An Interesting Walk

I was in the mood to paint today so I decided to scoot on over to the nearest art supply store I could find (thanks Google) and was caught in the rain. I quickly took cover under the awning of a nearby building. After a few seconds I smelled smoke. I thought, "Please don't let my sanctuary be on fire." I turned around and realized that the doorway I was in led to a restaurant called Honey1 BBQ. Seeing as I had to wait out the storm and have been taking pretty good care of myself lately, I decided to treat myself to a cholesterol festival.

I looked at the menu and decided to go for the old stand by and my gold standard of barbecue, the pulled pork sandwich. They serve their's with slaw and sauce and it is awesome. I liked it so much that I ate all my fries because I wanted to savor every last bit of that sauce. Superb. Get over there if you can.

Once I got to the art store I was really happy. It is called http://artsupply.com/ so I guess they do mostly online business but they have a very friendly staff that will help you with anything. They have the cheapest prices for art supplies in the city that I have found.

Finally, I wanted to mention something that became apparent to me on my trip. I was wearing my sweats when I left the house. I had not shaved, and had just finished cleaning the house. I was kinda scruffy at best and maybe a little smelly. On my way to my destination, people tended to look at me with disfavor and maybe thought I was a bum or something. I completely understand that since I was maybe a little ripe at the time. No big deal

Thing is, on my way back (now with a little BBQ sauce added to my costume) with a canvas and a sack of paints, people started asking me about what I was working on. Strangers! I had been transformed from a dirt bag to an eccentric artist just because of the things I was carrying. It's like the time I saw a guy in the grocery store with mud sprayed all over his back and thought, "What a shitbag." Later I saw a bike helmet in his cart and knew why he was dirty and why I was a judgmental asshole.

Brothers Separated at Birth

That's what I think every time I see Rove and Sampson. I first thought maybe Karl was his dad but who the hell would bang that?

Son? Daddy?

Not sure what the deal is. Maybe the Rs are hoping they will think that Kyle is Karl and leave Rove to pursue his true passion as an MC? Could be.

In any case, it seems the White House is gonna let Alberto do a little dance and see what happens. I still think he will walk away looking guilty but any prosecutor appointed to go after him will have "sand thrown in his eyes" ala Pat Fitzgerald.

Aaaaaaaah, Do The Asshole!

This may be the worst White House Corresponents Dinner ever. Bush was funnier than thes guys. This is painfully embarassing to watch and Karl talking about beheading animals is a bit disturbing. This is a prime example of why improv comedy should be made illegal. That said, enjoy!

I Hatie Katie

Katie Couric is ruining my Sixty Minutes. She first sucked up to Condi Rice and now she takes a hard line with the Edwards' family and accuses them of using Elizabeth Edwards' cancer for political gain. This from a woman who didn't quit her job when her own husband was dying of cancer. Some people might say, "That Katie Couric is a bee-otch!"

Cheating on Barack

Me: So... Hey, John. Sorry to hear about your wife's illness. That must be really rough.

Edwards: Why thanks for your kind words, Michael. They are deeply appreciated.

Me: Ya know what? (sliding up behind him)You could proly use a little shoulder rub right about now. Everybody tells me I have magic fingers...

You know where this is going. Up until recently, I (like many others) have been kind of ignoring John Edwards but recent events have made me take a second look. Here's a couple who have had a lot of tragedy in their lives and still have some sense of mission to serve the public even at a time when another tragedy is looming on the horizon. That says a lot about the character of this guy and his wife. Pretty inspirational stuff.

In Honor of Al Gore's Recent Visit to Congress

Aide-ing and Abetting

Yesterday, Bush made an "offer" to allow congress to interview top White House aides (Rove and Miers primarily) in regards to the firing of 8 U.S. attorneys. Problem is, he doesn't want them to be under oath. He wants it to be behind closed doors and he doesn't want to allow any transcripts of the proceedings. So basically he is saying, "I'll allow you to interview these folks but only if it is completely meaningless and a waste of everybody's time." This may be the biggest crock of shit yet.

