NYC Trip - Post #1

Been hangin around with my peps in the big, bad NYC. Lots of observations through our travels so far:

1. Vehicle honking here, long-tern, would drive me batty. I am an admitted honker, but even I am not this crazy.

2. When the sun comes out and Chinatown is open for business, I highly recommend a stroll through even if you have nothing you wish to purchase. The ladies come out they put on display some of NYC's finest women. Moreover, they tend to wear the latest trendy clothes, which today means, "Less is more." Ba-Da-Bing.

3. The food might be slightly pricy, but if have a guide that knows where to go...it's damn good.

Mirren, Mirren on the Wall

This just in...Helen Mirren is two days away from hitting 63, she's had no plastic surgery, and she's smokin' hot!

Picture Post

This apparently a chain of gas stations in the West.

...The jokes just write themselves...Oh my...

Imagery and Politics

Ever since the Kennedy-Nixon debates back in the 1960 Presidential Campaign, images have become the hallmark of electoral politics.

I don't applaud this reality, I just accept it.

But, for any serious Democrat today, seeing the imagery coming from Obama's tour in Berlin, Germany, is powerful stuff. He looks Presidential, he looks like a leader who intends to bring not just American's together, but the world. Slight haunts of Kennedy here...powerful stuff.

Compared to McCain and Pres. Bush 41 getting out of a golf cart where Bush 41 looks younger than McCain...that's damning.

Down Goes Edwards?

As a donor to Edwards' campaign in 2004, and a supporter (but not donor this time) of his in 2008, I must stand-up and say...the media has done it again.

Per Drudge and the National Enquirer, whom I don't consider a serious source, Edwards has been having a long time affair with a woman who also, apparently had his love child.

This should be investigated and then completely reported on by MSM outlets as to the validity of these claims. Hiding the truth will only serve the Democrats badly...listen up liberal media...shoving this under the carpet doesn't help, it hurts.

It allows FoxSnooze to continue to claim you are biased, and this story stinks bad...really bad. Being busted in the middle of the night in a hotel, yeah...nothing good happens when a married man visits a woman not his wife in the middle of the night in a hotel room.

I love Edwards, perhaps loved. He was a great speaker, a great candidate, but he deserves to go down in flames if these stories are true. Just like Rep. David Vitter and Sen. Larry Craig did, despite them STILL being in office.

Commentary

Several articles have looked into and much has been made of the iPod phenomenon in the culture. Many older people have also whined and complained that this new idea of people like me plugging in their headphones and ignoring others is a bad sign for us as a culture.

However, as an introvert (who is thoroughly annoyed by most extroverts) I find these complaints are only somewhat accurate.

Everywhere I go, the majority of people are not on their headphones, tuning out the world. In fact, most are either with other people, or even worse, they are attached to their cellphones like lepers.

I accept the possibility that I may have an emotional sickness because I am indeed an extrovert, thought I don't believe I am "sick."

However, I do believe that these extroverts are sick. They crave human attention, they cannot be without it. They would almost rather die than to have to do something alone. They fidget with their cellphone the minute their buddy leaves the subway and they start checking their e-mail, their text messages, their voicemail to see who is trying to reach them. Their lives wouldn't be complete without someone needing their attention.

This is a real sickness. I know of people who, for example, want to go see the latest big movie, and they really want to see it bad because their favorite actor/actress is in it, but they will not go without someone. They can't have fun, they can't enjoy things if they aren't with someone.

They incessantly talk about their day, a process of complete self-flagellation, thinking they are SO interesting that this other person must want to know how it went.

Yes, indeed. There is a societal sickness going on here and it is only getting worse. I am one of a dying breed because I choose to be alone most of the time I am not teaching or working at school. For we are a picky lot. We will not just be with someone because we can't be alone. We must have meaning. It's an extroverts world out there, and I loathe to survive in it at times.

The Savage Nation

Apparently, this knucklehead Michael Savage made some disparaging comments about children identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder. He said the following:

“Now you want me to tell you my opinion on autism since I’m not talking about autism … a fraud, a racket,” Michael Savage said last week on his radio show, “The Savage Nation.”

Savage continued, “What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them don’t act like a moron, you’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up! Act like a man! Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’”

I am in favor of FULL free speech rights to all because it allows hilariously moronic opinions like this come out and we begin to realize that some people...just all aren't there. As a Special Educator who has worked intimately with these students, I can attest they are not anywhere close to what this nitwit thinks.

Brilliant job there Savage! Brilliant. Good luck with the show...HA!

As my momma would say...

...it's a BITCH when you get what you ask for. Isn't McCain??

McCain wanted Obama to go to Iraq...so Obama did. Obama invited the 3 news anchors to come along, UNLIKE McCain, and they said...sure!

