We don't split hairs.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

United By A Divider

While on the campaign trail for the 2000 Presidential election, George W. Bush described himself as, "a uniter, not a divider." What the American people obviously took that to mean was that he would break through the partisanship that had taken hold of Washington and bring the people together as one to lead them forward into the new millenium. What has happened is slightly different.

For one shining moment, the day he stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center, he actually achieved that goal. His approval rating skyrocketed from a divided 55% to a united 92% almost overnight. From there it has been a steady decline, culminationg with the latest Washington Post poll which has his approval rating at 39%, the lowest it has ever been in that poll.

For the past few months, the reports surrounding these polls have announced the results in the same way - "Record Low Poll Numbers," "The President Hits A New Low," "Approval Ratings Drop," and so on. As this trend continues, with all the disasters and scandals and bad decisions and ethics violations hammering away at the last remnants of goodwill and support pulled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center he once stood atop, it looks like he is once again uniting the people, but this time, they are uniting against him.

UPDATE: "More Bad News For Bush" is the headline of the latest CBS poll, which reports a 35% approval rating for Preznit Shrub. Darth Cheney gets a whopping 19% approval.

The Real "Up Or Down"

It occurred to me today that every time the Right Wing felt they were about to get into a battle over a nominee for any position, be it John Bolton for United Nations Ambassador or John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, they always trotted out their famous "Up or Down" argument. It was their contention that these nominees, regardless of their views or history, deserved a yes or no vote due solely to the fact that they were nominated by the White House.

What happened to the Harriet Miers up or down vote? Why didn't she get the "courtesy" afforded all the other nominees the White House supported? Could it be because the Right Wing is a bunch of hypocrites that only want up or down votes when they know their position will come out on top?

From now on, anyone who says that a nominee deserves an up or down vote can shut up and sit down. That's my vote.

UPDATE: From the Associated Press:
"Let's give Judge Alito a fair up-or-down vote, not left or right," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.

He was one of several Republicans to say so, and there was irony in that.

After battering Democrats for years about denying GOP judicial candidates yes-or-no votes, Republicans eagerly acquiesced in Miers' withdrawal without either hearings in the Judiciary Committee or a vote on the Senate floor.

John Thune ith a thtupid pile of thit who thould thut up and thit down.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Don't Get Cancer...Get High

A while ago I posted this item about a report that said marijuana promotes neuron generation in the brain. Well, the good news for potheads keeps on coming.

Today, All Headline News reported some findings of a study by Dr. Robert Melamede of the University of Colorado that concluded marijuana was not a major health risk, and that THC, the active ingredient, "acts in ways that counter the cancer-causing chemicals in marijuana smoke."

Read more here.

The Trouble With Harry

I'm sure most of you heard today that Harriet Miers withrew herself from consideration for Supreme Court Justice. I have to wonder if it was really her decision or if Bush called her into the Oval Office and told her to take a bullet for him. The timing is just too perfect for her to have withdrawn herself, what with the recent milestone of 2000 dead in Iraq (not counting those who have died in military hospitals elsewhere from wounds sustained in Iraq), and the beginning of the end of the investigation into the Valerie Plame outing promising indictments of very high White House officials - possibly including Darth Cheney himself.

Get ready for a whole new rash of diversive political moves by the White House B-Team attempting to keep all the bad news from the front page. I fully expect a new SCOTUS nominee within the week, and I would not be surprised if a terror alert was sounded somewhere because of some bogus "anniversary" related to the War on Terror. Better yet, maybe another Al Qaeda number two man will get "caught" or killed.

I have to say, however, that I will miss Harry. Lke a classic femme fatale from 1930s and 1940s film noir, she had a way of making men crazy and turn on each other. Now that there is no woman to fight over anymore, these guys will focus once again on the other thing they really care about - stealing from us.

I'm Back

Sorry for the long delay, folks. I just started a new job and spend a lot of my time in the city, and the time I don't spend there, I spend getting there and back. I've come to the realization that commuting to NY costs almost as much as living there - and I don't even pay rent! $13 per train ride, plus gas to get to the station, and I end up spending around $45 per day just to get to work and back home, and I don't even take the subway because of the extra cost. Forget food. I make due with the free bagels every morning and the pizza every Friday and water from the cooler.

$225 per week just to get to work. God Bless America!