This is a white house that is fighting for it's life because if congress can prove that the administration used a loophole in the Patriot Act to install politically favored appointees without congressional approval in order to taint criminal investigations of republicans (especially in the case of Lam) it is akin to Watergate. The fact that they initially lied about the motivation for the firings and language in emails that suggests that the so called "temporary appointees" installed under the Patriot Act were not really going to be temporary indicates a lot of sneaky activity but nothing that can yet be deemed illegal. Trying to keep Rove and Miers out of the hot seat I think is a last ditch effort to keep evidence that there was indeed illegal activity under wraps.

Here's the problem, Conyers, is gonna issue subpoenas real soon and the pres is going to exercise executive privilege to protect the administration's (not the country's) interests. If congress does decide to push the issue (and I think they will) the case goes to the Justice Department where (wait for it) Alberto Gonzales gets to decide whether or not to prosecute the case! Are you fucking kidding me? So don't expect the AG to resign any time soon. With this little arrangement in place the White House can continue to do what it wants so long as Justice is in their corner. Fuck!

Do you think Rove and the boys knew this from the get go? Hells yeah they did! Double fuck!

In related news, at least the senate voted overwhelmingly to close the loophole that allowed all this shit to happen in the first place.

Evidence That I Am An Old Jaded Prick (like you needed any)

I was walking to the library on Saturday and came across some folks trying to pass out copies of The Socialist Worker newspaper. When I got within earshot, they started giving me their pitch. I waved my hand at them and said, "Socialism only works in art school." and kept walking.

After walking a few more blocks, I started to feel bad. I used to BE a socialist. I used to think that people (given the right set of rules) could take care of everyone without being corrupt. I was a kid that had ideals for society that were lofty to be sure but also founded on a belief in my fellow man. What an asshole I am. I still think the "art school" remark was funny. That makes me a huge asshole.

When I got to the library, I got a biography of Ben Franklin. Maybe that makes up for it.

Everything's Gone Green

BeforeAfter


Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody. It was such a nice morning to day that I thought I'd begin a new initiative I like to call "It IS My F'n Job." In this movement, I am going to try and do something good for my community each weekend. Today, in honor of the holiday, I decided to do something "green" and clean up the trash on my block. Two hours later and the parkways on my block are litter free... for about 5 minutes. Among the items collected:

• Beer and Soda cans - 3
  
• Vodka, rum and other liquor bottles - 11
  
• Diapers - 2 (unsoiled)
• Jeans - 1 pair
• Gloves - 5 (no matching pairs)
• Socks - 1
• Discarded parking tickets - 2
  
• Chinese take out menus -3 zillion
• Little red rubberbands used to secure above menus to gates and doorknobs -1 zillion
• Keys - 1 set (had a tag stating to put them in the nearest mailbox)
  
• Doll - 1 (very creepy and apparently dog chewed)
• Sizzlin' Hot Cheetos bags - 13
• A lot of small metal objects and stuff that appeared to have fallen off of people's cars
  
• Assorted plastic and paper products and cigarette butts- 5 garbage bags worth

I was kind of surprised by the quantity of paper goods. I was also surprised by the absence of drug paraphenalia. No condoms either. I am thinking about getting some folks to hit the park down the street next week so I am sure it's just a matter of time.

BTW, I decided to leave the freshly thawed dog poop for Mother Nature to take care of.

Up in Plames!

Valerie Plame is pissed! And hot. OK, I admit I got a thing for sexy spies. Who doesn't? I'll tell you who... Karl Rove. That guy is trying to run this lady outta town? What an asshole. Seriously though, she was soooo ready for her testimony and so ready for those that might defame her testimony that I was floored. Having charisma and no substance is something I can ususally see through but this lady totally kicked ass. She's got the substance. If people were just political nerds like me, Karl would be in jail tomorrow.

The Dems are being really aggressive with oversight now that they are in charge of congress but I am hoping that they stick with big issues and don't get too bogged down in petty shit that makes them look vindictive and small. I want this and other cases to serve as an exposure of a pattern of deception by the administration and set up a lot of folks who were complicit for a big fall.

Between this and the Gonzales cover up, I am not sure how the White House is going to get past it. Someone has to go down and that person is going to have to be either Rove or Cheney. My guess is Rove since he can still work for the party and make a nice salary and feed his advice up the chain of command.

Whole Lotta Sheikhin' Goin' On

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed apparently confessed to almost every crime commited in the past 20 years according to reports I read today. It's all a little fishy. Here's why I don't think he really did all these things:

• His nickname was "The Brain. " On the show Pinky and the Brain, The Brain could never accomplish shit.
  
