October 31, 2007

Rock On

Special Halloween Party Edition

Chris Brown - Wall To Wall



And of course Thriller. You can't have Halloween without Thriller.

Quote of the Day

"A sentence from Rudy Giuliani has three parts: a noun, a verb, and 9/11"

Joe Biden

October 30, 2007

Mistake

Who though that it would be a good idea to let the Vice President go hunting again? Does anyone really think that any good could possibly come of this? Didn't Cheney know better?

I mean, does the Vice President have such a deep, overwhelming need to kill something fuzzy that he just blows past the clear fact that no good will ever come his hunting?

October 29, 2007

Scary

Forget Ghosts and Goblins.

Some Ideas for truly scary costumes.

Bill Maher's idea.

Tom Tomorrow's

I myself will be going as Fear Itself. Pretty scary eh.

Or maybe I'll go as a French Maid. Now that's scary.

October 28, 2007

Up from the Underground

Graffi in my neighborhood:

Google Ron Paul

Thats right, someone is going around with a can a spray paint, try to drum up some attention for a dark horse through a web search.

I am so living in the future.

October 26, 2007

Still Don't Believe It

So I'm watching some coverage of the SoCal fires and Governor Arnold is getting some pretty good press and I still have yet to come to terms with the fact that he's our Governor. It's been over four years and every time he's on the TV I still say, out lound, "Wow, can you believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger is actually in charge of the state of California?"

I'm not sure I will ever come to terms with it.

October 25, 2007

Entertain Me

Salon has a long article up on the looming Hollywood screenwriters strike. This is real danger to my personal entertainment intake. I really like entertainment based on scrips. I live for cleaver dialogue. For the most part I can't stand reality shows. Which will be the only things on should the writers go on strike. I want the writers to get their fair share. I dream of being one someday. But I dread a strike. No more Lost, no more Office. Just 13 versions of Who Want to Marry this Freak. It could be a long winter.

By the By check out Kung Fu Monkey right now for a great behind the scenes look at a new heist show being created.

October 24, 2007

Banned!

It has come to my attention in recent weeks that a number of Craigorian Chant readers are finding that the page is blocked at work for being obscene, subversive, or otherwise not proper for the work environment. I have mixed feelings about this. Of course, I'm proud to be banned. But if I can't keep you guys from doing real work, I feel like I haven't been doing my job.

October 23, 2007

Least Bad

While picking the best Democrat to vote for in the Presidential primary is a worthy task, let us not forget we must also decide who we want the Republics to nominate. Of course there are two main criteria in this selection process. First, who is most likely not to foul up the Country and two, who is most likely to get their ass beat come the General Election. These factors may not always line up. My personal favorite Sam Brownback, (Gone now, Boo-Hoo) was sure to beaten in a general election, but would be a catastrophic social issue-wise if he were ever elected. Mike Huckabee is far scarier, because he brings the same regressive social policy in a much friendlier, more electable package.

But among the top tier, A strong case emerges for Romney. Basically, he was a moderate technocrat like 7 minuets ago, and is such a transparent phony that he could easily switch back and pursue moderate policies once in office. Plus he doesn't seem as committed to staying in Iraq and bombing Iran as the other guys. So Romney is the most likely closet moderate. I'm not saying that's likely and he could easily remain a right wing tool but hey we are picking the least bad option here. Rudy Giuliani on the other hand, would be a real danger to the Republic.

Plus, electability. While Rudy! has the 9/11 halo and general moderate appeal, Mitt!? has no special appeal beyond that of any generic Republican. And generic Republicans right now are doing terrible.

So Romney is the man. For both the not screwing the Country and beatablitiy factors.

What Matters?

So in the race to have the first Primary/Caucus a number of States have run afoul of National party rules and are now threatened with sanctions. The GOP is looking at cutting delegates for five different States. This may or may not matter. Normally, the States that go first have more influence than states with more delegates as the early birds get to winnow the field, get all the media attention and so on. California bitches about this every four years. But with things looking so confused on the GOP side, the delegate count may really matter. If its a close race, it could make all the difference if Florida, for example, loses half her delegates. And if that sort of thing matters, then there will be a fight. As in lawsuits, underhanded rules committee motions, and a fight over seating delegates at the national convention.

Fun times.

November is National Novel Writing Month

Who's with me?

October 22, 2007

SoCal is Burning

Not much to add, other than Run! and oh yeah, Glenn Beck is an Ass.

Everybody Wins

Check out this polling summery from RealClearPolitics. It averages together head-to-head match-ups of all the major Democrat and Republican challengers. Punchline: Every single Democrat leads every single Republican. That's every single combination of candidates. Which really does mean the GOP is in sorry shape this year. It also means that the liberal-minded should just forget about finding the candidate who is the "most electable" They are all electable. Just go with the one who will make the best President.

This state of affairs only makes the GOP race sadder. They are all trying to get the nomination by claiming to be the Hillary-Slayer and every single one of them are getting trounced by her.

October 21, 2007

Therapy

You know if his Dad had just named him Sue and not William, maybe Bill Kristol would have gotten into more fights as kid and be less incline to start them now.