UPDATE: I just bought a monthly pass for the LIRR which cuts down my costs considerably. Instead of $130 per week on train tickets, it cost me $267 for unlimited rides the entire month. Nice.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Down In A Fox Hole

Fox sucks.

I'm not talking about Fox News (which does suck), I am talking about the network's seeming inability to promote any baseball other than Yankee baseball. I turned on the television today at four o'clock, the scheduled time, to watch game four of the NLCS and what do I find? Overtime football.

Okay, I understand they aren't going to just stop showing an overtime game that is important to a lot of people to show the pregame stuff for the NLCS, so I switch to FX, figuring that like ESPN often does, they'll at least have the beginning of the game on another station they own.

Wrong.

They are playing Broken Arrow, the incredibly bad "blockbuster" starring Christian Slater and John Travolta. If this were a Yankee game, they'd preempt the football or the shitty movie and bring you directly to the baseball game. Or, at the very least, let you know what was going on.

I hold my temper for a few minutes and wait. Of course, Dallas wins quickly and I breath a sigh of relief and think, "okay, now they'll put the baseball game on."

Wrong. It's another overtime football game!

Now, I understand the first game, but to put on this second game (a game that nobody in the area had expected to see), without even mentioning what is going on in the baseball game is just plain garbage. If I were Bud Selig I would be calling my lawyers asking them to look over the contract with Fox to see if any legal action could be taken.

Sure, there could be a rain delay, or some other sort of problem, but at least let the viewers know. With all the advertisements and news scrolling across the bottom of the screen non-stop, why can't they at least say something more than, "NLCS Next! Only on Fox!" Next? After every football game has ended? After John Madden shuts up? After Fox decides there is nothing it deems more important to show?

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Let's Go To The Video Tape

I'm sitting here watching the Angels vs. White Sox ALCS game and, after the garbage that went on in the second game where, obvious to everyone but the umpire, the ball did not hit the ground, the umpires blow yet another call. Steve Finley is up with runners on first and third and one out, he swings and hits the ball to shortstop and they get him in a double play. Inning over. But on closer inspection, it should be bases loaded with one out.

When Finley hit the ball, I said to my father, "They won't double up Finley." But they do. On the replay, they show him slowing down and pointing at home, but the umpires do nothing. Then they show another replay of Finley swinging the bat and you can clearly see his bat hit the catcher's glove mid-swing. Catcher's interference should have been called and Finley should have been given first base on the error by the catcher.

Is it me or are umpires blowing calls left and right these days? Maybe it has something to do with the firing of almost all the umpires a few years ago, and replacing them with minor league umps. Perhaps they are just not up to Major League standards. Or perhaps it is time to institute some form of instant replay.

Don't get me wrong. I am generally a baseball purist. I don't like the DH, I don't like the continual expansion of baseball, thereby adding more jobs and promoting players who would never make the majors except as 40-man roster additions, and a few days ago I would have told you that the instant replay was not for baseball. After all, the umpires are players, too. But recently there has been a rash of horrible calls in important games. Calls that changed the course of the game and in some cases the series.

From the bad call against the Yankees where Robinson Cano was penalized for the second base "neighborhood" play, to the aforementioned strike three passed ball, to tonights garbage, the evidence is inescapable. Umpires either need to re-read the playbook, open their eyes and watch the game, or some type of instant replay needs to be instated in, at the very least, post-season play.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Ad Man = Bad Man II

If you haven't already heard, every time the White House has a televised session with the President speaking to "regular" people, those people are carefully chosen, as is the crowd and the background, as are the questions and answers. They are more along the lines of rehearsed plays than real glimpses into the White House - which sort of makes it a real glimpse into the White House.

This President has said that he approaches government like a CEO approaches business and that he will run it as such, and boy, he was not lying. In my post about advertising, I wrote that companies should spend less money on ads and more on product. If Bush's handlers spent the same amount of time planning post-invasion Iraq as they do planning these publicity stunts, they would probably not even need to hold these fallacies.

What strikes me as even more problematic is that the press eats it up, but we are the ones who end up with extreme stomach cramps, shitting out the blood of our fellow Americans being fed to us in tasty little pre-packaged morsels.

