March 31, 2010

March 29, 2010

The Style Party

The RNC dropped close to two grand at a bondage-themed nightclub featuring topless women dancers called Voyeur West Hollywood.

No matter where I work, I can never get the company to pick up the tab for my trip to topless clubs.

Maybe I should switch parties.

March 26, 2010

Government Funded Ant-Governement Nuts

I'm guessing this guys rebellion isn't going to get very far.

Get the heavy hand of government off my back. No, not the monthly check that keeps me alive part of the heavy hand. The other part of the heavy hand.

March 25, 2010

Does Glenn Beck Want a War?

He sure talks like he does. Is this all part of the con, a way to sell books and gold? Or does he really believe this stuff? Republicans have lost the last two election cycles and lost them huge. There seems to be a contingent of the right that can no longer live with that. This inability to live with elections results is showing up in lots of ways, from vandalism and death threats to a complete shut-down of the Senate.

March 23, 2010

Quote of the Day

"This is a big fucking deal,"

Joe Biden

UPDATE: T-shirts, now available.

Obama and the Long Haul



This is how the Obama Era is going to work. Long hauls and wins in the end. Obama won the longest contested primary in history in 2008. He won a long grind of a general election later that year. He just won passage of the biggest piece of domestic legislation in two generations, after the longest public debate that anyone alive can remember. This is how Obama works. More than any politician I've seen, Obama is focused on the long-term. Most people live their lives day-to-day and most politics works the same way. Win the news cycle. Win the week. Obama is about winning the year. Winning the era. Which makes for some fairly disheartening day-to-days. Obama doesn't win the news cycle. Which at the time, feels terrible. A bad day feels bad. But politics doesn't work on points. You don't add up all the news cycles and whoever got the most, wins. Wins are bigger than that. Election Day. Legislation getting signed. That's where Obama puts his focus and that's where he wins.

March 22, 2010

What's Next?

Immagration! Good times. And we are already off to a surreal start:

Anti-Immigrant Leader’s Bodyguard Reportedly Assaulted Mimes Who Were Blowing ‘Hateful Whistles’ At DC Rally.

Wha? No, I mean, what? That is to say, um? I'm worn out. Can't process. Mimes?

All Over But the Yelling

And now for the Republican freak-out. And oh what a freak-out it will be. My personal favorite so far is Mark Steyn claiming that HCR will lead to will lead to "global Armageddon." Of course, we already had the death panel freakout, and an alarming portion of the population remains convinced that HCR will lead to communism and/or fascism.

But reality will happen, and it will look nothing like the critics say it was. Thanks reality.

March 20, 2010

Under Pressure

This goes out to all those wavering Dems who are swing voters on health care and are really feeling the pressure right now.



I have a message for you all.

Suck it up. This is why we made you members of Congress. To feel pressure, make hard votes and make peoples lives better. Deal with it.

March 17, 2010

That's theWorst Pirate I've Ever Seen

They tried to take a Dutch Warship and found themselves a bit over matched. Isn't this always the way it works? Professional pirates who take pride in their work make off with yatchs filled with British tourists and supertankers full of oil and then anybody with a skiff and an AK thinks they can be a pirate.

No standards anymore

March 15, 2010

Let Us Remember Peter Graves

Activist Judges

Activist Judges.

The term get through around a lot by the right, and generally it means nothing more than judges who the right doesn't like.

I'm thinking we need to update the term. I think activist judges are judges who do away with campaign finance laws so that their wives can form political action committees funded with donation that used to be illegal:

In January, Virginia Thomas created Liberty Central Inc., a nonprofit lobbying group whose website will organize activism around a set of conservative "core principles," she said.

The group plans to issue score cards for Congress members and be involved in the November election, although Thomas would not specify how. She said it would accept donations from various sources -- including corporations -- as allowed under campaign finance rules recently loosened by the Supreme Court.


Pretty sweet deal, eh? Throw out a law and your wife raises money for her group. The cause gets served and their doesn't seem to be a way to stop them. Welcome to the network.

March 12, 2010

Can't Watch

I can't stand to watch the health care process any more. If I have to take the swings of all these Congress-critters back and forth, I shall go mad.

March 10, 2010

Lost Wednesday

So, what did everyone think of yesterday's episode. Alternative Ben is such a nice fellow. I bet he rescues puppies on weekends.

CEO's for Lunch

Jerry Brown may not be my first choice to once again become Governor of California, but if this is the quality of his potential opponents, then he's going to win in a walk.

Millionaire CEO types have a really bad history in California politics. There was Michael Huffington spent who spent $28 million to loose to DiFi. (That campaign did spawn the pundit career of his ex-wife, so not money totally wasted) Al Checchi threw away over 40 million to get crushed by Grey Davis(!?) in the 1998 primary.

It is comforting to me to know that money doesn't buy everything. And Jerry Brown knows this game better than Meg Whitman ever has a hope of learning.

And he's going to teach her, but the lesson will cost her

Out Crazy

It is hard arguing with a crazy person. Everyone who has dealt with Glenn Beck has learned this. And now Beck has learned this too. He had on just-former Congressman Eric Massa. Massa is having a bad week/month/year. He's resigned his seat. He's had a recurrence of cancer. He's under a ethics cloud of sexual harassment-type stuff. He's popped off with some pretty wild accusations against the White House and Democratic leadership.