October 20, 2007

October 19, 2007

Education

Continuing the ongoing Politics 101 seminar that is Craigorian Chant, here is MICHAEL KINSLEY with a primer on Libertarians and where they fit into the larger conceptual picture. I do differ with his conclusion that Libertarians are the future. Politics is fundamentally about problems and government's answer to those problems. Any movement who's basic approach is "there are problems and they best thing to do is nothing." will have trouble getting anywhere in this problem filled world of ours. Smart loners are not the future.

October 18, 2007

Not Enough

So I'm giving the new version of Bionic Women a try last night, and there are several references to the fact the new Bionicized Women is worth 50 million dollars. I figure they got this amount from original 6 million dollar figure, adjusted for inflation. It turns out 6 million in 1976 dollars is worth 22 million today. So they pumped the number up a bit. But 50 million still seems really low to me. A new F-22 fighter jet costs 150 million to build. I mean a F-22 is awesome (if sort of useless in today's world) but the bionic women is impossible. I think doing the impossible would cost a bit more than 1/3 of the price of one measly little fighter jet. This Country drops hundreds of billions of dollars on defense each year. At 50 million dollars a pop, we should be able to roll out Bionic Women like hot-cakes. And it would be money well spent. No one is trying to take control of the skies from the United States anymore. But lots of people want to punch us out and Bionic Women can totally handle that.

October 17, 2007

24%

My, thats a 24% Presidential job approval rating. You don't see that sort of thing every day, do you?

October 16, 2007

Destiny

A long lost relative, won over to the forces of light, will overthrow the Dark Lord, his distant relation, and claim his destiny.

Money Trouble

Congressman most in need of defeat John Doolittle is running behind in fundraising not only to his Democratic challenger Charlie Brown, but also to a man challenging him in the GOP Primary.

The Republican party is desperately looking for a door to shove Doolittle out of. I'm sure one of the following things will remove Doolittle:

1. Arrest
2. A need for more time with his family
3. Defeat in the Primary
4. Defeat in the General

Just not sure which.

Be not Afraid

For there are no terrorist here:

Six years of investigations and prosecutions have turned up little evidence of Islamic jihadists at work in the United States, according to a study released Monday.

The study, conducted by New York University's Center on Law and Security, tracked 510 cases billed as terrorism-related when arrests were made.
...
he study found only four people -- including confessed al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid -- were convicted of planning attacks within the United States.

"The vast majority of cases turn out to include no link to terrorism once they go to court," the report found. The analysis "suggests the presence of few, if any, prevalent terrorist threats currently within the U.S."

The report questioned the usefulness of the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act, passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, finding prosecutors relied primarily on previous laws.


Really what we have in this Country was one spectacular and singular attack. And then nothing else. Because there is nothing else. The men who performed the 9/11 attacks turn out to be the only real terrorist in America. There are no others. There have been no more attacks. No new terrorists have been arrested. So there where no more terrorist in the United States. All this fuss, this paranoia, is over nothing.

October 15, 2007

Experimentation

Dana Goldstein points out in Tapped that, in the wake of the failure of immigration reform, local jurisdictions are addressing the issue in a bunch of different ways. Some (Oklahoma!) are doing all they can to drive out illegal immigrants, while other places (San Francisco, Surprise!) are doing all they can to welcome the undocumented. You know what this means right? A chance for social experimentation!. Sure national reform would have been nice, but the current state of affairs gives us a chance to see the effects of illegal immigrants. Do they help or hurt the economy? Crime Rate? Quality of Mexican and Chinese Restaurants?

My guess is the undocumented are far more beneficial than harmful. And here is our chance to find out.

Late Night

My Lady Joss Stone does Under Pressure:

October 14, 2007

Left Out

Look at how petty Kristol and Krauthammer get over Gore's Nobel peace prize. I think they are just feeling left out. There is no "war prize" No one celebrates people who work long and hard start wars. Because wars are bad. Kristol and Krauthammer forgot that a long time ago. Wars bad, peace good. 100 hundred times on the chalkboard, both of you.

October 12, 2007

Congratulations

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace prize for his work on Climate Change. Just to review, the man has won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel and they have all been consolation prizes.

Let us first take in the spectacle of hundreds of conservative head exploding as one.

Let us not forget as Josh Marshall says that "he greatest step for world peace would simply have been for Gore not to have had the presidency stolen from him in November 2000"

Al Gore fights for future of us all. A worthy prize for a worthy man and worthy work.

Congratulations

October 11, 2007

Let Us Praise:

Elmore Leonard, who turns 82 today. Leonard is master of the Extra-Cool crime novel. The kinds of novels that make great movies. Christopher Orr has a round-up. I leave you with this choice piece from Out of Sight:

"Buddy, is that his given name?"

"Its the name I gave him, yeah."

October 10, 2007

IRS V Pimps

Isaac Chotiner finds GOP Dark Horse Mike Huckabee wanting to unleash the IRS on pimps and hos. Interestingly, this is the second time I've seen this policy proposal. There is an element of the GOP that thinks one of the two things certain in life is going to end the worlds oldest profession.