Finally, however, the press has taken a look at the ingredients on the side of the box. Much like when Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle, we are becoming aware of what is beneath the lid of the can, how it is processed, and the amount of rat feces this government has allowed into the vats.

Number One In The Theaters, G

Ain't It Cool News reports that MC Chris, better known to Adult Swim fans as MC PeePants from Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF), mentioned at a recent interview that the long-rumoured ATHF movie will be out in March, and that he is in it.

Just in time for my birthday.

Read it here.

Start Smokin'

Raw Story points to an article in The Globe And Mail which explains findings by a Calgary based team of international researchers who have found that periodic use of high potency marijuana, "could have some benefits when administered regularly."
"Most 'drugs of abuse' such as alcohol, heroin, cocaine and nicotine suppress growth of new brain cells. However, researchers found that cannabinoids promoted generation of new neurons in rats' hippocampuses.

Hippocampuses are the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory, and the study held true for either plant-derived or the synthetic version of cannabinoids.

'This is quite a surprise,' said Xia Zhang, an associate professor with the Neuropsychiatry Research Unit at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

'Chronic use of marijuana may actually improve learning memory when the new neurons in the hippocampus can mature in two or three months,' he added."

Well, I guess that's why your old, broke college buddy who smoked the dirt cheap stuff is such a typical stoner, while your "I only smoke the good stuff" friend can still speak coherently.

It is also another nail in the coffin of the anti-pot crusaders who think that marijuana can only do harm. Now we can add neuron generation to the list of beneficial uses including addressing "pain, nausea, vomiting, seizures caused by epilepsy, ischemic stroke, cerebral trauma, tumours, multiple sclerosis and a host of other maladies."

You can read the entire article here.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Do Not Hire John Crovello Or Long Island Custom Builders

A friend, Tom Hespos of Hespos.com, is having some work done to his house, and apparently has had a devil of a time dealing with John Crovello and Long Island Custom Builders, the company he hired to do the work (read his post here for more info).

He suggests against ever using John Crovello, or his company Long Island Custom Builders, to do any work on your home, apartment, dog house, hen house, out house or crack house. I generally take the advice of my friends and therefore feel it necessary to pass along the information about John Crovello and Long Island Custom Builders to anyone who is considering such improvements.

In short, don't hire John Crovello or Long Island Custom Builders.

I Do Believe In Angels

I don't often revel in the downfall of others, but there are certain people that draw my ire, and I cannot help but feel a little better when they fall. These people are the ones who act entitled to what they have. The ones who swing their egos and their jaws, but when push comes to shove, they can't swing their bats. People who put money above honor. People who, instead of helping their side to win, will abandon those who count on them to join the side that is already winning. People like Alex Rodriguez. People like Gary Sheffield. People like Randy Johnson. People like Jason Giambi. People like Mike Mussina.

As many of you know, I am a Yankee Hater. That does not mean I hate all Yankees. I like Hidekyi Matsui. I like Chen-Mein Wang. I liked Paul O'Neill. These are players who do their jobs and blame nobody but themselves when they fail. What I hate is the Yankee mentality. That sense of entitlement that comes with being a Yankee. Like the "blue-bloods" of old Europe, Yankees feel they are born, not made, and God help those who stand in their way. Players like Derek Jeter are certainly entitled to their swagger and cockiness. After all, he has been on a winning team his entire career and has been a loyal servant of the Yankee empire. He runs out every ground ball and every pop-up. Rodriguez, Sheffield, Johnson, Giambi, Mussina, and their ilk, are entitled to nothing. They came to the Yankees because they saw a winning team and they wanted a piece of it. They saw the "majesty" that attaches itself to Yankee winners and they wanted to be made royalty. They have only succeeded in making themselves court jesters.

For the almost-quarter-billion-dollar Yankees, nothing short of victory is acceptable. Yet these mercenaries whom the Yankees brought in to assure victory were nothing short of disasters in winners' clothing.

• Giambi, while not terrible at the plate average-wise (.421), only drove in two runs and scored one, and his play in the field will never be described as pretty.

• Sheffield hit .286, and like Giambi, drove in two and scored one, and, whatever you think or hear about his collision in the field with Bubba Crosby, it is a baseball truism that any ball a centerfielder can get to is his ball, no excuses.