• He looks like Ron Jeremy's derelict older brother.
  
• In order to have done all these things, you'd think he would have been a little better at evading capture. When they caught him, he looked like he had just been taken from his trailer after watching "Arab COPS" in his underwear while eating 2 day old fried chicken. Lil greasy.
  

I think this guy knows he is going down and figures he can only further his cause by admitting to a lot of shit he didn't really do. He can protect other guilty parties and also make himself appear to be the greatest hero that ever lived amongst other extremists. Either that, or we just tortured the shit out of him until he started admitting to everything we put in front of him to make ourselves look like we have everything under control. In any case, I am waiting for this thing to play out before I start celebrating. Also, can we please not pursue the death penalty and make ourselves look less like blood thirsty shitbags for once?

Oh, Poor Viacom.

VS.

Are you not making enough billions of dollars? Have you yet to discover that there is a whole generation of folks who are online all the time and if you just published the content for free online yourselves and put in your own commercials, you can keep making your stockholders richer? People don't want to watch shows when they are scheduled. I don't want another box I have to program (TiVo) with more chords sitting under my tv. I want to watch wherever and whenever I want. Provide that service and you will be the darling of the interwebs. Instead you are going to sue YouTube, turn off a bunch of people who hate big corporations ruining their fun, and shut off a free advertising outlet that probably led people to watch more of your programming the traditional way when all is said and done.

If you want to sue someone, sue peekvid.com. Those guys are posting bootleg movies in their entirety. They either have balls the size of boulders or they are based somewhere in the mid-east that doesn't give 2 squirts about US copyright law.

Ow!

Got my first root canal today. Kinda sucked. I am in a lot of pain right now because they didn't finish. I got to picture number 3 when it satarted to get real painful again. He didn't want to give me any more anesthetic as he told me that he had given me more than he had ever given to any other patient. This is a problem that runs in my family. The doc decided I had suffered enough for the day and that he wanted to give it a couple of weeks to let it heal a bit. So I still have some nerve tissue in there that is very sore. I asked him for something to take for pain and he said ibuprofen. Ibuprofen for the guy you just had to anesthetize to the legal limit and he was still squirming in the chair? I need REAL drugs pal! Ugh.

Spring Fever

Why did I go to work today? My boss called off citing food poisoning. I am guessing the only thing that was poisoned was his work ethic. I seriously considered calling in and taking my conference calls from a coffee shop today. It is so beautiful out right now. As a matter of fact, what the hell am I doing sitting here at my computer? I am going home, stripping outta these clothes and going to try and find a place to hang out that had the forsight to open their outdoor seating today. See you on the sidewalks.

Bigger Fish to Fry?

Can we get Scooter a new attorney? I think he is getting bad advice. I know Scooter is no saint and that he is guilty as sin but he was acting on behalf of the Vice President of the United States. It seems that it was quite apparent to the jury in his trial that there should have been a lot of other folks brought to trial in this case. I cannot fathom why Fitzgerald would let Cheney take a pass. I am not a Washington insider but I read a lot of articles and blog entries by people who are and they seem baffled as well.

Cheney was described in no uncertain terms throughout the course of this trial as being the person who directed this leak. It seemed to me that there was more damning evidence against Cheney introduced during this trial than there was against Scooter. Someone please help me understand this. If Fitzgerald is sandbagging a charge for political reasons, I would not be surprized.

Been a While

I have decided to get back into the blogging thing. It's been a while and I am a little rusty so bear with me.

First thing I wanted to get out there is that I have decided to back Barack Obama and am going to try and organize a fundraiser. Trouble is, I have never organized anything like this in my life. If anyone knows anything about fundraising or knows somebody who has experience, please let me know. I haven't settled on a theme or anything yet so suggestions are welcome. I am hoping to have the event sometime this summer. That way I can avoid trying to rent a space and maybe just have the thing at a park and rent a tent or something. Anyway, it's still in it's infancy but hopefully I can get it to grow up quick. Pass this on to anyone you think can help.

Everyone Else Has Blogged About It So Here's My Bullshit Opinion

So... I was talking to my page about riding my bike and working out the other day and he told me that it seemed he had this conversation before. I apologized for being unoriginal and gave him a back rub.

