"Well, he found out how to quit you."—Fox News host John Gibson, mocking Heath Ledger's death, because he is an enormo douchehound with brains of mush and a heart of stone.
Caption This Photo
I ridez da mower! Wheeeeeeeeeee!
U.S. President George W. Bush operates a stand-on lawnmower during his tour of Wright Manufacturing, which makes the machines, in Frederick, Maryland January 18, 2008. Bush used the visit at a family-owned business to tout his call for tax cuts and incentives for business growth.
REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)
Damn Dems
Nicole Belle has the latest in the ongoing clusterfucktastrophe that is Harry Reid's ostensibly Democratic leadership on the FISA debacle.
Meanwhile, Chris Dodd still promises to filibuster. Jane suggests drafting Edwards into a leadership role in the fight; good idea.
New 527 to "Educate Public About What Hillary Clinton Really Is"
Seriously. Paul Kiel's got the lowdown at the link, but the gist of it is that people can buy t-shirts with that logo on it for $25 and, according to the Republican operative who set up the 527, "the whole thing will end up taking on a viral nature, thanks to the yuks factor."
Bring it, you wankstains. Wielding sexism against Hillary doesn't work. (Just ask Chris Matthews.) You'll demean her right into the White House.
And, by the way, there are plenty of women, like your very own Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain, who consider the whole thing a compliment. Hillary's a cunt? Splendid advertising! I've been saying we need a cunt in the White House for a long time.
C.U.
[Hat tip to Shaker Allie.]
Greetings from the Big Apple
I'm in New York for the opening tonight of Can't Live Without You at the Manhattan Rep. I flew up this morning from Miami to La Guardia (Jeb Bush was on the flight, busily typing away on his laptop up in first class) and now I'm ensconced in a nice hotel right off Times Square and a couple of blocks from the theatre.
A lot of people have asked if I'm excited about this lifetime moment. I think I'm numb right now because other than some e-mails and a few phone calls, I've not really been involved with the rehearsal process and the production itself. That's as it should be; the playwright has to trust the director, the actors, and the play itself and let them find their own way. It is in their capable hands and now I get to see what they have wrought.
Anyway, here we go. And if there are any Shakers in town, let me know and maybe we can meet up.
Edwards on Letterman
John Edwards joined David Letterman last night for some Bill O'Reilly trashing, some hair restyling, and some serious talk about the campaign. (If anyone can find a transcript, please drop a link in comments. Transcript here.)
Via Joe.My.God.
Shut Up, Maureen Dowd
Part wev in an Ongoing Series by Tart and me, named elegantly and succinctly by Tart, about the World's Most Obnoxious Feminist Concern TrollTM.
In another fine example of journalistic excellence, MoDo spends the first five paragraphs of today's column describing the Clintons campaigning as if writing a script for hentai anime, then wastes some time boringly trashing Bill—without, much like everyone else raising similar complaints, any hint of irony that none of them expressed any outrage when former president George H.W. Bush campaigned for his son, defends his son, or meddles in his son's presidency—and finally gets to her real point, which is, as always, being the World's Most Obnoxious Feminist Concern TrollTM.Bill has merged with his wife totally now, talking about "we" and "us." "I never did anything major without discussing it with her," he told a crowd here. "We've been having this conversation since we first met in 1971, and I don't think we'll stop now."
If talking about making major decisions together, and referring to yourself and your spouse as "we" and "us," are indicative of having "merged totally" with one's spouse, then I guess I'll just start collectively referring to Mr. Shakes and me as the McBorg, since "we" even discuss "our" collective strategy to make grocery shopping more efficient; I can't imagine "we" would stop making strategic decisions together if one of "us" were running for president. It's completely pathetic—and indicative, quite frankly, of crap thinking and crap writing—that MoDo can't find a way to make a legitimate criticism of Bill's involvement in Hillary's campaign without resorting to insipid attempts to impugn their marriage.
The hilarious thing, of course, is that when the Clintons aren't joined at the hip, it's evidence that their marriage is a sham. And when they are, it's evidence that their marriage is some sort of dysfunctional fucktastrophe of codependence. I love it.
Of course, the World's Most Obnoxious Feminist Concern TrollTM can't finish without one final dig at Hils:It's odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line.
Hey, Maureen—I've got something for you. It's a big bag of SHUT UP.
Enjoy.
CBO Budget Outlook: W's Legacy Still Intact
The Congressional Budget Office has released its outlook for the next 10 fiscal years. The report estimates our current deficit at around $250 billion, once you factor in how much is flying down the shitter for the wars:
Officially, CBO predicts the 2008 deficit at $219 billion, but that figure fails to account for at least an additional $30 billion in war costs and the likely infusion of deficit-financed economic stimulus measures such as income tax rebates, business tax breaks and help for the unemployed now under discussion on Capitol Hill and at the White House.As senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) pointed out, you'll be able to increase that figure significantly when the upcoming $150 billion economic stimulus goes through. CBO Director Peter Orszag made it clear in his testimony what has to happen to get us back on track:
"A substantial reduction in the growth of spending, a significant increase in tax revenues relative to the size of the economy, or some combination of the two will be necessary to maintain the nation's long-term fiscal stability," Orszag said.And there's a part of Bush's legacy for everyone to enjoy. Next year, I'll be sure to remind everyone what kind of state we're in on the last day of his tenure so that there's no confusion over these problems suddenly appearing when a Democrat president gets sworn in.
