June 30, 2008

Case in Point

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

JFK

Case in point. Sometimes its the intimate injustice that burns brighter than the whole corrupt system. No to say that in a democracy horrible crimes or that an ass of a official don't try and cover stuff up. But democracy has systems and institutions, such as a free press, in place that allow this kind of thing to get dealt with. In ways short of burning down the local police station.

June 29, 2008

UnWanted

Should gone to the one with the cute robots. Wanted is utterly depraved, brilliant crap. Timur Bekmambetov, The young Russia director behind Nightwatch, previously noted on this blog, is a genius for blowing your fraking mind. There are at least 10 images in this movie that are nothing I've seen before and will dream about tonight. Too bad these images lie in the mist of crazy depraved weirdness. I could write a whole thesis on this movie and the masculine impotence of the modern American male. Our hero is a such a beat down emasculated chump, I'm surprised his fat, cruel female boss doesn't reach down his pants and steal his penis away right there on screen. But then he learns how to kill, "grows a pair," and proceeds to put that knowledge into practice. Money, self-confidence, and snogging Angelina Jolie all follow. That's killing = manhood for those of you keeping track at home. As Christopher Orr says "I've watched a movie that, while fiercely entertaining, made me fear for the emotional health of my gender."

Sunday Mellow

Jack Johnson - If I Had Eyes



Johnson always make me want to gather up some pallets for a beach bonfire, ever if I'm nowhere near a beach.

June 27, 2008

Hackery

The Vice President's Chief of Staff is still claiming the the Vice President is his own branch of government. What an evil undemocratic hack. In an effort to shield his boss from all accounting and responsibility, this man is willing to carve up our Constitutional order with nothing more than a legal memo.

Guns for All

Bang:

The Supreme Court on Thursday embraced the long-disputed view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a gun for personal use, ruling 5 to 4 that there is a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense.

The landmark ruling overturned the District of Columbia ban on handguns, the strictest gun-control law in the country, and appeared certain to usher in a new round of litigation over gun rights throughout the country.


This is so not over. The Supremes struck down D.C.'s total handgun ban on a 5-4 decision, but even the majority took pains to spell out that almost all gun regulations short of an all out band are Constitutionally permissible. Which means that guns are going to end up like abortion. Basic rights secured by the courts, but opponents have a ton of options to try and regulate. The Supremes never "settle" anything. They just set the terms for the next fight.

June 26, 2008

Appeasement Everywhere!

Bush is lifting sanctions against North Korea! They are talking! Diplomacy! Not bombs! this is so wrong. We must put John McCain in office so he can undo this horror and give us the peace and stability of an all out shooting war on the Korean Peninsula.

June 25, 2008

Low

Bush now at 23% approval in latest Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll. That's less than one in four people approving of him. This fits the larger trend. Lower and lower.

In fact, there is now a movement to rename San Fransisco's sewer treatment plant after George W. Bush.

Pretty low.

June 24, 2008

Who Speaks for God?

Good old James Dobson is Accusing Obama of “Distorting” the Bible. Dobson and company are used to having exclusive domain over religion in politics. God hates gays and taxes, and that's the end of it. A man of the left who can speak in religious terms is a mortal threat to their racket.

June 23, 2008

The Space Vote

Cool. I look forward to the day that people living in orbit or on Mars constitute a entire voting constituency of themselves.

Well Bob, Chelsey Clinton has been running strong all night with the orbital vote, but George P Bush has been making up ground in the Marian polar regions.

I've been saying for a lunar month it was a mistake for Chelsey to come out so strongly in favor of death-ray control. They love their death-rays on Mars. All those roving mutants to worry about.

And speaking of lunar, let's go to a live report from a polling place at the Sea of Tranquility...


VIA

Question of the Day

How is it that "vanilla" has come to mean "plain" in our language? I am currently sucking on some kind of shake concoction with bits of real vanilla bean floating around in it and this thing is the best. How did such a wondrous flavor get such a bad rep?

Shit

George Carlin has died. And here is his opius, The seven words you can't say on television.



Contains adult language, duh.

June 20, 2008

Election Nerd Supreme

If you want hardcore election analysis like no other, I highly recommend FiveThirtyEight.com. The site is bringing election projection to a whole new level.