• Johnson almost redeemed himself last night with a masterful relief appearance, but as the saying goes, "too little, too late." If he had pitched like that on Friday, they probably wouldn't have even played a game five. Now even Mel Stottelmeyer has come out saying that Johnson tips his pitches, but it only matters when he doesn't have good stuff. How much longer do you think a 42-year-old pitcher will have his good stuff?

• Mussina had a decent start the first game. He gave up no runs, but failed to make it out of the sixth inning. Then, after five days of rest in sunny Southern California, he has another start like that against Baltimore at the end of the regular season. I agree with his post-game statements that it was the little things that really took the game from them, but he still bears some of the responsibility. The ball was in his hands and he couldn't hold on.

Now we come to Alex Rodriguez, the man at the center. The could-be regular season Most Valuable Player who is most certainly the post-season Least Valuable Player. For the second year in a row ARod has proven himself incapable of coming up big. He had ample opportunity to drive in runs and play that wonderful defense I keep hearing about, but only seemed to crumble in tight spots. The $25 million-per-year man was 2 for 15 (.133) with two runs scored and ZERO runs batted in. His only two hits came in the 11-7 loss. The game before, he made a costly error at third base and got caught stealing with some more failed big guns coming up behind him (when has running been a part of the Yankee game plan? I thought they played Earl Weaver-wait-for-the-three-run-homer baseball). In the final game he struck out twice and in the last inning hit into a double play with the tying run on first base. So much for doing what the Yankees brought him in to do.

Some of these players would only sign with the Yankees, some of them demanded they be traded to the Yankees, and all of them failed as Yankees.

And now their winters will be as cold and desolate as their hearts.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Smurfs Get Smurfed

Aparently UNICEF has created a public service commercial in Belgium wherein the Smurf Village is destroyed not by Gargamel and Azrael, not by Big Nose the ogre, and not by those slime goblins that shoot the bubble guns, but by bombs dropped from warplanes flying overhead.

Crooks and Liars, has a slideshow version of the commercial here (The Smurfs appear midway through clip).

Read more here.

The End Times Are Upon Us!

On CNN's "Late Edition" yesterday I saw an interview with 700 Club preacher and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson during which he made a number of alarming claims (1, 2).

Most worrisome was his claim that the current political and natural disasters might be a sign of the biblical end of time. He said:
"It's possible. I don't have any special revelation to say it is but the Bible does indicate such a time will happen in the end of time. And could this be it? It might be."

During the interview he also spoke about his call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He excused it by blaming the media.

"August was a slow news month," he said. "They wanted something and I guess I was it."

To make his assassination suggestion seem more palatable, he added that his "sources" told him Chavez had given Osama Bin Laden either $1 million or $1.2 million after the 9/11 attacks.

So, in summation, the end of the world may be coming soon, a call for the assassination of a foreign leader by a former presidential candidate is only newsworthy in a slow news cycle, and even if the suggestion was wrong, 9/11 makes everything okay.

Weekend Update

Against my better judgment I watched the new t.v. season's second episode of Saturday Night Live this weekend, and I don't know that I've seen a worse SNL show. They took the tried and true SNL method of stretching scenes and replaying old jokes to a new horrific level.

Guest Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) flubbed his lines a number of times, grasping for words to fill his stumbling mouth, and "musical" guest Ashlee Simpson, while actually singing this time, had trouble staying on key and sounded like she was at a summer camp talent show. The Weekend Update segment was so bad, I'm not sure Horatio Sanz can read, and with what may be the most annoying recurring character since Chris Kattan's Mango (or, for that matter, any character he ever did more than once), Fred Armisan made me want to thrust sharpened sticks into my ears every time his Latin talkshow host said, "I'm just keeeeeeeding!"

Recognizing that the only funny member of the so-called-comedy troupe is Amy Poehler, Lorne Michaels decided to use her in almost every skit, thus expanding the SNL style of overkill to include cast member appearances.

SNL has heard the death knell sounded many times over the years and somehow survived with a sudden unexpected burst of hilarity, but it is hard to see anything funny coming from this current crop of comedic actors. Perhaps the problem is not with the actors, but with the writers failing to write anything funny. Or maybe the problem lies with Lorne Michaels. It could be that he needs another hiatus from running the show so that some fresh minds can instill modern comedic thought into its animated corpse, which staggers on only because it forgot to die.

And I'm not keeeeeeeeeding.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Coming Soon To A Prison Near You!


