saying nothing as John Edwards, but isn't quite as prone to putting his foot in his mouth by trying to simultaneously sound smarter than you and just like you as Hillary Clinton. So he puts forth tremendous effort to project smooth substantiality, yet clumsily remains all sizzle and no steak.

Following a bombing of a Christian book store, Turkish officials are fearing a growing Islamist sentiment. The Kemalist military has been successful in preventing the democratically-elected government from becoming a theocracy, but this was not the act of the government. It is more evidence of how difficult it is to maintain a democracy in a developing country with multiple nationalities that bridges the gap between the Western world of the EU and the Arab/Muslim world. I respect Turkey's slow-and-steady approach towards becoming a liberal democratic state, especially in light of the severe growing pains in former Soviet states and Iraq. This, however, is bad news for an aspiring liberal society.

Surprise! Bill Clinton says his wife is the best presidential candidate in the field. He also thinks it is still a possibility that Al Gore will run, and I believe him.

Canada might also opt out of the Kyoto Treaty. That's not very surprising. Ironic, in a told-you-so kind of way, but not surprising. (Via Influence Peddler)

If you think that the VaTech shootings can only happen in America because of our freedoms regarding firearms, think again, says Instapundit.

And while we're on the subject, the VaTech shooter had a lot of negative views of American caricatures. He may have been mentally ill, but he still developed his views of stereotypical Americans somewhere.

Mickey Kaus says that the wrong party is unsatisfied with its presidential candidates. While I agree with him insofar as I think that the Republican frontrunners are better suited for a general election, I think he ignores the reasons why Republicans are dissatisfied, and why Democrats are fairly happy to be represented by their crew. He also ignores the possibility of a third party candidate taking away votes and allowing a surprising Democratic victory, a la 1992.

I'm not sure how official any of these lists are, but Cracked gives us the 15 most outrageous claims in pop music history. Most of them are rappers' boasts, and the ones that aren't seem like they don't really belong on the list.
It also gives us the next episode of Operation Kitten Calender.

I somehow previously failed to post this 11-video tribute to my favorite Kevin Smith character, which is also the reason I always forget that Claire Forlani's character was with d-bag Quint instead of Brodie.

I can use fewer sentences than you

2007-04-19T19:55:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in a few days, so I'm going to try to fly through a bunch of stuff. We'll see how this works out.

Something I should have included before in the Duke lacrosse case stuff: Gene Wojciechowski's all-quote article from ESPN.

The 2003 Federal ban on partial-birth abortion was upheld yesterday. This is clearly good news for the next time that Roe v. Wade is challenged. It is interesting to note that, if one were to interpret Roe to imply that the Supreme Court's official stance is that a human fetus is not a human life, then this decision would imply that a fetus becomes a life at some point before the head of the baby is removed from the birth canal. Although I'm not sure how many people thought Roe was an official declaration on when life begins. It's also important to note that a partial-birth abortion is one of the most distasteful procedures there is, so this will not likely result in Roe being imminently overturned.

I mentioned early and often that I thought Sam Brownback was a prime vice presidential candidate for any of the Republican frontrunners, especially Giuliani. Well, I have no thoughts yet on potential candidate Fred Thompson, and I still think Brownback is at the top of Giuliani's list. Just a few days ago, I was discussing this with my sister, and I said I didn't think that Brownback meshed as well with Romney as he did with Giuliani, but I didn't know who else might be on Mitt's list. However, I no longer think that he is on the top of Mitt Romney's list, and maybe not on his list at all. I still think that when push comes to shove, Giuliani will be the nominee, regardless of what Thompson does, and therefore Brownback will be the VP candidate. It's also nice to see a good ol' fashioned rivalry to see which candidate can out-conservative the other.
Update: Townhall wasn't done yet, I guess.

If you didn't get a tax refund, did you have fun filing your taxes? This retard did.

It is comforting to know that consumers of political opinion media keep themselves well-informed beyond the opinions being expressed on a specific program. It is still disconcerting, however, that people who watch Comedy Central are better informed than people who watch CNN and Fox News.

Let me see how much I can tell you in one sentence per paragraph from now on:

The Chinese have a weather-control device...kind of.

It's nice to see that Pravda didn't let a little thing like the Soviet Union dissolving make it change its standards for fact checking, eh comrade?

John Edwards spends more money getting his hair cut than I do (bonus 2004 campaign-era video).

Penn and Teller want to tell you what gun control is.

Alec Baldwin is a good father (and Kim Basinger is top-notch mom for using her child as a weapon).

These videos made my life just a little bit better, and their lives a whole lot worse.

I think Ben Kweller (formerly of "my boy" status, and still enjoyed) is thisclose to having a hit video on his hands, but doesn't.

Will Ferrell's landlord is mean.

These are allegedly the best movie lines in history, although I think this list belongs on Penn & Teller's show.

I can't explain why, but this video absolutely killed me.

Al Sharpton IS the real bad guy

2007-04-15T13:56:00.000-06:00

Varmint hunting aside, is Mitt Romney a staunch supporter of second-amendment rights? Not really, says NRO. Beyond being a tool for gauging the candidates' general conservativeness, I find these gun control issues to be fairly moot points; Rudy and Mitt won't do much to impact second-amendment rights as president. Still, hearing Romney try to sound like a hunter was almost as awkward as seeing John Kerry try to look like one in 2004.

A study involving stem cell treatments on diabetics has produced very promising results. Note that the cell came from the test subjects themselves, and were not the "most versatile" embryonic stem cells. It makes me so glad that here in Missouri we changed the definition of what an embryo is in order to protect the already-legal research on embryonic stem cells that have yet to prove to be more useful than adult stem cells.

Some of the scholars who appeared in The Lost Tomb of Jesus are no longer supporting the conclusions of the documentary. Nobody saw that coming. Well, except for everybody.

Today is Jackie Robinson Day in MLB, and the 60th anniversary of Robinson becoming the first black player in a MLB game. There has been a lot of talk in the last few days about whether the widespread use of Robinson's Baseball-wide retired number is a good thing or a bad thing. Despite an attempt to make it a story, I think it's just personal preference and disagreement about what a more fitting tribute would be; a few players or many players wearing his number.
There has also been a lot of talk about the dwindling number of black players in the majors. I think the numbers I heard this morning were that, since 1975, the percentage of black players has fallen from about 20% to 9%, and the percentage of white players has gone from 70% to 55%. While this is currently being portrayed as a negative thing for blacks (and it may be) and as a non-issue for whites (and it may be, and would not be discussed even if it were a negative issue), it's pretty clearly just the consequence of a higher percentage of Latin and Asian players. The more Latin- and Asian-born players there are on MLB rosters, the fewer American-born white and black players there can be. Regardless, MLB is actively marketing the game to young blacks in particular to try to get them off of the basketball court and onto the diamond. How 'bout they concentrate on getting the poor kids off of the soccer field and onto any other playing surface at all.

And no, I'm not done talking about the Imus mess yet. You can check the main page of the KC Star for all of Jason Whitlock's takes on the situation. The CNN video is especially enjoyable, since he gets personal with the other guest on the show, Al Sharpton. Whitlock is going to be on Oprah tomorrow, where he will hopefully continue to refer to her interview with the Rutger's basketball team as an hour-long recruiting session.
Slate explains the ethical and legal missteps Mike Nifong made, and analyses the likelihood of disbarment or criminal actions against him.
And Terry Moran reminds us all of why we should feel especially bad for the falsely-accused Duke lacrosse players in his article where he says we shouldn't feel bad for them. The crux of his argument is that they had a party, hired strippers, were from wealthy homes, went to a good school, and were white, all of which makes them deserve to have a year of their lives ruined. The extensive comments to the article make the rush to judgement against them more understandable: they were rich and white, and therefore got what they deserved. This is exactly the kind of bulls--- Jemele Hill was talking about in her apology to the players from my last post. Just because blacks have been falsely accused in the past does not make it right for whites to be falsely accused now, and it doesn't make anyone who refuses to acknowledge their plight any less of an utter waste of humanity.
Update: I forgot to mention something that Terry Moran "forgot" to mention, too. When he says that the strippers were pelted with racial epithets, he neglected to include that the epithets were in response to the non-accusing stripper calling one of the players a "little d--- white boy." You can read the full 60 Minutes transcript from last fall here, and an interesting note about CBS censoring some words in print but not for broadcast here.

This is very late and in no way timely or related to today's topics, but I had never seen this list of other botched jokes from John Kerry, so I will post it now.
Finally, I really did expect some of these robots by now, and I think every other child of the 80's did too. Or at least some dang flying cars.

Imus in the mourning

2007-04-12T20:27:00.000-06:00

I caught a cold, and I feel awful right now, so I'm going to keep this short. I do feel the need, however, to comment on Don Imus' firing, and how it relates to the Duke lacrosse case being officially dismissed.
First, my new coworker Jason Whitlock has a very interesting article in the KC Star where he points out the inconsistencies with vilifying Imus while glorifying gangsta culture. And unlike the Barack Obamas of the world, Whitlock doesn't spend his entire article criticizing the opportunism of the Rutgers basketball team and others just to blame society (i.e., whites) at the end. Also, everybody knew that Imus said inflammatory things; I don't know if the term "shock jock" really applies, but to think that this is worse than other things he has said is a stretch. For CBS and sponsors to act like that is the case is also pure propaganda to cover themselves.
When I first heard what he said, my initial reaction was, "that's uncalled for." My second response was, "I bet Gator haters wish Imus would have said this earlier, so they could call Joakim Noah a nappy-headed ho." And that is where I think the real issue is; it has been presented as a racial incident, but I think it has much more to do with gender. If Imus had said exactly the same thing about Noah, it would have been a joke. After all, it wouldn't be the first time a non-fan insinuated that Noah was feminine, and "nappy" certainly does describe his Sideshow Bob hairdo. The fact that he is half white is important, but he would be (and was) expected to deal with insults everywhere Florida played because he is a high-profile male athlete from a privileged background. Just ask J.J. Redick (or any other white star Duke has produced) about people giving him the business everywhere he goes. But black male athletes face the same thing, too. The fact that Imus insulted the women's team for no reason made it wholly unacceptable.