ABC So Totally Wants to Have Ten Thousand of Fox News' Babies
Greg Sargent has the latest evidence of ABC News' decidedly unliberal bias, in which they also rely on that trust old chestnut, Angry Black Man Stereotype, to try to smear Obama.
I look forward to ABC's "Political Radar" picking up a blip that it's 2008. I mean, black folks even have restaurants and everything now.
"Bloated and Gloating"
Zuzu just emailed me to tell me to grab a screen cap of ABC's coverage of the Fatosphere, because, as Z reports:
When I was looking for articles on that WLS/diabetes study, I noticed a little link on the Yahoo! News page I was looking at with the following teaser:
ABC News: 'Fat Acceptance': Bloated and Gloating Online.
…If you click the link, you go to an ABC News story that doesn't actually carry that headline on the article ("Bloggers Preach 'Fat Acceptance'"), but it does have that as the whaddayacallit at the very top of the screen, the one that tells you where you are ("ABC News: Fat Is Hot: Bloated and Gloating Online").
Click image to open full screen capture in new window.
The article itself is equally shameful, its lede being: "Lesley Kinzel isn't ashamed of her weight—in fact, she's so proud of her 300-pound figure she blogs about it daily," making it sound as though Kinzel is a personal diarist incessantly singing the praises of her own body, despite her own explanation of what she does five paragraphs later: "[Our blogs] promote fat acceptance, or the idea that people should be able to accept themselves at the size they feel most comfortable. And that fat people should not be humiliated or made fun of, and that fat people deserve as much respect as everyone else."
Then the article helpfully undermines Kinzel's description of the fatosphere as having a cultural imperative by quoting
And of course the article necessarily ends with ABC's "obesity expert" gravely warning that "Fat acceptance is OK to the point of maintaining self-esteem. But within that context, the health risks are the health risks." Jebus. Way to miss the fucking point.
Nice objectification of a fat female disembodied torso, by the way.
He is the Very Model of a Modern Major General
McCain picks up a hot endorsement from Stormin' Norman, shoring up his relevance in the modern era:
One of Florida's most famous military men, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, has put his weight behind Sen. John McCain's bid for the presidency today.Scwartzkopf is part of a long list of retired military men to lend their names to the McCain effort, including Gen. George S. Patton, Gen. Robert E. Lee, Empereur des Français Napoléon Bonaparte, and Genghis Khan, alongside whom McCain fought in the Battle of the Kalka River, 1223AD.
"Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf, a retired four-star general who was commander of the Coalition Forces in the 1991 Gulf War, became well known to most Americans with his daily, televised press conferences describing the course of the war. As the co-author of the plan for Operation Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf's strategy was so successful that the ground war concluded in just four days.
"Sen. John McCain has served our country with honor in war and in peace," Schwarzkopf said in a statement. "He has demonstrated the type of leadership our country sorely needs at this time. For that reason, he has my complete support."
Impossibly Beautiful
[Part Thirteen in an Ongoing Series: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve.]
Hi Shakers! This here's Lizzie, also known as the Lizard Queen. Kate Harding said this the other day: "Liss was kind enough to allow me to step in and contribute to her Impossibly Beautiful series after I wrote to her ranting about this cover shot of Reese Witherspoon I found on Go Fug Yourself. (Yes, I had a terribly productive afternoon.)" Change "Reese Witherspoon" to "Rachel Bilson" and "afternoon" to... well, maybe we'd better just let that one alone... and you'll have the explanation as to how I ended up here. Ginormous thanks to Liss for giving me this opportunity!
If there's a message we can take away from the Impossibly Beautiful series, it's that for a woman to appear on a magazine cover (and thus be considered beautiful), she must appear to have absolutely no wrinkles, nor any fat between her skin and her bones. (The jury is still out on muscle, though overall I'd say that, if a choice has to be made between the two, skinny is preferable over toned.) Her breasts must be appear full and round. Never mind that many of the women being photographed for these magazines have made a name for themselves by having curves. Never mind that in some cases the reason they're being featured on the cover of a particular magazine is that they've been on this planet for more than eighteen years. The image -- I can't even quite bring myself to say "woman" in this context -- on the cover of the magazine can never be too thin; her skin cannot be too much like porcelain; her breasts cannot be too perfect.
I confess, however, that in spite of my awareness of this trend, these covers never cease to surprise me. The latest version is Rachel Bilson, who's best known for her role on The O.C.. Here she is at an event last month (via Go Fug Yourself):
She's thin and young, and while she hasn't got the ample breasts you often see on magazine covers, I still wouldn't have thought she would need much airbrushing.