We can dream, can't we?

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Pig In A Jacket


The inspiration for the new Energy Hog mascot.

Ad Man, Short For Bad Man?

CNET News.com writer Elinor Mills posted a brief report about the annual conference of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA). In it, she quotes Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA complaining about:
"unwarranted criticism advertisers have received for their alleged role in causing obesity and 'other social ills.' What about 'personal responsibility?' he noted. The attempts to 'vilify U.S. marketers' will not be tolerated, he said. Advertising 'is one of the most socially responsible industries in America.'"

"Socially responsible" may be stretching it a bit, but this is a capitalist society, and you cannot blame the advertisers for caving in to the massive amounts of money they get paid to sell whatever their corporate benefactors shove in front of their cameras. It's not the advertisers' job to make the product, it's their job to sell it to us. They would come up with a campaign to sell a knife called "The Juice" with OJ Simpson's smiling face on the box if Bowie gave them enough money.

Sure, there should be some amount of personal responsibility. If you don't know that eating two Big Macs and shitting for an hour isn't good for you, then maybe you should get fat and die early. However, the real blame rests squarely on the heads of the producers of that garbage. If McDonald's "special sauce" wasn't pure chemicals and was instead something healthy, the advertisers could use the same pitch and people wouldn't be so fat.

These companies need to start spending less money on advertising, and more money on the quaility of their products and services.

I'm Not A Politician, But I Play One In Real Life

For as long as I can remember, the right wing smear machine has attacked any actor or musician who speaks out against anything they perceive to be wrong with society or government as "just an actor," or from the "liberal Hollywood elite." But when an actor comes out in favor of their agenda, they give him a post.

From Ronald Reagan to Shirley Temple Black to The Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, these righties have been revered as patriots for using their notoriety to further the cause of conservatism, and now you can add another name to the list: Ron Silver.

The White House has announced that Silver has been named a Member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace.

Silver is known for starring in such films as Reversal of Fortune and Timecop, where, incidentally, he played a crooked politician bent on becoming president.

I wonder if he picked up any tricks of the trade while doing research into that role.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Beware Of The Giant Squid

A week ago, the NY Times reported that two Japanese scientists had made the world's first observations of a giant squid in the wild.

I disagree.

Since 2002, Washington lobbyist and all-around horrible guy Jack Abramoff has been under observation by the U.S. Department of Justice, and so far his tentacles have been found squirming wherever shady money deals and government corruption are uncovered. From the trials and tribulations of Tom Delay, to the arrest of David H. Safavian, the onetime Bush administration top procurement official, Abramoff's ink has stained a lot of people.

Today, his slimy suction cups were found attached to Timothy E. Flanigan, the Bush administration's nominee for the post of deputy attorney general. Flanigan withdrew his nomination, reportedly because he was going to be questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee about his work with Abramoff as a senior lawyer for Tyco International Ltd while Abramoff was a lobbyist there.

Is there anyone in the White House not connected to Abramoff and his shady dealings?

Doubtful Credibility

According to the NY Times, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said LAST NIGHT:
"While not entirely dismissing it, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security described it as 'specific yet noncredible,' adding that the intelligence community had concluded that the information was of 'doubtful credibility.'"

Of course, being of doubtful credibility, the alert was taken more seriously than the August 6, 2001 briefing to the President which stated that Bin Laden was determined to strike the United States.

What is even more alarming than the credence lent to the uncorroborated report, is the fact that the information that led to this alert came LAST WEEKEND, yet the people heard nothing of it until the day that Karl "Turdblossom" Rove decided to testify in front of a grand jury investigating the Victoria Plame outing - for the FOURTH TIME and at the "eleventh hour" - as well as in the midst of the disastrous Harriet quag-Mier nomination.

On comedian David Cross's latest album "It's Not Funny" - which, I assure you, is very funny - he goes down a list of terror alerts and information damaging to the Bush Administration that came out immediately before the alerts were issued. It seems that he can add another item to that list.

UPDATE: Forbes.com reports that the bomb scare at Penn Station was indeed a hoax

UPDATE #2: CNN.com extends the NYC terror alert until Sunday. Have a nice day.