I think the best way to put it is this line from Jerry Maguire:

You are hanging on by a very thin thread and I dig that about you!


Those wild accusations got Massa on Glenn's show, and the result were not pretty.

Crazy all around. Unwatchable. Yet fun to talk about.

March 9, 2010

Redo

Unlike modern classics like Psycho, or Dukes of Hazzard, there are movies out there that could stand to be remade with the fancy new newness. I can't think of one more worthy of upgrade than TRON. Have you watched TRON lately? Looking very dated. Which is ok with some films. The fact that the plane taking off for Lisbon in Casablanca looks fake to modern eyes doesn't hurt the movie a bit. But TRON is all about the flashy and if your flashy fades...

So here's a look at the new look:

Daughter of Darth

Rumor of the Day: Liz Cheney, daughter of the dark one himself is thinking about running for office.

The Dark Lord's return, and all that.

March 7, 2010

Fight!

And now, six minetes of nothing but Star Wars lightsaber duels

March 6, 2010

March 5, 2010

Pirates: Still Pirating

Four new shootouts. What it looks like now is an arms race between the pirates and their would-be victims. The fishing and shipping boats are arming up, so the pirate have to actually shoot it out to take a vessel.

It turns out that March and April are pirate season in Somalia. Stay tuned for furthur developments.

Don't Do That

Once when I was watching one of Bill Maher's shows, big time California Pol Willie Brown declared "you don't screw people who give you money." This is, of course, troubling for guys who take money from oil and cigarette companies but generally just good manners.

Which makes this revelation about what the RNC thinks of its donors to be pretty funny. Big donors are egomaniac to massaged out of their money and small donors are sheeple to be scared out of their money. I wouldn't give money to people who though so little of me.

March 4, 2010

Local Angle

Republican lawmakers who loudly attack gays while have lots of gay sex themselves is nothing new. But this latest case happened in my neighborhood. State Senator Roy Ashburn got pulled over at 2 am 13th and L Streets. Drunk, and coming out of a gay bar with an "unidentified" male passenger.

That's only a dozen blocks from my place. He was coming out of Faces. I've been there. Right there in my neighborhood. I though this sort of thing was reserved for certain Washington DC bars and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom. But we get this action right here in my city.

Presidential Reunion

Not How it Works

Government by democracy is government of consensus. We hold elections and all agree to be bound by the result. We don't get to opt out if we don't like the result. Even if we elect an idiot boy-king or a b-movie actor or a black guy, we acknowledge the authority of those who are elected.

There is an increasing strain of though among the right that simple refuses to acknowledge that any win by the left is legitimate. This is where the birthers come from, the new militias and a big element of the tea party folks. Birthers dismiss a legitimate election through wild conspiracy theory. Militias are an attempt to create a means to violence outside the elected order. The FBI and Army report to Obama. He has that right as conferd to him by the voters of the United States. So the right-wing is attempting to create a military outside that constitutional order. This is not how it works. If the right doesn't suck it up and accept an election loss, why will the left? And if half the country will never consent to be ruled by the other half, how does the nation survive?

March 3, 2010

Jetpack!

Ok, now we are living in the future.

Vengence!

Ever since my computer got wrecked by an unimaginably nasty virus last summer, I've had dreams of kicking in the doors of the nasty buggers who do spam, viruses and spyware and beating them silly. So kudos to the Spanish police, who caught a really big fish.

Beatings for all of them

Are You Lamb or Sheep?

Could we get some congressional Dems with just a little fight in them? I'm not asking you to be a lion. Just not a lamb. Having the courage of a sheep would be enough.

March 2, 2010

Test Case

So the news from the world of political blogging is that Mickey Kaus is going to try and mount a primary challenge to Barbara Boxer for California's Senate seat.

Kaus is a rather strange case. He has one of the very first political blogs, so he has a certain blogging street creed. But his program is a strange one. Despite his loud claims to be a Democrat, he seems to oppose much of their agenda. He hates labor unions with the fire of a thousand suns. He's a hard-liner on immigration. He spent the entire 2004 election cycle hating John Kerry, only to claim that he voted for him in the end. All of this makes for interesting posting and drives liberals nuts, but I doubt that it will compel anyone to vote for him. Is there any California Democrat thinking to themselves, "If only my party was harder on labor unions and Latinos." Such people have a name, and they are called Republicans. By calling himself a Democrat, Kaus is different and interesting. Wow, a Democrat who hates unions! How intellectually stimulating. As a candidate, he's in the wrong place.

Call it an electoral test of being contrarian. My guess is that it fails miserably.

March 1, 2010

How Much Damage Can One Senator Do?

Jim Bunning continues his rampage. Still blocking measures that everyone, both Dems and Republicans want to see passed. Now its a pay cut for doctors. The man blocks an unemployment extension in the middle of a recession. He flips off TV cameras. He's not standing for reelection, it doesn't matter how big of an ass he is. One maniac brings the whole US government to a halt. But the world is full of jerks and crazy-people. The trick is not to let them derail the system for all of us. A Senate where one ass Senator can do this kind of damage is not a working Senate. The Senate is broken and needs to be fixed.

Playing Our Role

American Ice Hockey was doomed the moment it won that preliminary round game against Canada. As everyone who's ever watched a sports movie knows, the team that wins the first, less important game is the villain and thus is completely doomed in the drama final championship game that goes into overtime. We couldn't do anything about this loss. The rules of drama were against us.