This Foley guy is exactly the kind of hypocrite that good old liberal folks like me love to watch take a fall. He was a closeted homosexual who pushed a conservative anti-gay rights agenda. What a pig. He hated himself for what he was and now everybody else hates him for what he did.

Can we stop asking if Hastert is going to step down? Denny Hastert isn't going to be the speaker much longer if the GOP keeps handling all this crap so badly. If he would just say, "I fucked up but we are going to fix it.", he'd be fine. All this finger pointing is a joy to watch as a left leaning "semi-independent" (let's face it, the only R I ever voted for was Denny when I lived in his district and only because he was the speaker) as it makes me feel good to know that the wheels aren't just coming off the bus but is screaching down the highway on it's hubs. Problem is, I think that we are losing focus on figuring out how to stop this kind of shit from happening.

I am not going to equate homosexuality with pedophilia. Please don't get that impression from what I am about to say. The vast majority of cases of molestation are homosexual in nature (80% according to one study). I think a big reason for this is that many homosexual men are forced to hide their sexual orientation because it is not accepted by the society they associate with. That includes religious groups and conservative politics. I believe that many priests are driven to the cloth because they are taught to be ashamed of themselves but are trying to be holy and the only way they feel they can escape the sin that is in their mind is to take a vow of chastity. Chastity does not make a person a sex offender. Temptation and lust does. Most cases of priests taking advantage of boys is generally not with small children but rather with sexually mature (although technically still children) boys that they work with every day. Backstage at the Catholic church is a boys club. Straight priests don't molest young girls because they are never alone with them to be tempted. There are lots of occasions of priests having consensual sexual relations with adult women. Straight Priests break their vows too.

What I am getting at is pretty simple. If you tell someone that their sexuality is wicked, they will hide it. In some cases, these same people will not be able to control their urges and will look to a young object of desire that they feel they can easily manipulate. I believe that if homosexuality were not so demonized in this country Mark Foley would have led an open life and wouldn't have had to turn to booze and inappropriate correspodence with young boys to fill whatever hole he has in his life.

We need to address sexuality in all it's forms and encourage people to be open about it. In some cases we may find a person who lives in shame for having feelings for a same sex partner. We could teach them to be OK with their consensual relationship. In other cases we may be able to treat someone with a deviant and criminal sexual problem and find ways to treat them. The only way to keep sex offenders from commiting crimes is to treat them.

Anyway, that's my two cents on all this. I am sick of all this and making the age of a page 18 is only going to make the next group of manipulated kids 2 years older.

Why Is Katie Couric On 60 Minutes?

I watch 60 minutes every week because I want to watch bad guys get taken to task for the terrible shit they do to the little guy. Tonight, I had to suffer through Katie making Condoleeza Rice look like the black Cinderella. Where were the questions about the war and the report this week that concluded we are in far worse shape in regards to terrorism now than we were before the "War on Terror" started? Instead, she made her seem like she was a good loyal soldier and almost seemed to adore her. Oh, look! She plays piano. Isn't that nice and cute? And now they're talking about boys! You'd think she was interviewing my mom. Where's Ed Bradley when you need him? He would have handed her her ass faster than you can say, "earring."

Tailgating Windfall

I was on my way home from visiting with my mother today (thanks to Stevie for driving) and while stuck in traffic on LSD I noticed something odd about the parking lot. It seems that there are a lot of people who cannot be bothered to clean their grills and pack them up. I saw at least 2 dozen abandoned grills. One of them looked like a full sized Weber! If it had not been pouring rain and my brother had not been in a huge hurry to get home, I would have gone over there and collected one. I recommend to all that read this to head on over to the south parking lot next home game and get yourself a free grill.

Secretary of Statesville

George Ryan was sentenced to 6 1/2 years yesterday. A friend of mine thinks that is a little harsh considering his advanced age and poor health. I think it is light considering his actions indirectly caused the deaths of 6 children in a car accident.

I have a few questions:

1. Will he serve any time? I expect an appeal process that could carry him through to the end of his life.
2. Should advanced age and poor health be taken into consideration when sentencing someone? It seems to me that he is lucky to be sentenced now when he is nearing the end of his life and not while he was young and full of life. To be put in prison in the prime of your life seems much more cruel than at the end.