UPDATE #3: Yahoo News corroborates the theory that it was an uncorroborated hoax.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

Watching the President's speech at the National Endowment For Democracy this morning, I was shocked to hear that some of the words he used to describe the War on Terror and its surrounding catastrophe could easily be used to describe his administration's policies and the policies of his pals on The Right.

A few examples:

He said: Islamic terrorism is, "an ideology that exploits Islam for political ends and defiles a noble faith."

I say: The Right has an ideology that exploits Christianity for political ends and defiles a noble faith.

He said: "Terrorists serve a clear and focused ideology. The ideology... exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision that calls for the murder of all those who do not share it... Although they fight on scattered battlefields, these terrorists share a similar ideology and vision for the world openly stated in videos, audiotapes, letters, declarations, and websites."

I say: The Right serves a clear and focused ideology, and they too have called for the murder (1,2) of those who do not share it. They work for different companies on different networks and in different states, but they share a similar ideology openly stated in videos, audiotapes, letters, declarations, and websites. To steal from Rumsfeld, you use the tools you have, not the tools you wish to have.

He said: "The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow moderate governments in the Middle East."

I say: The Right believes that converting one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all non-capitulating governments in the Middle East.

He said: "The radicals exploit local conflicts to build a culture of victimization, exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, and use modern technology to multiply their destructive power.

I say: The Right exploits local conflicts (Terri Schiavo, racism, anti-homosexuality, et al), to build a culture of victimization, exploit resentful and disillusioned young men and women, and use modern technology to multiply their destructive power. Again, you use the tools you have...

He said: "In pursuit of their goals, Islamic radicals are empowered by helpers and enablers. They are sheltered and supported by authoritarian regimes... that use terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West, America, and Jews... The militants are aided by elements of the Arabs news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, feed conspiracy theories, and speak of a so-called American "war on Islam" - with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims..."

I say: In pursuit of their goals, The Right is empowered by helpers and enablers. They are sheltered and supported by an authoritarian president and Congress that uses propaganda to blame their own failures on The Left, terrorism and Muslims. They are aided by elements of the American news media that incite hatred against The Left with seldom a word about The Left's action to protect Americans against loss of civil liberties and God given rights.

I know that some of you probably agree with the President on many of these issues, and some of them ring true. However, using these as reasons while doing the same thing from the other side of the fence reeks of the worst kind of hypocrisy.

His philosophy is to fight fire with fire, but all that does is make things really hot.

In my experience, water and sand work a lot better.

MVP II

In my first post, I wrote that Alex Rodriguez's supporters think his glove and speed should boost him over Ortiz for AL MVP. I don't know how many of you saw last night's Yankees-Angels game, but his glove and speed were not in top form.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, ARod's error at third base let Orlando Cabrera get on, and eventually score the tying run. Then, in the top of the seventh, after walking to leadoff the inning (a leadoff walk scores sixty percent of the time), he was caught stealing second (on a perfect pitchout count) with Giambi up and Sheffield on deck, effectively ending any chance for redemption.

I know that the postseason is not supposed to be taken into account when voting for the MVP, but, as in court when a witness or attorney says something that the jury members are then instructed to disregard, ARod's actions cannot be unseen by the MVP voters.

Of course, the Yankees haven't lost yet, and ARod can certainly help them win, but that was just an example of how his defense and speed can also hurt the Yankees.

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Immaculate Deception?

The First Child of Scientology has been conceived! Long live the future king!

It's all over the news that Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are expecting a child. I don't know about the rest of you, but I seem to recall that during their whirlwind romance at the beginning of the summer, Katie Holmes said she planned on staying a virgin until marriage, and as far as I know, she and Cruise have not stepped before a priest or judge, or whoever it is that presides over a Scientology wedding.

Because celebrities with movies to push never lie or deceive their adoring public, the only plausible explanation for this miraculous pregnancy is that the ghost of L. Ron Hubbard has blessed us all by placing a child in Holmes' virginal womb.

Expect to see John Travolta, Giovanni Ribisi and Kirstie Alley on Cruise's doorstep bearing gifts for their new king.

I just hope that after the child is born, Holmes doesn't fall victim to postpartum depression.

Say It Isn't So!

First Brad and Jen, and now a report from US Weekly that Nick Lachay and Jessica Simpson are splitting up.

If a B-List bimbo and a C-List mangina can't make it, what chance do the rest of us have?