Also, Jemele Hill has a great article in ESPN about the Duke case dismissal. In her open letter to the accused, she says:

I can't deny that your race, gender and class have everything to do with how you were treated then and how you are treated now. Some people believe white men are exempt from sympathy and incapable of being maligned, so they will not swallow their pride and offer you the decency you should have received in the first place.

I agree. Black sports journalists have been pretty hard on perpetually offended "civil rights" leaders Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Just be glad you weren't forced to go to Hymietown to presume the Duke players guilty until proven innocent, right Jesse?

Happy birthday to me...

2007-04-10T21:19:00.000-06:00

I just found out from my friend Wes that mewithoutYou is kicking off another tour in Lawrence two days after my birthday. So that's pretty cool.

It's good to see that an anchor change hasn't raised the standards over at CBS News. Although in CBS's defense, nobody ever talks about plagiarism or fact checking in journalism classes. It's not very important stuff.

Glenn Reynolds posted a new poll that shows that Congressional approval is still lower than Bush's. I would agree that it seems as though informed citizens are dissatisfied with the political class, and it seems like that would be a good climate for a small-government presidential candidate. Giuliani has been talking up his love for supply-side economics and has Teve Torbes in his corner, but Mitt Romney has the private-sector experience and fewer questions about his commitment to personal freedom (i.e., Rudy's gun control and government-funded abortion issues). And of course Sam Brownback, taking the slow-and-steady approach (but, like the tortoise, still in the race).

Speaking of Romney, he lashed out at Speaker Pelosi for her all-too-friendly meeting with non-ally Syria recently. I'm sure the Israelis were happy about that.

Another problem for environmentalists: they still don't understand that they can't have their cake and eat it, too. Or, more to the point, they can't block nuclear power and demand that fossil fuel plants be shut down at the same time. Of course, flawed logic has been a best friend of liberal wackos for a long time, so I doubt being reminded of this inconsistency will stop them.

I haven't said anything about Imus because I didn't think it was that big a deal. I didn't think that Trent Lott's statements were a big deal either, so I guess I'm wrong on two counts. Still, I think the focus on the "nappy-headed" part detracts from the fact that he called an entire team of basketball players who made a terrific March run hos, which seems uncouth for someone whose show is played on some sports radio stations.

Here is a list of 13 TV shows that should have lasted longer than they did. Some of these (Freaks and Geeks, Arrested Development) are in my all-time favorites (see the list on the left). Fox has cancelled some fantastic shows very quickly (Greg the Bunny should have made this list, too), but at least they put these shows on TV, for however few episodes. Now how about a freaking ARCTU DVD?!

And speaking of cancelled television shows, here are the top 20 opening themes of all time. Not my list, but still good.

If you don't smoke Tarryltons... F*** You!

2007-04-09T22:04:00.000-06:00

The Guardian has seen the future, and guess what: it's bleak. Just end your life now before the Marxist government puts a chip in your head and global warming makes the Islamist militants even angrier.
(Note: that was a joke. Don't kill yourself, and don't buy every alarmist article you read either.)

Speaking of alamism, could global warming wackos be driven by ignorance about what climate should be like? Newsweek says so. A lot of the information in this article reiterates what was presented in The Great Global Warming Swindle, which I am reposting here.

And just what does the tolerant, fact-loving left think of those who make unflattering factual statements about global warming evangelist Al Gore? Ask The Tennessee Center for Policy Research; NRO has an article that contains many many email responses TCPR received after they broke the Gore energy usage story (and after a Nashville newspaper chose not to). My favorite:

You guys are the faggiest fags I’ve ever come across. How do you get any work done, what with all the c**k sucking and such?

This one is less humorous, but more representative:

Go f**k yourselves you neo con, non-secular, bible thumpin, anti-science dumb f**k pricks.

It takes a special kind of person to use the term "non-secular" as an epithet, but I guess that Benjamin Greuel is special.

It also occurs to me that Nicole Williams from TCPR is not alone in that conservative women are treated as traitors for not falling in line with what the feminist leadership tells them to think. This has occurred to Mary Katherine Ham as well. It's probably about the same thing that conservative black men face, insofar that coming to the realization that the ethnic groups who "benefit" from affirmative action are the ones who continue to lag behind makes them "inauthentic" blacks. This is the kind of thing that has been said about Barack Obama; he's not inauthentic because he's half white, and certainly not because he's conservative, but because he has a top-flight education and is very successful outside of the hip-hop and/or illegal drug industries. This is the same kind of attitude Chris Rock was railing against back when he was getting famous. You know, the "'I'm just keeping it real;' yeah, keeping it real dumb" jokes from Bigger and Blacker. And yet, Rock opened SNL recently by essentially saying that Obama should be president because he is black, and then seemed to imply that white women were able to vote before black men. Whatever, Chris. I think that MKH's point is only part of a wider problem; members of the groups that the left has laid claim to are not allowed to step outside of the bounds the left creates; when they do so, they are punished for the kind of free thought that lefties pretend to promote.

And since we are on the subject of Obama...I realize this is his first presidential race, but not his first campaign ever. If you break (or seem to break) major campaign rules, don't have pictures taken of it.

More campaign etiquette, this time for Elizabeth Edwards: don't tell reporters that you've never met your neighbor, but that you wouldn't be nice to him if you ever bothered to speak to him. Somehow it makes you seem less sympathetic.

BJ Novak from The Office has a hard-hitting expose on the Cadbury Egg scandal. I love Cadbury Eggs, but that is pretty shady. And we all noticed.

Something else I love: Peeps. One more thing: Office Space. And what do you know, here they are, together at last.

P.S. The title of this post was inspired by Al Gore's eloquent followers, but comes from another bleak vision of the future, Office Space creator Mike Judge's Idiocracy.

P.P.S. Can you guess what number post this is without looking? Just consider the general vulgarity of the content and think like you're in junior high, and I'm sure you'll figure it out.

You want to hug it out?

2007-04-08T22:07:00.000-06:00

I have a new favorite show. Not favorite favorite, but maybe a new top fiver. I'll let Michael Scott tell you what it is:

Pam: Movie Monday started with training videos. But we went through those pretty fast. Then we watched a medical video. Since then, it’s been half-hour installments of various movies, with the exception of an episode of Entourage, which Michael made us watch six times.

Michael: Entouraaaaaaage!

I think that Entourage lends itself for DVD viewing very well, because each episode is so interrelated with the previous. Basically, I now agree with every young male that makes up the target demographic that raves about the show. I highly recommend it, although I do feel the need to remind people that, while it is a television show, it's on HBO, so it should be treated like a 30-minute R-rated movie. You can check out a pretty good clip here.
Also, Twin Peaks season two came out on Tuesday. Rumor has it that a special edition complete series DVD is on its way, once all of the licencing issues are worked out. The pilot was sold separately from the rest of season one, and is not on the season one DVD; I'd much rather wait for that to get corrected before I make a purchase.

Bud Selig is bad at his job

2007-04-08T16:48:00.000-06:00

Happy Easter everybody. Sorry I haven't been blogging much at all recently. I hope you got through the ordeal and are ready to move on.

I posted a while back that Rudy Giuliani's abortion stance made no sense to me. It doesn't make sense to NRO either, but for different reasons.

Something that everybody was thinking but nobody was saying during the Iranian-British hostage situation: where was the UN? It is easier for me to understand why the European Union did nothing; the UK is only a provisional member, and seems to have no interest in becoming anything more. Also, the EU doesn't really do much beyond its member states. But the UN demonstrated why it is not well regarded in some circles, mainly because it sits on its hands far too often, and sometimes ties the hands of others:

Ironically, the existence of transnational institutions like the U.N. makes it harder for collective action against bad actors. In the past, interested parties would simply get together in temporary coalitions to do what they had to do. That is much harder now because they feel such action is illegitimate without the blessing of the Security Council.