So, for McCain to bitch and whine about how he got no press coverage in Iraq and Obama is getting it all, he has nothing to whine about. He never invited the news media to come along the last time he went. Perhaps because the time before that he looks tremendously foolish walking down the streets of Baghdad saying it was perfectly safe, despite being surrounded by tons of security and wearing a flak jacket.\

Finally, about this NY Times story. It looks bad for the NYT to have done what they did, especially when their chief of the editorial board is a former Pres. Clinton staffer, while he was in office. However, by all accounts, the trading back and forth of transcripts of potential Op-Ed's is common practice in that world.

Congrats to McCain for concocting two diversions in a matter of days. First, the possibility he may announce his VP pick was a distracting flare that proved a goose chase. Second, this non-story story about the NYT.

This from the candidate who has provided gaffe after gaffe when it comes to foreign policy, his supposed strength. What does McCain know anyway? Geez. No clue on the economy and he is getting simple things wrong when asked basic questions...old geezer much?!?! Talk about the media being biased...McCain should have been buried long ago with his screw-ups.

Ha, just saw Glenn "got a sore ass" Beck to say Abraham Lincoln was a poor public speaker. Seriously...that's laughable.

Batman II

As noted in the previous post, I was minutes away from seeing the new Batman flick from Director Johnathon Nolan.

And Eckhart did indeed turn in a good performance as "Harvey Dent/Two-Face". However, he was nowhere close to Ledger's take on "The Joker."

Ledger was known to be a method actor, ala: Robert DeNiro. These actors/actresses essentially become the character they are playing at the time.

I think it's fair to say that while Ledger clearly had emotional issues due to the break-up of his marriage with Michelle Williams (whom he met during the filming of "Brokeback Mountain") and was taking some medication to deal with those issues, I think this role ended up killing him.

"The Joker" is such a dastardly, devilish, psychotic character that required Ledger to go to such a dark place that he was unable to overcome the demons, and this role may have solidified and exacerbated his demons.

On the surface, Ledger's portrayal of "The Joker" seems almost too easy to do. I think it's easy for people to watch the movie and con themselves into thinking, "I could do that." Eckhart, in "Dent," does indeed make a much bigger character transition during the movie, and it's easier to see why his role took a lot to do.

But, it is Ledger; this movie is all Ledger. Without Ledger this movie is nothing, without Eckhart's character, the movie still stands on it's own.

Ledger didn't overplay his hand. He struck the right balance between being the certifiably-crazy man "The Joker" is, but Ledger also gave him a sense of his own humanity. Whereas, Jack Nicholson, who played the same role in the original "Batman" flick, portrayed him to be a simple mad man who wanted to just have some fun with no real sense of the man that was.

I'm not Batman purist as I noted I'd never read the comic, but while I liked the original "Batman" and Nicholson's portrayal, I think the darker portrayal by Ledger is more compelling, and makes a better story.

Ledger deserves the Emmy nod he will assuredly get, and it will be hard to beat his performance in this movie.

I give it: 4 out of 5 stars.

My Fave Super"hero"

Batman...is my fave comic character, although as a kid and still now, I never read comic books. Muchlike I generally hate all animation.

I want actors to perform, to show their craft. Animaation shows nothing but computer technology.

Anyhoo I am here ion the theater to watch the lastest Batman movie. Full review to come, as I've heard Ledger is very good, but Aaron Eckhart may have stolen the show. We shall see.

No matter, I love what Nolan has done with the series...taking a darker, more serious tone which appears to be the truest path to take considering Batman's psyche. Here we go...

Shocker?! - Not!

According to a newly released study, it appears that news coverage gets precipitously worse and worse as news agencies and news gathering companies cut funding, cut jobs, and cut coverage of world events.

Call me stunned...Not. News was never intended to be a money maker for companies, and the insistence that news divisions should make money is a result of the asinine values of corporate America and the Wall Street types.

Emmy FUBAR

In a world where the majority of television is shit, my personal view, one great series stood out from all the rest for 5 years: The Wire on HBO.

I've written about this show before on this blog. A gritty, tough, and often depressing look at the drug trade and how it affects the city of Baltimore (a fictional Balt in the show, but who is kidding who here?).

In this past season, it's last, the Emmy nominating committee sought fit to give this show, this best drama on American TV in it's history perhaps, ONE nomination. ONE??!!! You have got to be shitting me!!

It deserved so many awards for it's writing, for the actors performing during it's 5 year run. It's bad enough the Emmy had consistently overlooked the show year after year only giving one nomination in the first 4 seasons total.

But, this is a freaking disgrace. It's not happy television, it's television that often makes you squirm, makes you think, and makes you sick to your stomach with heartache at times.