Expect to see their faces smeared across every celebrity gossip magazine (probably with a nice faux-tear between them) as the vultures express how shocked they are at this turn of events.

Then expect a few more months of cover stories about them in "respectable" adverzines like Vogue and GQ where they discuss how hard it is to be single and how they will always love each other, but they are in "different places."

Then expect a movie starring Simpson where she falls for the leading man while shooting and sets off another round of celebrity romance chatter.

I can't wait to ignore all of it.

Come On Baby, It'll Cure All Your Back Problems

Another idiot in the news today.

Reuters reports that an Oregon doctor convinced his female patient that he could cure her back pain by having sex with her...and she believed him. Now she is suing the doctor and the clinic where he worked for $4 million.

The lawsuit charges battery, negligence and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

I'm not married, but from what I hear, it seems that those are charges most women could file against their husbands, and there isn't even any sex involved.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Shape Up And Shut Up

It seems that a bunch of people who thought that Dr. Phil could solve their weight problems with his "Shape Up!' diet plan didn't lose weight and are now suing the t.v. psychologist.

From what I gather, his diet plan consisted of taking a bunch of pills and dieting and exercising, but the people seeking legal action were led to believe that they didn't need the diet and exercise, and that just the pills alone would work. These morons don't seem to realize that it is the pills that they don't need.

And who the hell would take Dr. Phil's advice on weight loss anyway? Have you seen this guy? The only place he doesn't need to lose weight is his hairline.

Thank you Oprah for foisting another useless t.v. pitchman on us.

Itchy Trigger Finger

The Associated Press has reported that over 6,000 people have applied for 24 hunting licenses to hunt bison in Montana for the first time in 15 years.

Now, I don't know many hunters, nor do I hunt anything worse than a frozen White Castle hamburger, but I do read a lot and watch a lot of television, and I've never come across an interview with a hunter who was eager to kill a bison. Hell, it's never even come up, as far as I know.

Not even Ted Nugent or Moses Himself, Charlton Heston, has said, "Damn those bison! Why can't we just kill them? If they ever let us do it, I'll be first in line!"

But Tom Palmer, spokesman for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, thinks differently.

"It's a real hunt," he said. "I think hunters recognize that and are interested in participating."

So all those other hunts that hunters "participate" in are fake. They don't really kill deer or rabbits or geese. That's just acting, like the old cartoons where the animals punch into the timeclock on the side of the tree and nothing really happens until finally the whistle blows and everyone goes home.

What the hunters really recognize is that they have just been allowed to kill something other than what they are used to killing. If Montana set up a lottery where ten people could hunt a few humans, a la Most Dangerous Game and Hard Target, 6,000 would enter in the first minute, and the total would probably be in the hundreds of thousands.

I just hope that when that scenario does actually come to pass, I get to choose who gets hunted.

$999.50 Too Much

It is being reported that Tara Reid had a nice meltdown in the latest issue of Steppin' Out magazine, complaining about her unfair treatment by the media.

She said:
"I need one more great movie role so they say, 'Wow, she can act! She's a great actress.' Then I think they'll leave me alone."

Another great role? What was the first, pray tell? American Pie? Van Wilder? Body Shots? The only decent part I can even think of was her role as Bunny Lebowski, and I'm sure that wasn't much of a stretch.

Perhaps she should pull a Bunny Lebowski and leave without telling anyone. Maybe then the next time you'll hear from her is ten years from now when she approaches you from a dirty alley and says, "I'll suck your cock for the change in your pocket."

And you won't even need to find a cash machine.

And Now... The Fake News

It seems that my earlier post about Newsday's color coding of Fox News Channel shows as entertainment and not news has proven true.

Thanks to Six Degrees of Aaron at Daily Kos who hunted down this little tidbit from an interview with former Fox reporter David Shuster in The Herald Times:
"Editorially, I had issues with story selection," Shuster went on. "But the bigger issue was that there wasn't a tradition or track record of honoring journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases, just make things up. Management would either look the other way or just wouldn't care to take a closer look. I had serious issues with that."

I would suggest that maybe the Fox "reporters" could find future work writing for Saturday Night Live's news segment, but what they write is more sad than funny.

Actually, if you caught this week's season premiere of SNL, it was pretty sad and unfunny as well.