Well, Spring has sprung, and that means one thing here at PopConservative: the Top Five Things Wrong with Major League Baseball. Not too long ago, this list might look different, but now that MLB is actually testing for steroids (and all of the idiot writers and fans are treating steroid users like child molesters while continuing to not care at all about infamous spit-baller Gaylord Perry and other notorious cheats being enshrined in the Hall of Fame). Anyway, here's my list:
1. Meaningful All-Star game: The All-Star game determines which team in the World Series gets home-field advantage. How does that make sense? The managers don't play to win; they use all of their pitchers, and when they're all used up, the game ends, even if it's a tie. The All-Star game is an exhibition, played purely for fun and to reward players who have had good first halves. Giving it postseason implications is ridiculous.
2. Unbalanced leagues: There are 16 teams in the National League, 14 teams in the American League. The NL Central has six teams, the AL West has four. When two new teams were added in 1998, one to each league, it would have been even, except for that Milwauke changed leagues that year. MLB hasn't tried to correct this for nine years. That is ridiculous.
3. Protected monopoly status: MLB is a protected monopoly, meaning that the federal government limits its competition. Perhaps this is why there are so many problems with Baseball: it has no real competition to force it to improve, the way the NFL does in the form of the Arena Leagues and the pathetic XFL. This is also the reason why the steroid hearings were in front of Congress, and why it really is a big deal that MLB should try to put a good product on the field. It has an obligation to tax payers because it is allowed to make money off of five-plus teams (minor and major leagues) per organization with little or no competition. That is (say it with me) ridiculous.
4. The outfields: There is no standard field size in Baseball. Sure, the infield is the same in every ball park, but the outfield is different in every MLB stadium. How does it make sense to not have a uniform playing surface? It would be like if the Indianapolis Colts said, "Hey, we like to spread the field and throw the ball, let's just make our field 60 yards wide." I mean, seriously, that is ridiculous.
5. No salary cap: I wrote an entire article about this once, and my statistics professor at SMS uses my SPSS data in her class. But instead of getting all technical or preachy about it, I'll just give you an excerpt from Bill Simmons' running diary of Daisuke Matsuzaka's Red Sox debut, which was the third game of the season for the BoSox and Royals:

Our first look at Kansas City starter: Zack Greinke, whose career nearly got derailed by an anxiety disorder last season. That's really the difference between the Sox and Royals in a nutshell: When the Sox need a No. 3 starter, they can just say "screw it" and spend $103 million on the best Japanese pitcher alive. When the Royals need a No. 3 starter, they roll the dice with a guy battling an anxiety disorder. These are the things that happen when a professional sports league decides against a salary cap.

Because of the train wreck that was the Basketball Blog, it's been a while since I could say Simmons knew what he was talking about, but that statement pretty well summed up what is wrong with MLB's salary structure. It is unfair to the fans, damaging to the product on the field, and, above all else, absolutely ridiculous.

Who's that blogger posting for the first time in a week? It's me! It's me!

2007-04-01T22:38:00.000-06:00

Sorry I've been MIA the past few days. With any luck, I will be employed and doing fantastic things fairly soon. Like they say, looking for a job is a full-time job.

I don't know much about Mitt Romney. I just read a Q and A with the author of A Mormon in the White House, and...I feel about the same. I would like to see a little more coverage of him, because I feel like we already know McCain and Giuliani pretty well, and Romney usually hangs out around third place in polls. Shoot, Sam Brownback's old Capital Hill roommate Jim Talent is in his camp, so he must have something to offer (beyond maybe delivering a New England state or two for the Republicans in a presidential race).

The very next day after I played what-if with "someone like Steve Forbes" entering as a third-party candidate, Forbes endorsed Giuliani. This further entrenches him as an economic conservative, but doesn't do a whole lot to enhance his area of greatest weakness in the primaries, which is his pro-choice stance, etc.

Speaking of Republican presidential hopefuls and weakness, Townhall has a little piece about McCain-Feingold five years in. Guess what? They don't think it's done much good.

Glenn Reynolds drops a one-liner about House Republicans finally uniting as the minority. I fully agree, although Speaker Pelosi is a microcosm example of how much easier it has become to be popular and effective in the minority than in the majority.

Everyone loves the European Union, except for the Europeans. A while back I mentioned that the poverty rate in Europe is higher than in the US, and even though this article is about the meddlesome regulations of the EU, I think it's pertinent to once again say that socialism doesn't help poor people.

The NIT misspelled "West Virginia" on its championship T-shirts. Of course, it was not the worst way to misspell "Virginia," but still is not going to make anyone forget that the NIT is second-rate.

Could part of 300's success be attributable to its moral clarity? Yes, says NRO.
And what's the only way 300 Spartans could withstand the onslaught of thousands of Persians? The perfect cheer, of course.

How is this the first time I've seen this kind of parody of To Catch a Predator?

Are you brave/stupid enough to try to pick the ten greatest moments from Will Ferrell's career? Me either, but Uber is.
Are you brave/stupid enough to give yourself any of these rapper names? Me either, but these 25 guys were.
Did you watch enough bad action movies when you were a kid to remember some of these head-slappingly bad lines? Yeah, me too.
Are you going to watch all of these SNL Celebrity Jeopardy clips even though you've seen them all before? I thought so.

Update: the YouTube video that I took the name of this post from has been removed, but I'm not going to change the title, because it's still funny to me. And, as I'm sure you've noticed, most of my jokes are only funny to me anyway.

L'eggo my Legos!

2007-03-27T19:48:00.000-06:00

It turns out I was wrong. Today the Senate narrowly passed a bill that would require US troops to be out of Iraq within a year. Clearly a veto on the bill would kill it, because a 50-48 plurality is not the requisite 2/3 to supersede the veto. Still, I was surprised.

Slightly less surprising: half of those polled would not vote for Hillary Clinton if she were the Democratic nominee for president. I have always felt that she just couldn't win because she is such a divisive presence, although I have been increasingly less confident in that assessment as the early campaigning continues. It's not that she's doing an especially good job - quite the contrary - it's that none of her Democratic challengers are especially competent, and the current Republican front runners could be in serious danger of having a third party candidate take a large portion of the vote from them. Ross Perot got 11 percent of the popular vote in 1992, killing George H.W. Bush's shot at beating Bill Clinton. Why? Bush 41 was not especially conservative, and Perot appealed to more conservative voters, idiosyncrasies and all. I am unaware of anyone with Perot's name recognition who is thinking of running, but if someone like Steve Forbes (or Teve Torbes, for that matter) jumped into the race as a Libertarian, he could make some noise.

Also not surprising: Barack Obama's once-admirable knack for sounding great speaking off the cuff has come back to haunt him. Small inconsistencies are killers on the campaign trail, and he is finding that out.

Two guys who haven't declared they will run for president, Newt Gingrich and Fred Thompson, are both doing very well in the Republican polls. An article about Thompson is here, and an entertaining Pajamas Media video that mentions Gingrich is here.

The equal rights amendment is about to get dusted off and reintroduced in the House and Senate. I guess that means that men will be given reproductive rights and women will be have to sign up for the Selective Service when they turn 18. Wait, that's not what the ERA is meant to do? From the article, it seems as though all it will really try to accomplish is some kind of forced equality of outcomes in the private sector, and does not concern actual rights of the people.

The Chocolate Mayor of New Orleans has not been successful at bringing the crime rate down in NO after Katrina. And from my understanding, the bar was set pretty low for police in New Orleans before Katrina. I guess the lady mentioned will test the "more guns, less crime" theory.

The newest threat to your children's future: Legos. Not because they'll choke on them, but because imaginative play inspired by the building blocks could lead to inequalities of toy buildings. Legos are awesome, and I would never let my child be involved in an after-school program that does not agree.

Since the book is 50 years old, there have obviously been lots of rumors over the years that Atlas Shrugged would be turned into a film. The obvious limitations have been the daunting task of adapting a book of 1100 pages into a movie people could sit through, and the equally daunting task of having something by ultraconservative Ayn Rand get made in ultraliberal Hollywood. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are apparently fans, though, and now this page is up on IMDb. I have concerns, because I don't see either of them fitting the characters they would almost inevitably play, especially Angelina as Dagny Taggart. It's not that Dagny is not feminine, it's just that I never got the impression that her defining characteristic was that she was a woman. Angelina can't help the way she looks, and that role simply requires someone who doesn't look like her. I think she could be great as Rearden's wife, but I doubt she would want a secondary role in a movie she feels so strongly about. I'll keep my eye on it. Also, you can go here for the production company info about it.

Ever wondered why some people only appeared on SNL once? Maybe it's because they've been banned for life.

Finally, when I find a list of great (aren't they all) Seinfeld clips, I post them. It's that simple.

Update: I forgot to include the response I got from my contact (that's right, my contact) in the Congressional Research Service. He sent me the letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal from the CRS director, and I will try to upload it here.
Nope, I don't know how to link to a pdf file. I'll keep working on it.

I'm kind of a big deal

2007-03-26T17:35:00.000-06:00

I have been given a hat tip from Influence Peddler after they mentioned Gregg Easterbrook's article in Slate, too. It's almost as cool as when I was quoted in the HCwD of the week voting. This should help me grow my readership well into the low teens.

While we're here, I am not the only one who thinks that Al Gore hurts the public support for his own pet cause. Roger L. Simon (who I am unfamiliar with) cites a poll that says 24% of those polled said Gore was an expert, and only 36% say Gore "knows what he is talking about" on the subject. Perhaps those familiar with Gore's claims noticed the leaps in logic he makes, and the fact that, on the issue of carbon dioxide contributing to global warming, he makes the mistake of assuming correlation to be causation.

Applications for US citizenship are up 79% from last year. I would say that this is one more reason why the amnesty provision in the immigration plan that President Bush supports is problematic. Adding whatever percentage of the estimated 11 million illegals can only hurt the chances of the eight million legal resident aliens attaining citizenship. I also find it somewhat troubling that Spanish-language media is pushing so heavily for permanent residents to attain citizen status. I foresee thousands of confused new citizens being rounded up by these entities and dumped at the nearest polling location with a list of candidates to vote for, a la Tammany Hall workers at the New York harbor. Now that's democracy in action.

Hillary Clinton said that it was unfair of the Bush administration and the Justice Department to fire eight US attorneys, possibly for political reasons. She then said she would fire all Bush-appointed US attorneys if she were elected president, just as her husband did, for (that's right, you guessed it) political reasons. But it's different, see, because it's the "traditional prerogative" of incoming presidents. So in summation: political appointees cannot be fired by their current bosses, only an incoming boss. She also had this to say about her plan for universal health care:

However, while Clinton said the issue continues to be a high priority for her, she has not offered up a specific plan. One questioner at the town hall meeting held up a copy of a DVD containing a detailed description of Democratic rival John Edwards' plan for universal health care, asking Clinton if she will also offer specifics.
The reason she hasn't "set out a plan and said here's exactly what I will do," Clinton said, is that she wants to hear from voters what kind of plan they would favor.