I'm sorry America if you don't want to face the real world, but the Emmy nominators should have done this show better. Two nominations in 5 years is beyond pathetic.

Chris Rock had it pegged

...and it's something white people cannot, or not allowed to say...there are black people just as racist against other black folk.

This newly updated report by the people at The Politico says that further on that tape that aired of the Reverend Jackson saying he wanted to cut Obama's "nuts off" was something perhaps more telling.

He called black people "niggers." Black people get away with calling each other that all the time, sometimes it's meant in a reverent form.

Just like I happen to think the epithet "cracker" is hysterical and I call myself, and my friends who are white, crackers all the time.

Jackson calling black people niggers doesn't make him a racist, however. But, it sure does make him look at best to be inconsistent in his rhetoric (as Rev. Sharpton is now saying to him publicly), at worse to be a rich black man who hates the poor struggling black man.

Not that I was ever crazy enough to think either of the two men had any serious moral authority on the subject, Jackson's has clearly left the port and is wandering at sea with no paddle on a life raft just waiting to be eaten by sharks.

David Stern - Busted?

A few months ago, I noted how swift Stern (the Commish of the NBA) was in getting his referee hanging with a bookie and point-shaving scandal swept under the rug.

Stern is the master PR man, but he may have just been exposed for the asshat he is.

Per a story from RealGM.com: According to court documents and phone records obtained by FOXNews.com:

"...records show Donaghy placed 134 calls to referee Scott Foster — more than the 126 calls Donaghy made to his bookie — between October 2006 and April 2007, the period during which he has confessed to either betting on games or passing on game information to gamblers."

Stern has ALWAYS maintained that Donghy, the disgraced official, was the only one with the problem after an internal investigation by the NBA. Sounds a little Dubya-like to me.

I never bought that line and I hope this story gets blown wide the F open to expose Stern for the fraudulent bastard he is. If what I believe is true, he will get everything that is coming his way.

Bailouts Galore

Here come the bailouts despite what the Fed may be saying, I predict they will take it up ye olde keister for several companies.

Treasury Secretary Paulson today has sought, and clearly will get, authority to stem the tide of Freddie and Fannie Mac from collapsing.

This is the key sentence from my limited scope: "The Fed said in a separate statement that the New York Fed was approved to make direct loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the discount rate, currently 2.25 percent, charged to commercial banks."

Immediately, as soon as this has been done, every single home loan that was given to an American family or person making less than $100,000 per year should drop to 2.5%, no questions asked, no additional fees. It should be dropped to this rate until such time that each loan can be fully evaluated to see how at-risk the loan is and what type of need there really is.

As I have written before on this blog, I have no sympathy for those who bought up more properties than they should have in a blatant effort to cash in on the home market back when it was hot. I have no sympathy for those who have more than one home who have yet to pay off one of those. These are the people that should be allowed to sink like a boulder in the Pacific Ocean.

Greed should not, and better not, be rewarded with this gamut. But, much like the previous buyout of Bear Sterns by the Feds, I fear the little man will inevitably get screwed while the blue collars will only further line their pockets with sweaty wads of cash.

Told ya so lefties!!

Ahhh, it has come to pass. Obama has subtly begun to move to the center after knocking off Hill, and I warned you left-wing whack-jobs this would happen.

Well, ya'll got your panties in a bunch, eh?

RELAX LEFTIES!

Chill out. Just like Dubya did in 2000, he seemed more centrist when he really was a right-wing biggot, Obama is seeming more centrist to appeal to a larger group of voters.

Let him turn to the right a bit, because if you continue to make a big stink about it and refuse to show up at the polls come November, you will really be pissed with John, John.

Obama doesn't believe many of the things he will come to say, at least not in the way he will frame the issue. He's going to appear more moderate when he is, in fact, a lefty like you!

Don't worry, be happy. He will appoint liberal justices to the Court, he will enact oodles of left-friendly laws and regulations, if you just shut up and give him some space to work in.

This is why I hate the left. Unlike the whack-job republican right-wingers, the left cannot bring themselves to shut the hell up. Your bitching lefties is why we haven't had a true left-leaning Democrat "elected" since Kennedy (and we ALL know that election was fixed as well!).

My goodness people. Obama is what you want. Just let him work his magic...PLEEEEEEEASE!

Intriguing

News from Drudge is interesting when combined with the news from Al-Malahki this week that they now want a time table for American's to leave.

Dubya's considering pushing up the withdrawal of troops before the end of the calendar year apparently. This is interesting on a few fronts:

1. Is Cheney pulling some last, final strings to get his war against Iran?

2. How is McCain going to swing this one? He wants to stay in Iraq for the next hundred years, so this makes him look soo foolish that Dubya could be sweeping the rug out from under him. Watch out for a big, whopper of a flip-flop here.