June 19, 2008

Drilled

Normally, "energy policy" and "local politics" results in nothing but bad policy. The best example is ethanol, where we waste large amount of both money and corn to please the good people of Iowa and their early caucus. But an interesting thing has come up in reaction to the new McCain/Bush proposal to end the ban on off-shore oil drilling. This is really going to hurt them in Florida, where, much like in California, they like their beaches oil-free. Florida is not Alaska or Texas, crappy places that people only go to in order to take resources. People like to visit Florida. They make their money off of tourism, and there is no way they want to put that in jeopardy, no matter how much oil is worth these days.

So good news everyone! Florida is back into play! Such good things happen when races get competitive in Florida.

June 18, 2008

Who Gives to Whom?

Chris sends me this fascinating chart from MoJo, which breaks out political donations by party. Its shows what kind of people support each of the parties. For example 68% of donations from self identified "soldiers" go to the GOP, while professors give 86% of their donations to the Democrats. To the surprise of no one, 100% of people who gave their profession as "Wizard" gave to Ron Paul. Libertarians are strange. The religious job titles are fascinating. Reverends and Rabbi give over 80% of their money to the Donkey, while Preachers go 78% the other way. Can't you just picture who calls themselves who?

Anyway, go take a look.

June 17, 2008

Not Alex

I love this ad:



I saw a few blowhards, Pat Buchanan and Bill-O, laugh this one off, but drafting little Alex is the logical conclusion of John McCain's policies, John McCain wants to stay in Iraq forever, or at least the 17 and 3/4ths years it will take little Alex to reach draft age. McCain also want to go to war with Iran. He has policies that will like result in a shooting war on the Korean peninsula. He wants to ratchet up tensions with Russia and China. We simple do not have the manpower to fight four shooting wars and resume two more cold wars. Not to mention the fact that even if we "beat" Iran and North Korea, the inevitable result would be two more expensive, manpower intensive occupations. Occupations that would go on forever/ 17 and 3/4ths years, just like Iraq. Iraq alone is straining the volenteer army to the breaking point. So yes. John McCain wants little Alex.

And no, he can't him.

Dream a Little Dream

Don't tease me.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said that the House Judiciary Committee would be willing to arrest Karl Rove if the former White House official doesn't testify about his role in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006.

June 14, 2008

Rock in the Afternoon

U2 - Electrical Storm, cause its been a while since I posted any U2, and we can't have that.

June 13, 2008

Oh Man

Tim Russert has died of a heart attack. He was only 58. The man defined Washington politics and he was loved and hated because we love and hate politics.

June 12, 2008

Wow

Baby Mama

What's the over-under on when some Foxnewser calls Obama a n----r?

I'm putting my bet down on late September.

UPDATE: Closer. Closer every day.

June 11, 2008

Scoreboard! Scoreboard!

Obama is up 47-41 over McCain in the latest NBC/WSJ poll. Turns out all those groups that Obama had a "problem" with when he ran against Hillary - women, Hispanics and so on, don't have have a problem when he matches up against McCain. With just 1000 phone calls, six months of TV punditry just went out the window.

The Truth Will Out

Joe Lieberman, back when he was fighting for his political life in 2006, was saying things like "Nothing is more important to me than bringing our troops home from Iraq" which is the the kind of thing you say when you don't want the Iraq war to end, but the people who vote for you do. Well John McCain isn't even bothering to tell those little untruths. He is on tape today saying that bringing the troops home from Iraq was "Not too Important." Which is important because it's both true (McCain really doesn't think it's important) and a rather devastating sentiment to express out loud.

June 10, 2008

2 for 1

I don't mean to alarm anyone, but they are giving away homes in 2 for 1 sales now. Thats a pretty bad housing market.

The Principal of the Thing

Good old Dennis Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment against Bush. This isn't going to go anywhere, but I admire the principal of the thing. Surely if having sex and lying about it is impeachable, the last eight years are impeachable.

Ah, Dennis, the totally impractical gesture of principal. His specialty.

June 9, 2008

Set

Ok the field for November is set. Who had Obama V McCain in the pool? I myself had Chris Dodd vrs Mike Huckabee. Sure is sounds unlikely, but the would have paid off huge if it had come through. Much better that Belmont Stakes Horse.

I like this match up a lot. Not just thematically - can't beat young vrs old. But these two are going to have themselves a pretty good debate about the direction of this country. Both sides have the high minded delusions that they can(1) raise the level of debate and (2) having that debate will help them win the election. Guess we will see.