Sadly, it sort of sounds like most plans for universal health coverage. The US spends more on health care per person than any other industrialized country, but politicians are reticent to propose long-term solutions that would not pay political dividends during their terms in office. If we want a prevention-based system like they have in Italy, great. We must accept that it will take years to shift our treatment-based system to a more European one. Unfortunately, telling people the truth rarely gets them elected.
And didn't she learn her lesson from John Kerry? Do not tell people that you are unwilling to make up your mind about an issue until you see some poll numbers. The last thing voters want to hear is that a candidate can't manufacture even a broad, generic statement about a proposal because it hasn't been focus group-tested yet.

Speaking of government spending, here is an interesting article about who benefits from federal spending. The whole summary is interesting (as is the full article), but here is the most important part: "In 2004, between $1.03 trillion and $1.53 trillion was redistributed downward from the two highest income quintiles to the three lowest income quintiles through government taxes and spending policy." While there is a surprisingly large $500 billion margin there, that is between eight and 12 percent of the GDP taken in redistributive taxes.
(Update: Clearly I was mixing numbers from 2004 and 2005. The US GDP in 2004 was $11.7 trillion, so it was in fact between nine and 13 percent that was redistributed.)

The Congressional Research Service is no longer identifying earmarks in bills. I suppose that makes some degree of sense. After all, Democrats who campaigned on eliminating earmarks have clearly found out that reforming the process is not as easy as it sounded. And reporters can't report what the CRS isn't telling them, right?
I have a friend (well, acquaintance) who works for the CRS, and I would welcome a comment or email from him on the subject. He may have some inside information I can pass along. As someone who was recently referenced by a more-read and -respected blog would say, more on this as it develops.

Time has a an article about teaching the Bible in public schools. It's actually in favor of it, or at least neutral on the issue.

The Iditarod just came to an end, for those of you who are not sled-dog race enthusiasts. Reading this made me think of Balto, one of my favorite books from my childhood. And by "childhood," I mean I read it when I was home for Christmas and had no other bedtime reading material. If you have little kids, this is the second book you should give them, after Where the Wild Things Are. Speaking of which, you should go ahead and get excited about this. The equation goes something like "Spike Jonze + Maurice Sendak = Awesome."

TMNT update

2007-03-25T21:41:00.000-06:00

I probably should have posted the series premiere of the old Ninja Turtles series, but I still have problems with embedding videos from YouTube. I'll see if I can post it here. Also, there is an interesting array of foreign-language TMNT openings posted, some of which keep the American theme music, and some that don't. I think the Hebrew one is my favorite. Also, because I couldn't update my last post without losing the video, I couldn't link to the HCwD where DB1 discusses unearned dog tags as a 'bag accessory. So I'll put it here, too.
Also, you can check the updated TMNT box office report here. And in case you were wondering, yes, I did just put Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in my Blockbuster Total Access queue. Because I miss my childhood. And my Ninja Turtles action figures. And I kind of can't believe I didn't remember how hot April O'Neil was, and how much of a better fit Sarah Michelle Gellar is than Judith Hoag (Judith Hoag?!) was.
I did pick three of the Final Four teams; I had Pitt instead of UCLA.

Update: I realized that it's actually not very easy to watch a three-piece episode when it's embedded. I forgot that the links to the next section don't appear on the embedded player, so I've taken it down and put a link to it here instead. Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

I don't like UCLA...

2007-03-25T17:29:00.000-06:00

...but I hate Kansas. So I was very happy to see the Bruins kick the Jayhawks in the beak yesterday. Then we got to see Roy Williams relive his days at Lawrence and blow a big lead against a slightly less talented, more disciplined Georgetown team. It was hard to root for the Hoyas every time CBS showed Patrick Ewing, Sr., in the stands wearing a classic d-bag accessory of unearned dog tags. You know who did earn dog tags? David Robinson. Was The Admiral involved in the Gold Key Club trial? Nope, because Mr. Robinson is a classy guy. I regained my ability to root for Ewing, Jr.'s team every time they showed Tyler Hansbrough, however. And I'm glad I don't like Coke, because I would have had to stop drinking it after seeing that commercial with Roy Williams in the argyle sweater. Anyways, I promised I would show you this video again, so here you go.

The new, refurbished TMNT movie was tops at the box office this weekend. Made me long for the good ol' days, so I tracked down some old episodes on YouTube. The original movies were pretty cheesy, what with the rubber Turtle suits and all. But I'm betting TMNT doesn't have any lines as classic as this one, from Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze:
Donatello: The perimeter's quiet.
Leonardo: Yeah, a little too quiet.
[Donatello knocks two Foot soldiers out]
Donatello: Well, that was easy!
Leonardo: Yeah, a little too easy.
Donatello: Look! It's Raph!
Michaelangelo: Yeah, a little too Raph.

Anyway, enjoy Return of the Shredder.

I don't mind Tom Vilsack

2007-03-24T13:28:00.000-06:00

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not going to address the UN after all. Funny how abducting British soldiers will change things like that. Oh wait, no, it was that his visa did not arrive in time. That was the problem.

The House passed the Iraq spending bill (still stuffed full of pork) that includes the timetable by a narrow margin. President Bush has of course said he will veto it, because he does not support artificial timetables for the war in Iraq. I doubt it ever comes to that, because the Senate will probably not pass it.

The investigation into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys led to the discovery of a memo stating the procedures for prosecuting foreigners trying to sneak into the country. Illegal aliens will not be prosecuted until the sixth time they are caught illegally crossing the border. So I guess the saying in Mexico goes something like, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try, try, try again."

Cable companies in Missouri now have competition from satellite providers and phone companies. I actually just heard a radio commercial for AT&T television, so they responded to the new law quickly. I support this new measure; I never understood the logic behind regulating legalized monopolies instead of just encouraging competition. They're called anti-trust laws, not anti-the-market-determining-the-price laws.

Remember when I said that Tom Vilsack would be my guess for Hillary Clinton's VP candidate? Well, he is endorsing her after his early exit from the race. Suspiciously early, like maybe the Clinton campaign told him as much. Anyway, having the former governor of the state with the first primary (caucus, whatever) in your corner has to be a good thing. Obama will probably try to play up his Midwestern-ness as much as possible in Iowa, something Clinton cannot do (especially after she threw away her Arkansan cred with that ridiculous fake accent), so she'll need the help.

Something I forgot to mention in my almost-daily global warming bit yesterday: Gregg Easterbrook watched An Inconvenient Truth, too. Easterbrook shows off his lack of football understanding in his weekly ESPN novella Tuesday Morning Quarterback, and he also works for the Brookings Institution, a respected center-left think tank. Not surprisingly, the Brookings fellow has moderately liberal views on the topic. You can read his paper on the subject here, wherein he basically says that global warming is being driven by humans, but the necessary changes wouldn't be as difficult or expensive as Al Gore recommends and industrialists fear. Funny how the enviros don't embrace his more reasonable views that could possibly be accepted by big business and continue to market the doomsday theories. I guess they know what gets them in the news.

Cracked has put together a little analysis of Adam Sandler movies. For the most part I agree with them, although I would have labeled The Wedding Singer as "underrated" and thrown everything in the "overrated" category under "total crap" except for Spanglish, along with 50 First Dates.
And while we're here, Cracked has also put together a list of upcoming films so they can mock the trailers. Pretty long, pretty funny.

Update: I just found out that the Abracadabras are playing tonight. I hope I'll be able to watch KU lose and then make the show before they take the stage. My fingers are crossed.

Don't worry environmentalists; global warming will kill Knut

2007-03-23T21:48:00.000-06:00

Iran is holding 15 British Marines because it claims the soldiers were in Iranian waters. This is not the sort of thing that is going to keep our military out of Iran.

It would appear that all charges against the Duke lacrosse players once accused of raping a stripper will be dropped. Really? But they had such a sound case.

Ann Althouse watched An Inconvenient Truth. Glenn Reynolds suggested she watch The Great Global Warming Swindle. I did, and you can watch it too. Go here for Google Video and here for the parcelled-up version on YouTube.

While on the subject of global warming, check out the Mary Katherine Ham video in the roundup from the Peddlers. Anything that references Anchorman is worth watching, right?

Reign Over Me was one of the first things I wrote about here, and it came out today. NRO says you should see it because of its New York authenticity. Richard Roeper is less enthusiastic, although doesn't not recommend it.

Finally, I don't know why Knut the polar bear is such a big deal, but he is. So here is a slide show of him in all his Christmastime Coke ad campaign glory. Just try not to picture him ripping people's arms off in the near future. (See video and more on the story here.)Look, he's waving! Hi Knut!
Oh no! They're making him play soccer. Dirty Germans. Maybe Knut would be better off dead.

Remember folks, it's only censorship when it's done by a Republican

2007-03-22T22:08:00.000-06:00

Democrats will not block the new funding bill for the Iraq war. This bill contains a provision that puts a deadline on troop withdrawals. My understanding is that this deadline is only placed on the troops that are part of the surge that the bill is funding, but I could be wrong there.
Unfortunately, military funding is not the only expense in the $124 million bill. It has been stuffed full of pork resembling the earmarks that Democrats campaigned on eliminating. That 28% Congressional approval rating kind of makes sense when campaign promises are being ignored five months after they are made.

A high school senior in the Chicago area is suing her school to wear a shirt that discourages homosexuality. She wore one last year in response to the "Day of Silence," during which students and faculty wear shirts with pro-gay messages. Her shirt was doctored to remove the "offending" phrase. She is now seeking legal enforcement of her freedom of speech, which is more limited in high schools than elsewhere. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Chicago is not the only place where political correctness and liberty are in conflict. The president of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, said, "We have to show respect for all communities but the fundamental right of freedom of expression is for me more important than other collective rights." And for me.

