Monthly Archives: September 2008

Ari Melber isn’t afraid to use the word, and sticks it the fuck to partisan hack Brad Blakeman. This is fun to watch. The left needs more people with balls like this. It gets really good around 2:45. Good stuff.

Jesus. Mindless bureaucracy can be frightening sometimes.

Police have charged Elizabeth Miller, the manager of the Bed, Bath & Beyond in Lexington, Kentucky, who refused to let a couple use the store’s phone to call 911 to report a three-year-old locked in a van, and refused to make an announcement over the store’s PA system.

Wow. It is truly an increasingly surreal media landscape when supposedly light talks hows such as The View and The Daily Show are asking harder questions of politicians than the actual news. I’ve always hated The View, and maybe this is just a sign of my lowering standards, but they really give it to him. The redheaded one actually uses the dreaded L-word!

Here’s a taste:

Are you serious? What is she supposed to say, ‘no’? No Charlie, now that I think of it, I’m totally unprepared to lead this country.

This is a really strange election.

There we go… That’s better. I’m sorry, but the fact that McCain doesn’t know how to use a computer is absolutely shocking. And it’s not just because I’m a geek. Our entire economy is now built around computers. That is way more relevant than talking about “lipstick on a pig”.

One thing I’d add. Stop saying “The Middle Class”. Say, “Favors almost 200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for you.” The overwhelming majority of people in the US would consider themselves the middle class. People need to feel as if the ads are speaking to them. Also, he needs to talk about gas prices. Seriously, that is an area in which everyone is affected. That will cut to the heart.

How about this:

Gas prices have more than doubled since Bush entered office, and John McCain wants more of the same. How much higher should they go before America makes a change? 6 dollars? 8 dollars?? 10 dollars??? Obama wants to reduce our dependency on foreign oil from corrupt regimes and explore new sources of energy.
What’s John McCain’s plan?
(cut to the Republicans in the convention chanting, “Drill, Baby Drill!, Drill, Baby Drill!)
John McCain, more of the same.

Check me out. I’m a natural born propagandist!

(video embed)

FactCheck.org is providing a valuable service this election season. No matter your political bent, hopefully we can all at least agree that one should have ones facts distinguished from the spin.

Dude. When will the mainstream media stop using the terms misleading, dishonest, distortion, manufacture, inaccurate, etc? The word is LIE. It’s simple. This ad is full of lies. There is no bias in using the word. There is no reason that you should be afraid of it.

Watch this:

Although most people think I’m a native Californian, I actually moved to Downey, California when I was a child. I spent most of my youth in Southern California, but my family only moved into that house on Casanes Ave in 1985 when I was 5 years old.

K, I just lied there. I just implied that I was born outside of California. I wasn’t. All of my statements are technically true, but I knowingly made you believe what I wanted you to believe. It is true that most people think I’m a native Californian, because, um, I am. I did move into a house on Casanes Ave when I was 5, from another house a few blocks away. I misled you; I was dishonest; I distorted the truth; I manufactured a false past; and my statement was inaccurate. I lied.

This commercial says “The attacks on Governor Palin have been called ‘completely false’…’misleading.'” and references FactCheck.org while showing a picture of Obama, obviously referencing Obama’s attacks. The thing is, FactCheck.org wasn’t talking about Obama at all:

There is no more basis for attributing these viral attacks to the Obama campaign than there is for blaming the McCain campaign for chain e-mail attacks falsely claiming that Obama is a Muslim, or a “racist,” or that he is proposing to tax water.

I mean, I see the balancing act that they are playing. They never explicitly say that those quotes were in reference to Obama, but anybody would make that connection and they know it. It’s a lie, plain and simple.

The other claim in the video, that “The [Wall Street] Journal reports Obama “air-dropped a mini-army of 30 lawyers, investigators and opposition researchers” into Alaska to dig dirt on Governor Palin.”? That report was found (and known by the McCain camp) to be inaccurate well in advance of the ad. So yes, the Wall Street Journal did report that, and the McCain campaign used the fraudulent information in a campaign ad. I’d consider that a lie.

Here, let me muster up a scenario (can you tell I like analogies?):

Ok, so a little boy, named Horace, is sitting in class just before lunchtime, and the teacher tells the class, “Children, as a special surprise, they are serving pumpkin pie for desert today!”. All the kids cheer and such. Horace can’t wait to tell his little crush Wilda the good news, but when the little boy arrives at the cafeteria, he finds out that the teacher was mistaken. There is no pumpkin pie. Dejected, he shuffles down the hallway, hands thrust into his pockets. But at the other end of the lockers he sees Wilda walking toward him. His heart skips. Grasping for anything he can say to impress her, he blurts out: “Ya know, teacher says they’re serving pumpkin pie for dessert today!”
“Oh, how I do love pumpkin pie”, Wilda exclaims as she’s departs eagerly for the lunchroom, “thank you so much for being the bearer of good news!”. The flutters in Horace’s chest gradually filter away as the realization of Wilda’s imminent disappointment grows. Dun dun duuunnnn…

Aaaannnd scene! Ok, you catch my drift. McCain is just as much a liar as that little bastard Horace is. Using semantics as a crutch in no way makes up for the moral failing of attempting to make people think things that are untrue.