Run, Don't Walk

In Robert Novak's October 1 column for the Union Leader, he wrote a small item about Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's brief press conference, held to discuss the recently opened probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice into his sketchy dumping of HCA stock.

According to Novak:
"Frist called a press conference to read a brief statement asserting that he 'had no information about HCA or its performance that was not publicly available.' He then walked briskly out of the room with his back to the camera.

The practical choices facing Frist were either to issue his statement without a press conference or to submit to questions. Instead, the televised image of him appearing to flee questioning could have increased suspicions that he had something to hide."

Didn't Novak do something similar when he stormed off the set of CNN's Crossfire to avoid Ed Henry's questioning about his role in the Plamegate affair?

From Rush Limbaugh condemning all drug addicts as criminals while high on illegally prescribed OxyContin to Ralph Reed's condemnation of gambling while accepting millions of dollars from casinos to help put their rivals out of business, this type of hypocrisy seems to run rampant through the right wing punditry.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass Information, Do Collect $1.2 Million

On HuffingtonPost.com Arianna Huffington broke the news that recently freed NY Times reporter Judith Miller was, "telling friends that she has made a $1.2 million book deal with Simon & Schuster."

I can just see John & Jane Q. Public telling little Timmy Public to hone his writing skills so he can one day set himself up as a puppet to a special interest group or political party, wrongly protect a source who illegally leaks classified information, be held for civil contempt, and then make millions writing a memoir about his time in jail and the surrounding controversy.

New Episode, Same Old Crap

I was reading Long Island Newsday's television schedule today and noticed that they color all new episode listings orange. Not a bad idea, especially during the beginning of a new t.v. season. What struck me as odd, however, was that not only are new episodes of entertainment shows highlighted orange, but so are all new episodes of Fox News Channel programs. Again, not a bad idea, as I am sure there are some of us that wonder whether or not tonight's Bill O'Reilly rant is the same as last night's, and, without the help of the Newsday color coding, the average viewer would probably never know the difference.

I scanned down the page to see if this color coding system was also used for CNN and MSNBC and was surprised to see that it was not. Is this Newsday's subtle message to us viewers that Fox News Channel programs are not news, but are instead entertainment? It's funny because the word "news" derives from the word....yep, you guessed it... "new." So, wouldn't it be sort of overkill to label an episode of a news show as new? The whole point is that it is new news, not old news. But, upon giving it more thought, it came to me that everything on Fox News IS old news. You know exactly what you're going to get.

MVP

For my inaugural post, I thought I would forgo my planned political rant in favor of an even more divisive subject - the American League MVP race. No matter what sports show you watch or newspaper/website you read, the two players that have broken away from the rest of the pack are David Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez.

Ortiz fans point out his big homers in big spots, while ARod fans say that since their stats are very similar, you must look at the fact that ARod plays the field and steals bases while Ortiz is a DH and clogs the basepaths. To me, that reasoning is bunk. The Yankees didn't get ARod for his glove or his speed, they got him for his bat. Besides, when did the MVP even take defense and speed into account?

Frank Thomas won two years in a row (1993 and 1994) and he was just as much of a slug on the bases and detriment on the field as Ortiz. And, like ARod and Ortiz, there was someone else who had similar stats who he beat out both years - Ken Griffey Jr. If you can convincingly explain to me how Frank Thomas is faster and a better fielder than Griffey, I will concede that Alex Rodriguez deserves the MVP. That isn't even the point I set out to make when I began writing this.

I have spoken to a few Yankee fans, and listened to a lot of them on Mike and the Mad Dog, and a lot of other shows, and have to stifle my cries of astonishment when I hear them say in the same breath that ARod should be MVP and that Mariano Rivera is the rock of their bullpen and they would not be in first place without him. How can a player be the most valuable of his team, yet his teammate is the most valuable of the league? Is it a coincidence that the Yankees current dynasty coincides with the emergence of Rivera as this era's greatest closer? If the Yankees had never gotten ARod, and instead had kept Alfonso Soriano at second base and brought in a decent third baseman, they would probably still be in the position they are now because of Rivera.

Let me put it this way, if the Red Sox had Mariano Rivera, and the Yankees had to rely on a closer-by-committee, this weekend's series would have meant nothing because the Sox would've still been in first place and the Yankees would be going home instead of to Anaheim.