While we're on the EU, France has opened their records on UFO's. Evidently almost a quarter of the documented incidents have been heretofore unexplained.

Utah is continuing to lead the way on education self-sufficiency. They have already opted out of No Child Left Behind (for one year, at least), and now are considering a law to make school vouchers universally available. I am the rare conservative who is not a big fan of school vouchers (slippery slope, etc.), but this is still an interesting situation.

The Peddlers have put together something called the Roundup, and that's exactly what it is. Lots of things in one short space.

Here is a list of the five most ridiculous ads being rolled out for March Madness. It does not include the Charles Schwab commercials where they animate live action film A Scanner Darkly-style. I can't explain why, but that creeps me out. Change-the-channel creeped out. Also, Michael Jordan and Kevin Bacon are apparently a gay couple. Good for them.
If bad and/or confusing commercials are not enough for you, here are the ten worst music videos ever. The songs could compete all on their own, without the visual aids.

P.S. I wish I could post the Tough Crowd clip that I took the title of this post from, but it was a Comedy Central show, so it is no longer on YouTube. Sorry.

I hope my readers like me more than Congress

2007-03-21T21:23:00.000-06:00

Most people are aware that President Bush's approval rating is not especially flattering. Most people are probably unaware that voters are less satisfied with Congress. Gallup reports here that 35% of those polled between March 11-14 had favorable views of the job done by Bush. During the same time period, 28% approved of the job done by Congress. Somehow I doubt you will see this graphic on the front page of your local paper anytime soon. Note the uptick when Democrats took control and subsequent drop two months in.

John McCain finally said something I can get on board with when he warned against the growing socialist contingent in Latin America. The media continues to focus on the effects that conflicts in the Middle East have on gas prices, but Hugo Chavez's seizure of Venezuela's oil industry was a one-day story. We import more oil from South America than the Mid East, but report on it less. That makes sense.

While we are engaging in a little MSM bashing, Michelle Malkin has written an article in NRO about the media's treatment of gun owners and second amendment rights activists. Shockingly, she finds it somewhat biased. Having grown up in a town where it was widely understood that some students would be "sick" on the first day of deer and/or turkey season, I have a slightly skewed version of public sentiment towards gun control, but was nonetheless happy with the recent court ruling against the constitutionality of a DC gun control measure.

A bit of unfortunate editing led The Economist to label this exchange between Barack Obama and Larry King as "That's not what I didn't say." Hot Air provides more context, but it really just makes Obama seem wishy-washy instead of contradictory. Pick your poison, I suppose.

And another mind-blowing revelation about Obama: the creator of the 1984-inspired Hillary Clinton ad was on his campaign's payroll, even though he denied any involvement. It was downright mean (this is what I said two weeks ago about it).

The Czech president, who has already called environmentalism a religion, recently said that global warming activists were as big a threat to freedom as Communism. Seems a bit excessive.

Here is a transcript from a press conference with the founder of SpaceX, which just launched a rocket into space, but failed to maintain orbit. NASA has been quietly supportive of private-sector spaceflight. The government body generates seven dollars for every dollar spent, not in actual returns, but because the private sector takes advantage of the advances made by NASA research. However, it is reasonable to believe that private space programs could generate equal returns and spend money more efficiently, but have yet to build a viable spacecraft.

Mickey Kaus has lots of interesting things about McCain on immigration and Sam Brownback on his conversion to the pro-surge camp. I really have nothing to add to it.

A top 10 list would be insufficient, so here are the top 20 moments from Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Which would be bogus, because Triumph is not involved, so I'll just call it 20 great moments like Uber does.

Musings on the Vernal Equinox

2007-03-21T09:47:00.000-06:00

Happy first day of spring! I rang in the new season last night at the free mewithoutYou show. I drug my sister along, and I think she liked it more than she (or I) anticipated she would. Because, you know, mwY is super cool. Vedera opened for mwY and Sparta (who we skipped out on), and I think they're growing on me.

So Denis Kucinich is pretty liberal, right? And Hillary Clinton is the most liberal of the Democratic front runners for president, right? Well, Kucinich is pretty liberal, but the National Journal says that Barack Obama is the most liberal member of Congress running for president. But maybe he'll just be able to chalk that up to the evils of partisanship and then point out that, even as the son of a rich African immigrant and a white Kansan, he still identifies with black Americans who are descended from slaves. That's what he's spent most of his time on the campaign trail doing so far, and it seems to be working for him.

It seems as though Arizona Sen. John McCain is reconsidering his stance on immigration after visiting Iowa. The Senator from a state that borders Mexico is making up his mind about illegal immigration solutions after visiting a state more than 1000 miles from the Mexican border, that just so happens to hold the first presidential primaries. A word of advice, John: stop trying so hard. This can't be the first time you've heard that migrant workers travel to the plains states for employment, so stop acting like it is.

The Peddlers think that Joe Lieberman will be a Republican in the near future. I can't say I am wild about that. Like I have said before, Lieberman is my favorite Democrat, but his voting record is not the reason. Besides, traditional Republicans have been liberal enough over the last few years; we don't need to add a liberal who happens to support the Iraq war and has been sold out by his old party.

Russia has delivered Iran an ultimatum to follow UN orders to stop enriching uranium for nuclear weapons. So that's good news on two fronts, since it could limit the amount of nuclear material in Iran and demonstrate that Russia actually cares about things like international security.

A NASA scientist who claimed that the Bush administration silenced him because of his views on global warming gave 1400 on-the-job interviews. I guess interview number 1401 was going to be the one where he said what he really felt.

Speaking of wacky environmentalists, German animal rights activists want a polar bear cub at the Berlin zoo to be killed because it has been abandoned by its mother and raised by zoo workers. You know, for the bear's benefit. The fuzzy-wuzzy cuddly-wuddly bear cub's benefit.

It's the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. More importantly, it's the first anniversary of Hot Chicks with Douchebags.

Finally, if you ever wondered what would happen if Pauly Shore referred to an audience in Texas as a bunch of rednecks, the answer is that he gets punched in the face by a big guy in a cowboy hat. See this and other wonders on the list of the 10 biggest losers in Hollywood.

Just call me the magic Caucasian

2007-03-19T17:01:00.000-06:00

Barack Obama is the Magic Negro, according to the LA Times. I guess "magic" is a positive thing. I think. Maybe.

Michael Barone has an interesting article on what he calls the blame America first crowd. He says that universities are the breeding ground for this idea, and that the students may be well aware of its irrationality, but fall under its spell nonetheless. As Glen Reynolds says, read the whole thing.

A study has found that almost one-third of the adults in the Washington, D.C. area are functionally illiterate. So if you know anyone who lives there, tell them about it, since they probably, you know, can't read it.
(It would have been easy to insert a joke here about this being the reason that DC votes so heavily Democratic, but I couldn't come up with anything I liked. Feel free to make your own crappy joke.)

The people behind the Oscar-nominated film The Queen are planning to make another biopic about former British prime minister Margret Thatcher. I can't say that I have any more than a cursory knowledge of her career, but she has produced some fantastic quotes. Here are two of my favorites:

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy."

Scientists think that the public's understanding of global warming has been warped by Hollywood. With all due respect, Royal Meteorological Society scientists, your new study isn't going to matter the day after tomorrow.

The poor have more leisure time than the rich. Maybe this is the basis for liberals' claims that socialism makes people's lives better.

Here is a dramatic reading of a breakup letter. I imagine she's pretty happy with herself now. I couldn't get the sound to work well, but it's still funny just to read it.

You would think that Jeopardy could come up with a tiebreaker question, but you would be wrong.

Finally, if you could pick one thing from 80's movies to make a top ten list of, what would you pick? Montages, you say? Someone beat you to it.

I was going to post breaking news, but I got too involved in other stories

2007-03-18T23:05:00.000-06:00

The Iraqi people, who seem to get spoken for more often then listened to, think that life is better today than under Saddam Husein. They are optimistic about disarming the militias and restoring a relative peace to the country. Sounds like the troop surge is having its intended effect. Don't worry, I'm sure there will be lots of stories about the improvements.

It turns out that a Tennessee newspaper first uncovered the story about Al Gore's excessive energy usage in January, but did not publish it. And you thought the media was biased. It was finally released by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research, which NRO says is part of a growing trend of single-state-oriented think tanks. These predominately market-based think tanks are saving taxpayers money in state, and having an impact nationally. They also break stories when major newspapers get "too involved in other stories" to report them.

This will come as a surprise: the issue of global warming is usually a one-sided debate in public schools. I'll give you two guesses which side of the debate most educators are on.
Hey, you got it right! Congratulations.

Ray Nagin wacky watch: still crazy.
Ray Nagin ethnocentrism watch: still racist.
New Orleans voter watch: Ray Nagin still mayor.
If only he had been right when he said this about what he claims is a conspiracy against the mayor of Chocolate New Orleans: "Everybody in America started to wake up and say: 'Wait a minute. What is he doing? What is he saying? We have to make sure that this man doesn't go any further.'"

Here is a zinger from PajamasMedia, via Instapundit: “When the editorial pages of The New York Times accuse the BBC of anti-Western bias it is worth taking notice. It is a little like Osama bin Laden accusing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of being a bit harsh on the Jews.”

Finally, the macho 300 took in another $31 million (estimated) this weekend, even in the face of the NCAA Tournament. While the graphic novel fanboys may not have been watching basketball, the average guy was, and it was still tops at the box office. Maybe people really are willing to trade excessively lopsided politics for cheesy comic book dialogue.