Now Obama, FUCKING CALL HIM ON IT! Please. Seriously, dude. I respect your poise, your class, but man, fucking call a press conference or something and hit him back. There is so much more fodder Obama can use, that is actually true, to smear McCain. Do it or else people are blame your classy ass for 4 more disastrous fucking years.

Check out this conversation between Ebert and Clinton from 1999, actually one of the more candid interviews I’ve seen with the president, and he’s mainly just geeking out on movies he likes.

RE: You know, here’s Bogart who wasn’t very tall, wasn’t very handsome, had kind of a lisp, needed a hairpiece, smoked too much and is just about the most popular movie star of the century just ending.

WJC: He’s just fabulous. I was thinking about The other day I watched “African Queen” again, the other day just to see it, because it’s just an unbelievable movie. You know, and he just There was something about him.

RE: There was.

WJC: And he was magic. He was great in the dramas, he was a great comedian, he was really funny in the funny roles he had and in the movies where he played a bad guy he was a compelling bad guy, but it didn’t destroy his box office appeal. And he could do things, he could get away with anything on the screen because he was so authentic. I don’t know enough about his life to know, but he was gangbusters. And the range he had was stunning.

RE: He was great. You know, I have a theory that the real movie stars for me are the ones who were movie stars when I was still growing up at home. In that, the movie stars I meet now as a movie critic are just other people who are about my age. In other words, when I met John Wayne for the first time I was in awe, because he was John Wayne, but if I meet Al Pacino well he’s Al Pacino. Is there anybody living who you’ve met who strikes you in the same way as the movie stars of your childhood.

WJC: Yeah. DeNiro and Streep. I think they’re of that quality.

RE: So that even when they’re in the room with you they have the star quality that let’s say Bogart had on the screen.

WJC: Yeah. They both I’ve been friendly with them, Hillary and I have, and they’ve been uncommonly kind to us and they’re my contemporaries in age, Meryl’s younger than I am a little, but they’re just They’re gifts and they’re range are so extraordinary. Look at all the different roles DeNiro’s been in, he’s a Jesuit in 16th century south Brazil and he’s a Jake LaMotta and he’s great in all those Italian mobster movies, but he’s got a real range you know. And I think Meryl Streep’s one of the two or three greatest female actresses ever on the screen.

RE: Oh, she is.

WJC: I think that there are very few actresses ever in the movies with the range and power she has.

RE: People talk about her accents, even in “Music of the Heart” as a music teacher, that’s really an accent, that’s not the way she talks.

WJC: No. She did great as Roberta Guaspari (sp). She was great. That’s a great movie. But you know, how did she develop the accent for “Sophie’s Choice?”

RE: I don’t know.

WJC: And she also is the best actress when she’s not talking of anyone I’ve ever seen. When they make her in “Sophie’s Choice,” she’s got to make a decision between which one of her kids to give up. You know, the most inhuman thing, just about, the most sort of non- physically violent, inhuman thing ever on the screen, you know just the picture of her face. And I remember those in “The Deer Hunter,”
which is my favorite Vietnam War movie, the guy comes back to their little Pennsylvania town to tell her that her, the love of her life was killed in Vietnam and she’s working in the grocery store and he keeps following her around and he’s trying to tell her and she’s fooling with the merchandise. I mean there’s a long period of time where she doesn’t say a word, it’s one of the most effective scenes I’ve ever seen in the movies.

Read on, it’s great. They geek out on everything from Blazing Saddles to Fight Club. It’s easy to forget what a brilliant guy Clinton is, especially underneath his faux-folksy veneer, but the guy is brilliant. It’s a fascinating read.

And hilarious.

If you’re a Firefox user looking to get your geek on, check out Ubiquity. Take five minutes to figure it out, and browsing will never be the same again.

Yet another reason why the Republicans need to have their asses handed to them.

I often have the urge to laugh at tragic events, or cry during happy times, but for this guy it’s a constant facet of his life.

Obama opposes the government funding severance pay for the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and Funky Winkerbean?). Damn fucking right. Most Republicans would probably be for it, in spite of the fact that it’s antithetical to conservatism.

Yup.

Well, it worked. No matter all the scandals and the fact that it was an obvious grab for the Clinton gyno-voters, white women are switching to McCain. Sigh. Hill-dog, please, please, smack them back into their places, please?

Yesterday’s score:

Manhattan

Shaft

Shall We Dance?

Lady Killer

Chopping Mall

5 bucks. Ahhhh, that’s the stuff…