3. Iraq says they are ready, but I for one, don't believe they are ready. But again, I don't really give two shits if they're ready or if their government will fall faster than the guillotine on Marie Antoinette's head. I think Malakhi is bluffing here just like Iran apparently was. There's no way he wants us out, because if we are out...his head will surely become detached from those shoulders.

A quick TY

Thanks Phil Gramm for being the dumbass that you are. While, I'm somewhat miffed Obama has let this little gaffe slide by McCain's main economic nutjob, I only hope this gets turned into a campaign ad that will be mercilessly played in the fall to help destroy "The Crooked Talk Express."

The media has been giving McCain pass, after pass, after pass...but, I have a feeling the shine is finally starting to wear thin. And this old line of "Golly gee, I dunno" has begun to get to them and they are finally starting to quietly doubt McCain's mental capacity for the position he seeks.

It's about damn time.

Color me disgusted

A full 2-3 days after Jackson said what he said on FoxSnooze and he's basically getting a pass.

I'm sorry, but what he said is much more egregious than ANYTHING Don Imus said that got his butt in the proverbial sling.

It's shameful that this is being let go and not attacked. Anyone who was feigning outrage over Imus and is not saying anything about this latest salvo, needs to turnover their card that says hypocrite on it.

I despise Limberger, but the one thing I do appreciate him for is the way he consistently openly mocks "Reverend Jackson" in that condescending tone of his.

Jackson and Sharpton are frauds, have always been frauds, and always will be. I take no pleasure, nor find solace that this snarling attack on Obama will actually help him in the long run.

It's just plain pathetic.

FISA Shame

Moments ago the U.S. Senate unbuckled their belt, dropped their pants, got their collective penis nice and hard...and fucked the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America in the ass without lubrication.

This is only one of many examples of how special interests have fucked up Washington, and it also shows how Obama is just like any other pol.

Dubya, and his "administration," committed several dozen felonies with their warrantless wiretaps, and they got the Senate to take a giant sheet and cover their ass.

By giving immunity to the telecoms, they have raped the 4th Amendment. The companies shouldn't get this. They don't deserve any benefit of the doubt. And it's only getting worse. Recently a federal judge forced Google and You Tube to release all the data they had saved that tells who watched what on You Tube.

The noose is tightening, and the internets are becoming less free by the millisecond. You can go on any street corner and say "fuck you and your religion," but do it on the internets and suddenly the shit hits the fan. Employers get to fire you, companies can take away you "priviledged" access to a public forum like the internets.

I don't like the prospect of the Internets 2. These companies who are setting up and funding this new venture are the very same people who will buy and sell my ass in five milliseconds flat if it suits their purpose.

In short, SHAME on all members of the Senate that voted for this phony compromise that is no compromise.

Obama needs some schooling

Man alive did Obama make a huge ass mistake here. Let's say, for argument sake, he gets into the White House.

They should have learned something from Bill & Hill: Leave our daughter Chelsea alone was the mantra to the media. As should Obama's.

Except now, he doesn't have that card to play. Obama has just made his young kids part of his campaign by doing what he apparently did.

Access Hollywood, in an exclusive interview, Senator Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, along with daughters Malia, 10 and Sasha, 7 talk to Maria Menuous about stuff.

Apparently, this four-part interview will air on Access Hollywood, Tuesday, July 8th,Wednesday, July 9th and Thursday, July 10th.

MASSIVE MISTAKE here. You do not allow your kids to be interview by the media for ANY reason, you do not allow them to be trotted out as part of a campaign thing. Sure, you can bring them out after you finish your acceptance speech at the convention, and at the party when you win the selection, and for the inauguration ceremony...but that's it.

By allowing Access freaking Hollywood to interview these kids, in a blatant campaign decision, there is no turning back. Leave the kids out of this.

Amtrak

Having been away via traveling during my first full week of Summer Vacation, I chose to go via Amtrak instead of taking any airpane.

I took Amtrak one other time, way back in the Spring of 2000, and I didn't recall much of that trip.

I will not forget this one. I spent 8 hours each way to my destination. I left late at night, so I was hoping I'd be able to get some sleep because I can usually sleep anywhere.

However, what I failed to recall from my 2000 trip is how farking cold they keep the cabins. I did not get a lot of sleep because half the time I was freezing my balls off. So, take note: If you intend to travel via Amtrak, take a blankey...you'll thank me.

VP Webb?...waxed

Well, one candidate has been removed from any potential VP run with Obama...Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia.

Per Mark Halperin, Webb has released a statement effectively taking himself completely out of the running for VP.

Buggers. Would have been a great choice to have.