Oh, pretenders, let's go down, down to The Grand Emporium for free

2007-03-18T01:02:00.000-06:00

I just found out that mewithoutYou is playing a free show in KC on Tuesday to wrap up their tour. I hope I can find someone to go with, because I imagine the line will be long, seeing as how it's free and all. So if you want to go, let me know, OK?

They played this song as an encore when I saw them a few weeks ago in Springfield. It was pretty cool.

I don't know why Blogger wouldn't let me embed the video, but I couldn't. Sorry.

Gosh darn right I am

2007-03-17T15:29:00.000-06:00

You Are Most Like Ronald Reagan

People tend to think you're a god - or that you almost ruined the country.
But even if people do disagree with you, they still fall victim to your charms!

What Modern US President Are You Most Like?

This post should have been funnier

2007-03-17T02:52:00.000-06:00

Saturday Night Live can be broken down into six distinct eras. First, there were The Good Old Days with the original cast, who were together from 1975-80. I find this period difficult to relate to, because I wasn't born yet, so the cultural references often go over my head. In 1980, Lorne Michaels quit the show, and the newly-made stars followed suit. Following the dissolution of the original cast, NBC decided to keep the show on with a totally new lineup, and we entered into the second era. This is marked by big names like Julia Louis-Dryfus and Anthony Michael Hall as utterly forgettable cast members. Eddie Murphy came in late in the second era, and may have very well saved the show. This is not to say that it was actually good, just better than anything else that was going to be on up against reruns and whatever else got trotted out for Saturday late night. In the late 80's, things picked up with the addition of Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman, and the show entered what I call The Glory Days. Guys like Adam Sandler, Chris Farely, and Mike Myers were studs, and these sketches are still new enough for me to get many of the references. Alas, nobody could withstand the slow bleed of all of that star power leaving over a short span, and the mid-90's are are viewed as another lull. This is when I started watching the show, when Norm MacDonanald was probably the best thing about it. But then something glorious happened to bring the show back to form: Will Ferrell joined the cast. Period five, the Will Ferrell era, is what I remember the show as. There were other quality cast members there: Norm (until he got fired from Weekend Update), his replacement Colin Quinn, Cheri Oterri, Amy Poehler, Jim Breuer, etc., but he carried the show, especially in his later seasons. But, as Tim Meadows proved, no one stays on SNL forever, and thus we entered into the sixth era, which I will dub the Tina Fey period. Basically, the show was bad, and Tina was the head writer, so I'll blame her. It doesn't help her that this current season is the best since Ferrell left, and the first without her.

So why am I writing about this now? For a couple of reasons. First, not a lot is going on right now, besides the uneventful Valerie Plame hearing and the NCAA Tournament. Secondly, I can't sleep (look at what time this was posted), so I was cruising the 'net. But then I saw this internal link in Slate, and it made me laugh: "Chris Rock's movie should have been funnier." You could apply that to everything Rock has done post-Bigger and Blacker. When someone was only the fourth-best SNL cast member when he was on, and yet became a big star when he quit the show, it is usually because he developed a great film career (i.e., Bill Murray). But seriously, has he had even a supporting role in a good movie since 1999's Dogma? No, he hasn't. So when someone says I Think I Love My Wife should have been funny, but wasn't, I have to chuckle; that is the epitome of a Chris Rock movie.

On to some semi-serious stuff: Mexican workers sent $23 billion earned in the US back to Mexico last year. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it limits the amount of foreign aid the US gives directly to the Mexican government. When you add in the 11 million some-odd illegal immigrants, many of them Mexican, and many of them paid under the table (and therefore untaxed), that is a significant portion of the $12.5 trillion American GDP, though.

Mickey Kaus has more level-headed analysis of the Iraqi war surge. I don't pretend to know anything about fighting a war, so I will leave all Iraq-related things to the experts.

Have you ever read Entertainment Weekly and thought to yourself, "they really don't intend for men to read this, do they?" Well, here is proof that you were right: a list of films to make men cry. The fact that Dwight would rather have people think that he cried because it began snowing at midnight on New Year's Eve than at the end of Armageddon should tell you all you need to know about the validity of this list. Although I bet I will bawl like a baby the first time I see Field of Dreams after my dad dies. And Brian's Song is pretty touching. And dog movies do always get to me...

Two complaints with this list of funny fat guys: under no circumstances should Peter Griffin ever be considered superior to Homer Simpson, and Ricky Gervais is not fat. Otherwise, fantastic list. Uber is quickly becoming one of my most-linked-to sites.

Tyler Hansbrough looks like Gay Hannibal Lecter

2007-03-15T18:16:00.000-06:00

Some of you crybabies have complained that my blog is a "jumbled mess." I actually did put spaces between my paragraphs for a while, until I stopped. I will see what I can do to accommodate the special needs section of my audience. You know, the kind of people who rip off Jim Gaffigan in their own blogs, and neglect to give him the credit he deserves.

China is about to recognize property rights. This is a huge leap forward, and one more positive step that China has taken towards liberty.

Ann Althouse doesn't know how big a deal the recent US Attorneys firings are, and neither do I. I haven't followed the story closely, so I will leave it at that.

Sam Brownback was awarded the Defender of Economic Freedom award by the Club for Growth. As someone who is fairly familiar with Brownback, I can tell you that his recent endorsement of the flat tax is pure political posturing, but he is a consistent, legitimate conservative in a Republican presidential race that is without one. That is why I still believe he is the front runner for VP, regardless of whether Giuliani, McCain, Romney or just about anyone else wins the nomination. Plus, it will give us a chance to see the awkwardness of the story when a liberal mainstream reporter tries to derisively label the relationship between he and the presidential candidate as Brownback Mountain without being offensive to gays. That'll be good times.

Speaking of awkward, Barack Obama thinks that John Edwards is kind of cute (or good looking, depending upon the speech). That'll make people forget that Ann Coulter called him a faggot two weeks ago.

This March Madness on Demand from CBS is pretty cool. It's one drawback is that it is specifically designed to be used at work, and turns itself off when the game you are watching reaches halftime. This is bad for me, since I use an indoor antenna and my computer screen is bigger than my TV screen. I also like the score graphic on the bottom of the screen instead of in the corner. I just hope they don't try to apply it to football, the way Fox uses the same score box for NFL and MLB games.
Update: I guess I was mistaken that the MMOD shuts off when the game is over; it turned itself off because I was "inactive" for too long.

And while we're on the topic of the Tournament, I went 8-for-8 in my early-game picks. I suppose it's also time to reveal my national champion pick, but I'll let the Peddlers do it for me. It's worth noting that one of the videos they had was initially Billy Idol's Dancing with Myself; I guess they decided a song about masturbation wasn't the best fit for a post about The Big Dance.

Also, unabashed NBA fan Bill Simmons is doing a running diary of the Tourney. When he writes about what he knows (NFL, NBA, MLB, pop culture) he is great. When he gets out of his element, as he is when he tries to do analysis of college basketball, Walter Sobchak need to tell him to shut the f--- up. Also, he is a UNC fan, which means he says that everything Duke gets is unearned, and also that he likes sodomy. So now you know that about him.

One more Tourney note: a list of the guys in your bracket pool. One more non-Tourney item: 40 things that only happen in the movies.

See, spacing it out like this makes it seem like I only write in single-sentence paragraphs. Clearly, I write in two-sentence paragraphs.

Finally, I am ashamed that this (possibly cannibalistic) douche is from Missouri:

P.S. I forgot to mention that this is post number 51. So yahoo for me. And just to clarify, that is a picture of Tyler Hansbrough.

Pete Rose is a piece of crap

2007-03-14T21:54:00.000-06:00

So Pete Rose admits he gambled on his own team every day. Pretty much what we all suspected. I guess we should just go ahead and let him in the Hall of Fame. He only violated the integrity of the game in the most egregious way possible. I realize that the most recent event is usually going to be overvalued by the public, but the fact that some people would argue that Charlie Hustle and Flow should be let in and known steroid user Barry Bonds (although never caught in a drug test, only admitted in the BALCO case) should be kept out is absurd. Heck, it wasn't even against MLB rules to do steroids until two seasons ago (even if it was a federal crime). Everyone knows you don't bet on your own sport, and you definitely don't bet on your own team. Pete Rose was a great player, but he should never be enshrined in Cooperstown. He didn't respect the game enough to deserve it.
Hillary Clinton, who called illegal phone jamming in 2002 a vast, right-wing conspiracy, says the same vast conspiracy is after her again. It was more like a localized, idiotic conspiracy, but whatever. Hillary should really just show up at her fundraisers and say, "You know my name, now give me some money!" She only hurts herself. Although this image is pretty fantastic. Just look at the logo above her shadow, and tell me what it looks like.
Speaking of how Hillary hurts herself every time she speaks, Salon finds it odd that her ridiculous fake Southern accent didn't get more play. Me too.
NRO is on the leading edge of the current "maybe Newt Gingrich should run for president" bandwagon. I agree he should run, but he will not win the nomination. I just think that his presence in some debates could be good for the Republican party. It will make the "thuggish" Giuliani seem gentle by comparison, and all of the other candidates seem humble and polite. Look, I like Newt, but I have no illusions about what a nice person he is. He is Bizzaro Bill Clinton: very smart, an excellent policy maker, able to get things accomplished in the face of a Democratic president, and willing to tell everyone how great he thinks he is. What Slick Willy J. has on him in charm, Newt makes up for in badassitude. And, frankly, after six years of a Republican Congress unable to pass bills proposed by the Republican president, that may be just what the GOP needs right now.
I know that you all believed me when I said that Al Gore was going to save democracy with Current TV, but I'll still go ahead and give you an example. Here is a video made by ~~MoveOn in 2004~~ Current recently. It references The Office, so it has to be funny, right? It has all of the classic Bush-bashing elements: Bush is dumb, Tony Blair is his lackey, Condi Rice doesn't really agree with anything the administration does (she is black AND a woman, after all), etc. Although I do clearly see it's potential to resurrect our democratic system from the ashes. Once again, all hail Gore the Magnificent!
Since Al Gore makes me think of shooting things, here is a list of the top 10 gunfights in movie history. And because Gore makes me both laugh (unintentionally) and cringe, here are the top 10 moments in Saved by the Bell history. And because Gore keeps getting worse every time I hear him, here are the 20 worst cover songs of all time. And because Gore should just go away, I will stop.