October 9, 2007

Bold

Sure, the clerk might have taken a 100,000 dollar bill, but a million dollar bill is pushing it, don't you think?

Oh and fun fact: there hasn't been anything larger than a Benjamen in circulation since 1969. Good to know.

October 8, 2007

Please Don't Help

For the love of GOD (Just for an aside, what do Buddhist say when then want take The Lord's name in vane? How do Buddhist curse, anyway?) Keep Bill Kristol away from Burma. He wants to bomb. Or invade. I'm not sure exactly what, but under no circumstances should the leading intellectual light of our current disaster in Iraq be allowed anywhere near Burma. Even if in my darker liberal hawk moments I've indulged fantasies of having the 101st Airborne giving Aung San Suu Kyi her country back. But with this crew in power, we would be lucky if the nation didn't break off from the rest of Asia and sink into the sea.

Even when we get some competent leadership back in charge in this Country, the damage to American power, prestige, and standing in the world we have suffered over the last seven years means that we are less able to do good on a whole range of issues, not the least would be to get the government of Burma to stop murdering large numbers of its own people. Mahablog has a good example how the massive debt we've run up under Republican governance weakens us vis-a-vie Burma's friend China.

Worthless Libertarian

Libertarian are never people I would want in charge of things, but I find useful to have around. I wouldn't want to live in world with no public schools, no roads but toll roads and having to take Ayn Rand seriously. But I do check in with Reason's Hit and Run. Libertarians have valid critics of the drug war, militarization of the police, and generally keeping government out of our bedrooms. Plus, they have an excellent nose for really stupid government regulations, which I welcome if only to help clear the air for the regulations that we do need. Nothing hurts good laws and social programs like bad laws and social programs which undermine government.

Which brings us to Ron Paul, "Libertarian" dark horse running in the GOP Primary, who is getting attention for being the only anti-Iraq War Republican and raising a fair respectable chunk of change. But Paul is pretty worthless as a Libertarian. He's pro-life, and against gays in the military, and seems rather ok with government in the bedroom. I'm not giving up public schools and Social Security for this. While his anti-war stance makes him notable for a Republican, that stance is tied to a plum crazy view of the world.

I want my idiots to be useful, and Ron Paul is not useful.

Health

From Sunday Morning Chats, Speaker Pelosi v Fox edition:

Wallace: When you pray for President Bush, what do you pray for?

Pelosi: I pray that -- well, at the same as I pray for him, I pray for America's children and that there can be some compatibility in their thinking. But I pray for his health, his well being. I pray that he makes the right decisions for the American people. But when I . . .


Think of Vice President Cheney and pray for President Bush's health.

October 7, 2007

October 4, 2007

Craigs Don't Quit

Larry Craig: not resigning.

Pen of Death

President Bush veto of an SCHIP expansion is only the fourth of his Presidency. The other three are two vetoes of Stem Cell research funding and a measure that would bring the Iraq war to an end. Thats less health care for kids, less medical research, and more war. So basically, every time Bush gets out that veto pen, people are going to die.

October 3, 2007

Obama On War

Obama's speech on eve of the Iraq War. Tape is incomplete, so they have campaign volunteers finish. Nice touch.



From TheGarance. Adding a "The" in front of your name, very trendy.

Death Machine Halts

The One-State killing rampage that is the Texas Justice system comes to a brief halt.

October 2, 2007

Clunk

I don't think I've blogged a bit about Fred Thompson's late-breaking run for the GOP Presidential nomination, mainly because I can't muster up anything more than "The Law and Order guy? Really? Why?" But it appears that the man has gotten to a fairly respectable place in the polls based on nothing more than have a deep and commanding voice. He apparently knows nothing about the world. Steven Benen has a great round-up of all the thing he hasn't know already in his short campaign. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that more flat out ignorance is not what we need in the White House right now.

October 1, 2007

Oh Damn

V for Vendetta:

Dominic: What do you think will happen?
Finch: What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people *with* guns.

Burma

Banned!

Lord Emperor Craig is issuing the following proclamation. Henceforth, the following persons, terms and talking points shall be banned from the public discourse:

Item the First: No more casually tossing around "Nazis" and "Hitler" insults. Its cheap, its easy and no one on ether side deserves it. Except maybe Cheney. No, no, not even Cheney. Hitler is dead. Move on.

Item the Second: No more calling Hillary Clinton "ambitious" like its an insult or disqualifies her. Everybody running for President is ambitious. In fact, everyone calling Hillary ambitious is ambitious themselves. Everyone is ambitious. Its just some of us lack the talent to rise up in the world and thus become political pundits. Ambitious is just code for "uppity women"

Item the Third: When every we talk about Iran everyone must first say "war with Iran is a terrible idea." You then may then go on to discuss Iran in a not-insane manner. Anyone calling for war with Iran shall be sent to the Emperor Craig political reeducation camp forthwith.

Item the Fourth: Bill Kristol is banned from our public discourse. Just go away. Begone.

Let the word go forth into the land. The Emperor has spoken.