June 5, 2008

Spotlight

It shows the kind of attention the Democratic side of the fence is getting when the two candidates meet and it gets covered like this. Its big important stuff, like high level negotiations between Heads of State These are not couple of politicians meeting. These are Titans, gathering together to determine the destiny of nations, to set right the course of history.

Oh and the Obama campaign is run by ninjas.

Mr.25%

Bush now down to 25% approval rating. Only one in four american adults now approve of the job Bush is doing. Which means that Bush is now below the The Crazification Factor.

June 4, 2008

John McCain is Bad at This

How did this happen? Giving speeches is what Presidents and Presidential candidates do. Its what they do. They give large numbers of speeches to a wide variety of audiences in a wide variety of places and then the voting happens. John McCain has held elected office for decades. He has run for President twice and the second time, defeated a crowded field to become his parties nominee. And he can't give a speech. He can't read a teleprompter. He can deliver an applause line so that people applaud. He's so bad Fox News calls him bad. John McCain is is bad at running for President. How did this happen?

Results

Kevin Johnson is leading Mayor Heather Fargo, but final vote totals are not in and this could go to a run-off in November. Prop 98 got beat epic, and 99 passed, so good work, people of California. Tom McClintock beat Doug Ose in the race to replace John Doolittle, and will face Charlie Brown in the fall. Those two ripped each other to shreds in that race. Charlie Brown is a good man, and hopefully will beat McClintock silly come November.

Oh and a black man won the Presidential nomination of a major party for the first time in United States. We make history every time we vote in the County. But some history is just more historic than others.

June 3, 2008

Done

And that ends it.

Last Dance

Last primaries of the season. It all comes down to Montana. Or possibly South Dekota. Actually, Obama is going to win regaurdless of how these two States vote, but I like to keep it interesting.

June 2, 2008

Most Important Mission

Space Shuttle Discovery is at the International Space Station;

Discovery carried Japan's prized Kibo lab, a 37-foot-long, 16-ton scientific workshop. The seven shuttle astronauts and three station residents will combine forces to install the bus-size lab on Tuesday.

The shuttle crew also brought a spare toilet pump for the orbiting outpost. The space station's Russian-built toilet broke nearly two weeks ago -- forcing the crew to perform manual flushes with extra water several times a day -- and engineers hope the new pump will take care of the problem.


Japanese Laboratory module: 1 Billion Dollars
Working toilet: Priceless.

Seriously, how much does a thing-a-ma-bob cost anyway. And how highly trained, educated and skilled is the astronaut that is currently works as a glorious plumber?

At least its a space toilet. Everything is

OMG an Election!

Ok, I've been caught embarrassingly flat footed by the fact that the California non-primary is happening Tuesday. Luckily for me there isn't a whole lot on the ballot, what with the Presidential race gone buy already. There are two ballot measures, which is pretty low for California. They must be slacking off.

Prop 98 and 99 are both "eminent domain" "reform" measures that came in response to the Kelo case. 98 is the same kind of crap we saw in previous elections, trying to outlaw a bunch of government regulations under the guise of eminent domain reform. The Chant recommends No.

If you really must vote for eminent domain reform go with prop 99. Its much more limited in scope, and unlikely to lead to the anarchy in the streets that 98 will bring us.

The other contest of note is local, as a pretty good brawl has broken out in the Sacramento mayor's race. Incumbent Heather Fargo against former NBA star turn local developer Kevin Johnson. I'm honestly undecided in this race, which is a pretty strange place for me to be in, personally. Fargo is less risk and less upside, unlikely to screw thing up, but also unlikely to do anything interesting or inspiring. Kevin Johnson has got himself drive and ambition for this city, but has the real potential of disaster if it turns out he really doesn't know what he's talking about. Sorry I can't offer any guidance with this race. What do you think?

June 1, 2008

Girl Fight

Last night CBS put MMA on primetime TV for the first time. The Kimbo Slice thing I leave to others, but the best fight of the night belonged to the women. Gina Carano is what's next. Are you ready? This is the natural evolution of a world of Buffy, Tomb Raider, Xena and the like. You tell girls they can kick ass, show them movies where they kick ass, pretty soon, somebody is going to come along and do it for real. So. is this progress? Is the highly skillful application of violence something women should aspire to?



Beautiful Disaster indeed.