Also, thank you for inventing pants, Al

2007-03-12T20:11:00.000-06:00

Here's a shocking news story: Michael Moore sometimes uses questionable tactics when making a film. Documentations, who were at one time smitten with Moore, have made a movie about trying (unsuccessfully) to make a biography about him. After being rebuffed, they instead made a documentary on the processes that Moore uses to make his own "documentaries," and (surprise!) it turns out he sometimes strains credibility.
More surprises: Al Gore thinks he's awesome. His new TV station in the UK, Current, is going to save democracy, he says. He compares his new network to the printing press, it's so original. My understanding is that it's basically YouTube on TV; short pieces of highly-edited material, some of it viewer-submitted. That is sooo interactive, and sooo appealing to me, a male aged 18-34. And while we're talking about Gore the technology messiah, I suppose I should thank him for inventing the internet so I can blog. Thanks Al.
Hey, here's something Al Gore may not like seeing too much. It turns out that, historically, climate changes have always been viewed as the result of human error, according to an ABC News piece. But it does get this wrong: in Genesis, God doesn't flood the earth because of human sin and immorality, but because they were not doing enough to offset their carbon emissions. Noah and his family lived because the ark was eco-friendly, and gopher wood is a very green ship-making material.
And here is an article from NRO about how old school box-office behemoth 300 is. I have to say that I was a little disappointed by Frank Miller's Sin City, so I wasn't exactly camping out for tickets on Friday, but it does look pretty cool.

MOST disappointed

2007-03-11T19:20:00.000-06:00

Missouri State did not make the field of 65. Maybe they'll get to host some NIT games.
The Las Vegas Review Journal says that Democrats were dumb to drop the Reno debates because it was sponsored and carried by Fox News. Mickey Kaus offers his analysis of the article, saying that it was interesting to see the author essentially say that Fox is much further right than any other major news outlet is left. I disagree. And Denis Kucinich is angry that he has been burned by his Democratic presidential competitors, since two scheduled debates have now been cancelled. It's probably the least crazy thing he's ever said.
Speaking of Democratic candidates saying crazy things, Hillary Clinton says she is the JFK of 2008. You're going to need to sleep with a lot more women, Hillary. And they need to be more attractive than the ones your husband bagged.
Here is a video of Rudy Giuliani in 1989 wherein he supports public funding for abortions. It's not surprising, but still disappointing.
Scientists who question the human impact on global warming are being threatened with their lives, says the Telegraph. Looks like the Czech President was right when he called Environmentalism a religion.
Donnie Edwards has signed with the Chiefs (again). And for a pretty good value, too. Even at 34, he has a lot left in the tank.
And also on the topic of football, here is a HCwD posting from the fall, calling Matt Leinart something I've been calling him for years.
Finally, I bought Ghost Busters 1 and 2 at Best Buy (on sale for $8.99) last week. Considering how heavily they rely upon (crappy) 80's special effects, they hold up well. Very well.

Madness of March 10

2007-03-10T13:00:00.000-06:00

There is a lot I want to comment on today, but I don't have much to say about any of it. So now you know what to expect.
It seems as though some people are using the news that the PATRIOT ACT has been improperly and illegally misused as an indictment against the act itself. I don't see how that makes any sense. The issue is that it was used improperly; the fact that FBI agents forced businesses and others to hand over more personal information than they were allowed to demand is the cause for the controversy. If anything, this shows the limitations on the act, and should make private citizens feel better about the authority it gives the government.
On the subject of government intrusion into the people's lives, Cato has begun a series on the future of libertarianism. I suppose I have somewhat of a libertarian bent, but I do agree with my cousin (just kidding) Jimmy Wales that official members of the Libertarian party can be a little fanatical, or, at best, smugly proud of their arrogance (like these guys). But hey, it's still better than the socialistic, equality-of-outcomes loving, religion hating left. One point to disagree with Jimbo about: I don't subscribe to Objectivism; I am much more in the camp of Immanuel Kant.
Glen Reynolds does a much better job piecing together analyses of the recent DC circuit court's decision that the current gun control ban was unconstitutional. Which is good news.
Should we push for net-neutrality? NRO says we already have it. Which, in my limited estimation, is a good thing.
The new film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 has been getting some run in the blogosphere recently. Someone who goes by Kid Various is supportive of the pro-Western attitude of the movie, but Slate thinks that the conflict between Greeks and Persians hits a little too close to home, since we are currently trying to avoid war with Iran. I say that 90 minutes of West-is-best fist pumping probably isn't going to make the US any less popular in Iran than it already is.
Very interesting (albeit brief) gallery of famously doctored photos. This most recently came to the forefront during the Israeli bombings in Lebanon, when a picture of an Israeli soldier was superimposed in front of burning buildings; it was actually (if I remember correctly) a member of Hezbollah (with insignia erased) watching a tire fire. This comes on the heels of Adobe releasing new software to detect falsified digital images.
Some quick follow ups to topics I have recently mentioned: the Nevada Democratic Party has dropped Fox News as their carrier for the Reno presidential debates. Why did they drop the most-watched cable news network? Because they can, that's why. And here is an article written by the author of Can We Trust the BBC, who was the topic of a video I linked to yesterday about BBC anti-Americanism.
Need some advice on making your bad film? Go here. And might I suggest you use characters from a series of commercials to do it?
For your entertainment: a mash-up of The Office and Nelly, that works surprisingly well.
Finally, proof that puns are the highest form of comedy:

Don't you talk to me like that! I drive a flex-fuel Taurus!

2007-03-09T19:01:00.000-06:00

It did seem odd to me last year when the ethanol hype machine began to roll that environmentalists and liberals in general seemed so cool on the idea. There is no doubt that ethanol has been oversold to some extent (but I still think it is a viable piece in the energy-solution puzzle), but you would think that the global warming alarmists would have been all over it. Well, one reason they're not is unfortunate but obvious: because President Bush supports it. That's why I have such a hard time buying what enviros say; if they will sell themselves out so quickly for political reasons, their convictions cannot be too deep.
Speaking of hypocrisy, here's an article about hate crimes. I don't think hypocrisy is the right term, but that's what the boys call it in the South Park episode about hate crime laws.
Remember when Australia's PM said terrorists were supporting Barack Obama? Well, now Louis Farrakhan is endorsing him. So now that he has the Islamists and black supremacists in the bag, he can begin reaching out to people not filled with hate. And for those of you unfamiliar with Farrakhan's work, here is the Wikipedia entry for the Nation of Islam.
Here is an example of Amanda Marcotte doing what she does best: blaming any woman who doesn't look/act/speak just like her of bowing to paternalistic pressures. And somehow Marcotte managed to be the classier of the two disgraced Edwards bloggers. (Note: While I would say that Ann Althouse seems to enjoy writing about herself an awful lot, I would not call her a "mean-spirited a**hole." But that's just me.)
And while we're on the subject (more or less) of John Edwards blunders, here is a dissection of the video he sent to Iowa voters this week. To borrow a line from Jerry Seinfeld's new act (which he borrowed from a hair color jingle), "looks so natural, no one can tell." Well, except for anyone who was a big enough Edwards fan to actually vote for him. So the only impact he made was to cost himself voters in the first primary. Well done, John.
I have never thought that a pseudo-government television network is good, but it is still mildly shocking that the BBC would have a poster in the newsroom comparing Bush to Hitler.
And this will take up more of your time than you think it will: the top 20 movie villains of all time.

P.S. Wish me luck in my fantasy baseball draft tomorrow. I won last year, and I would like to do that again.

How much? One dollar? I'll take it!

2007-03-08T01:03:00.000-06:00

DB1 posted one of my comments from the HCwD of the week contest on the main page. If I am successful in my campaign to get Dwight a Ryan Howard (SMS/MOST alum and NL MVP) bobble head doll on The Office and get Bill Simmons to mention one of my emails in this column, my life will be complete. (Note: my definition of a complete life may explain why I am still without a girlfriend or employment. And also why I'm writing this at 1:00 a.m.)
I went to Best Buy today, and decided that if Fox will release The Simple Life on DVD, they really ought to release Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Even if fewer people watched ARCTU, nobody hated themselves afterward. Then, after meeting my sister for lunch at Chik-fil-A, we rolled over to Deals. I came to the following conclusions: 1) nothing at a dollar store should cost more than a dollar (BOOOOO); 2) my standards for dollar stores are probably too high; 3) I will pay a dollar for any piece of crap, but will not pay more than $1 for something of much greater value. Also, I spend too much time at Deals.
Here is something interesting: the top 25 movie posters of all time. It seems like they have a bias towards older posters, and I would disagree with some of the choices. But still interesting. And don't forget to check out the Threat Level Midnight poster.
Because I post lots of "best ofs," allow me to offer you a couple of worst ofs: Mike Nelson's list of the worst comedies ever, and the least sexy sex scenes in film history. For the most part, the actors participating in them tell you all you need to know.

P.S. It does make me sad to think that Kyle Maclaughlin (AKA Agent Cooper) was in Showgirls, but at least he walked out at the premier.

It's not easy being Green

2007-03-06T20:35:00.000-06:00

Scooter Libby was convicted today. I have nothing to add, because I didn't really follow the trial very closely. Sorry.
Remember about a week ago when I commented on the failure of Democrats to supply any long-term solutions to the Social Security problem? Well, NRO picked up on my post. What, you don't think that's why they printed this article? I have documentation that as many as four people read this blog, and that doesn't even include me.
USA Today has a story about the rise and mainstreaming of advocacy journalism. This is probably the single-worst influence of cable news channels (thanks again, Ted Turner).
And speaking of poor reporting skills, the NY Times has another reporter scandal on its hands. Turns out it's not a good idea to pay your sources. Who knew? Everyone besides Kurt Eichenwald, evidently. Like Frank Slaughtery said, "F--- the Times, I read the Post."
Bill Bradley has a story about liberal bloggers pressuring the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox News as the cablecaster for the presidential debates to be held in Reno. Here's the real question, though: do they want Fox out because they think it will impose its conservative bias on the Democratic debate, or do they want Fox out so they can more easily continue to talk about how it favors Republicans over Democrats? I'm no Fox News apologist, but I think it pretty clearly is the latter.
The CS Monitor has a story about the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged. The author's assessment is about the same as my own; or, rather, would by my own if had managed to slog through it. I should have made that a New Year's resolution.
Finally, it looks like Trent Green is out as the Chiefs' QB. I think that taking Huard over him is a mistake. We got Huard's best ball of his life last season, and probably Green's worst. I like Huard, but how do you take the career backup whose only real strength is that he doesn't try too hard over the player who helmed an offensive revival in KC? I granted Brodie Croyle official "my boy" status when they got a steal with him in the third round last year, but even I am not confident in his ability to come in yet if Huard falters. Please Trent, please, don't go to Oakland. How about Minnesota? I don't think we play them this year.

PS: I know the title is cheesy, but I couldn't resist; I'm never one to pass on the obvious joke.

Update: I missed this before. Rulon Gardner is a tough guy.
And this: Nine laws of physics that don't apply in Hollywood.

Time to develop my man crush on Sidney Crosby

2007-03-05T21:21:00.000-06:00

Good news for Kansas City, bad news for Pittsburgh: the Penguins say they are at an impasse with Pennsylvania officials regarding a new arena. I still can't believe that the city and state would let that team go. The KC Star article about it is here, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story here.
Barack Obama gave a speech in Selma, Alabama, and did his usual appeal-to-everyone-individually thing. He worked really hard to overcome the ridiculous claim that he can't win the black vote because he's not descended from American slaves; he did the usual affirmative action dance of "all forms of discrimination are bad, and until we can eliminate all racism, we should continue to use racial preferences;" he said that people (especially blacks) need to be self-reliant, but that the government should provide for them. And then he said this: "Don’t think that fatherhood ends at conception." Uh, Barack, don't you think fatherhood begins at birth? Why else would you be pro-choice? If fatherhood can end at conception, wouldn't it begin at conception, too? This is what happens when candidates court black voters at black churches; Hillary Clinton puts on a terrible Southern accent and Obama turns pro-life for the day. Obama's speech transcript is pretty long, so you can take my word for it on its contradictory nature. Or you can read it. Whatever.
Remember when I mentioned that Clinton-Obama would be the most intimidating ticket I could envision? Well, after seeing this, I doubt that will happen. Ouch, Obamaniacs. Ouch.
And, since I mentioned affirmative action a few sentences ago, here is Clarence Thomas being super cool.
A Canadian paper has a story about a prominent French scientist who was one of the early sounders of the global warming alarm. He has recently changed his position, saying that the science on the subject is far from settled. What a pushover. Al Gore didn't let a little thing like the growing Antarctic ice sheets stop him from making a documentary that won the same Oscar that Michael Moore won. I respect the Academy's political views and scientific knowledge soooo much.
Guess what: bad news from Afghanistan. Farmers are growing more poppies than ever. A large portion of the poppy crop is used to make heroin. I think the worst thing about the intense coverage of the war in Iraq is the limited coverage of Afghanistan. Of course, telling your audience about how poorly things are going in Afghanistan doesn't make voters angry or get Democrats elected, but still, Afghanistan is under-reported.
The UK may ban samurai swords. I guess they have a big problem with shogun violence. But how am I going to defend myself against the Meiji Restoration?
Finally, Slate has an (almost six-month late) article about Family Ties, and how Alex Keaton (Michael J. Fox) became a sort of Republican hero, despite the show's consistent efforts to portray conservatism negatively. It's kind of interesting, especially if you remember the show at all. And it has, how you say, video evidence.

Update: OK, so most of the stuff above is kind of heavy. Allow me to lighten the mood.

Need proof that soccer sucks? Their fight scenes are worse than soap opera fight scenes.
Need more proof? The halftime shows.
Need a reason that Tyrus Thomas was taken number one overall last season AND why NBA officiating sucks? Watch this clip, and note that the defender sets up outside the no-charge zone.
Need to know one thing PC users can do that Mac users can't? Go here. (Not vulgar, not funny, and eloquently written. Well, except the opposite of that.)

Wow, look at how I started all of those almost-complete sentences with the same word. I am awesome.

Won't you be my neighbor, Mayor Nagin?

2007-03-05T15:20:00.000-06:00

Of course Ann Coulter was kidding when she called John Edwards a faggot. I agree with Ann Althouse, who felt the need to say she didn't feel the need to distance herself from the other Ann, when she said that Coulter seems to fancy herself as some kind of conservative comedienne. The problem is that the bombastic things she says are often too close to reality to be obvious satire of the already caricature-ish Left. That, and she's not all that funny.
Ann Althouse also comments here on the apparent hate speech accusations one of her Wisconsin Law colleagues is facing. It is a nice discussion on the limitations of freedom of speech, being played out in the kind of place where discussions about free speech are necessary.
About a month ago, I wrote about the nonsensical fear that the Republican party is trying to impose some sort of theocracy in the US. CPAC seems to have further shown how absurd this idea is, as written about by Bob Krumm and NRO. Krumm points out the irony that conservative/Republican bloggers can embrace a more-or-less Libertarian like Giuliani, but the Big Tent Party continues to hold up Coulter as the face of the right, because she is easy to shake a finger at.
The professor of my capstone course at SMS was Tommy Burnett (no kidding: best class ever), a super-cool guy who is the coach of our national champion handball team and was a member of the NY Jets' Super Bowl team. He is from Arkansas, and actually hung out with Sam Walton's sons who are his age. One day he mentioned that the folks in NY thought he had a Southern accent, and he had to correct them by explaining that Arkansans have a hickcent. You would think that the former first lady of Arkansas would know this. You would be wrong.
And hey, here are some more stories of career politicians who probably fancy themselves as Midwesterners (but only on the campaign trail). Some Missouri College Republicans presented freshman Senator Claire McCaskill with a rubber stamp award. That's always good for business. And presidential candidate Barack Obama has an ill-advised idea about making it easier to form labor unions. Mickey (my go-to guy for union material) explains why this plan is big and bad.
Finally, walking punchline Ray Nagin, Mayor of Chocolate New Orleans, evidently thinks that the Federal government is responsible for all of the damage caused by hurricane Katrina. Or at $77 billion of the damage done to a city built below sea level on the coast, with a long history of shady dealings, because the levee, built by the Corps of Engineers, failed to protect the city from a massive hurricane. This guy couldn't be elected mayor of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

Rocking in the truly free world

2007-03-03T18:36:00.000-06:00

Previously, I have sought out a collection of musicians who exhibit a conservative world view and who fall under the broad category of rock music. It's not too easy to find them. Classic rockers Rush and Southern rock icons Lynyrd Skynyrd are easy choices, as is Britpop band The Kinks. Damn Yankees frontman and NRA member Ted Nugent was invited to George W. Bush's 2001 inauguration (although it's hard to find the conservative message in a song like "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang"), and Kid Rock was invited to perform at the 2004 Republican National Convention, until the offer was revoked after someone actually listened to his music. Third Day was part of MTV's 2004 voter registration campaign with then-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, but Christian bands tend to avoid controversial political material that could potentially damage their already limited sales. Beyond that, the list is pretty short. I mean, Ed Helms found this guy, but he's a little too obscure to make my list.
National Review put together a list of 50 conservative rock songs last summer. They worked pretty hard to get to 50. I will not work so hard, because I will only do five.
1. Rush - The Trees: Quintessential libertarian song protesting forced equality, which is even more intrusive in Rush's native Canada than in the US. Drummer/lyricist Neil Peart was heavily influenced by Ayn Rand's writings. I wish I could say I'm influenced by her, but I haven't finished Atlas Shrugged yet. I started in June.
2. Ben Folds Five - Brick: The song generally portrays a negative view of abortion, and the line, "Can't you see it's not me you're dying for" is indicative that BFF views an unborn child as a life.
3. The Rainmakers - Government Cheese: KC New Wavers rail against the welfare state.
4. The Kinks - 20th Century Man: More big government boogeymanism.
5. Blindside - Nerve: The only song that is too obscure for NRO's list, from Blindside's first full-length album. They were still full of untapped potential then, but the fact remains that being a Christian in Sweden is downright revolutionary. Hence the line, "They are liberated minds/I'm a narrow-minded fool," the typical secularist view of Christians.
So that's my list. If you have any other songs that you think deserve to be put on, please do not hesitate to leave a comment.