But, of course, here she is on the cover of GQ (similarly via Go Fug Yourself):
Heather of GFY had this to say: "I'm not sure why this photo of a lovely, genetically tiny person still called for so much airbrushing that Rachel has turned into a crazy pageant-zombie bobblehead with one leg that looks weirdly small compared to the other."
I think I might have the answer. Maybe the trend of women looking like lifeless clones on magazine covers relates to that oft-cited concern about people becoming isolated from each other and from reality in the electronic age. Many of us who have an all-but-symbiotic relationship with our computers (I feed mine cookie crumbs!) have managed to find community online. On the other hand, I'm becoming convinced that people who produce magazine covers must really be experiencing that isolation. They don't know what a beautiful woman looks like; they only know what magazine covers look like. So, then, when presented with a picture of a beautiful woman, they have no choice but to turn her into a magazine cover.
Matt Blunt cuts, runs
“A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land…Well, perhaps that verges on overkill. Still, it comes as an unexpected pleasure - the shock announcement that one of the most partisan and least popular governors in the nation, Missouri’s own Matt Blunt (Son-of-Blunt), has abandoned his reelection effort.
Blunt claims he realized he’d done everything he set out to do. Fair enough, if “everything” includes throwing nearly a hundred thousand poor people off the Medicare rolls, increasing health care costs for tens of thousands of others, and selling off the state higher education loan authority. Not a surprise that he has consistently trailed his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Jay Nixon, in the polls. You have to wonder if that alone prompted Blunt’s abrupt desire for retirement, or if he was further influenced by the growing spectre of scandal:
Most recently, Blunt was embroiled in a scandal over allegations that his office routinely destroyed e-mail public records that the law requires officeholders to retain. His former deputy legal counsel has sued him and four state officials, alleging that they engaged in a conspiracy to destroy public records in an effort to hide political maneuvering by his staff.Could be both, I suppose.
(Cross-posted.)
Question of the Day
When was the last time you made someone laugh out loud?
For me, it was while just on the phone with Spudsy, who was asking me about Cloverfield. (My four-word movie review: "Ass on film. Wev.") Spudsy wanted to know what the monster looks like, so I told him about my friend Kenny Blogginz emailing me to say he's heard the film is crap but is "curious about what the fucking monster looks like though. I guess I could save ten bucks by waiting until somebody puts a shitty cell phone video of it up on youtube or something," to which I replied with the following:Here's a picture I took during the movie:
That made Spudsy laugh. And I love cracking him up, because he's got a great laugh.
The special effects were top notch.
TOP NOTCH, I tell you!!!
Wild Anti-Hillary Robo-Calls in South Carolina
I get deranged emails from this guy all the time—rambling, incoherent missives about how Bill Clinton is a serial rapist and Hillary is "a sewer-mouthed tyrannical witch." He's got a totally unhinged hatred of Hillary and lives in some maniacal fantasyland of which Andrew Sullivan is probably the invisible elf king.
Below is the call script, which Commandant Cuckoo helpfully provided to Paul Kiel TPM.
HILLARY TREATS PEOPLE LIKE THEY INVISIBLE"Hillary thinks cats are expendable; can you trust her?" I don't know why he's holding back the good stuff he's provided to me via email, like "Angry Bull Dyke Hillary Nukes Baby Name Hillary" or "Hillary and Bill use violence to cover up their wildly dysfunctional Jerry Springer lifestyle." What's a few dead cats when there are stories about coke-fueled sex orgies to share?
Hello. FBI agent Gary Aldrich says that Hillary on Inauguration Day, 1993 was in an uncontrolled and unbridled fury, yelling and screaming profanities, because she was not allowed to have Vice President Al Gore’s office in the White House. Hillary treats people like they are invisible; can you trust her?
Hillary knew about and helped cover up Bill’s rape of Juanita Broaddrick. Hillary treats women like they are invisible; can you trust her?
Hillary hired Jack Palladino to run a terror campaign on Kathleen Willey to keep her quiet about what Bill had done to her. They nail gunned her car tires and stole or killed her pet cat named Bullseye. Hillary thinks cats are expendable; can you trust her?
After Bill pulled down his britches and EXPOSED himself to Paula Jones, Hillary’s friend James Carville said “Drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.” Hillary treats women like they are invisible, can you trust her?
Hillary told TIME Magazine in June, 1996, that she was thinking about adopting a child, despite the fact Bill was having an affair with Monica and Hillary knew he had a whole harem in the White House. Hillary was having her own affairs with Vince Foster, probably Webb Hubbell and even others. Hillary makes up fairy tales about adopting an orphan child, can you trust her?
This message is from Robert Morrow on behalf of everyone who has been violated and abused by Hillary and Bill – treated like they were invisible. Hillary sure does say a lot of things, doesn’t she - but can you trust her?
Right Said Fred
You can call the Thompson campaign a lot of things: lackluster, uninspiring, boring, half-hearted, half-assed, ill-conceived, stillborn, dead-on-arrival, a waste of everyone's time. You might even call it unsuccessful. But remember one thing. He beat Giuliani in five out of the six Republican primaries. And consider this as well: Giuliani is supposed to be a serious contender, a far more legitimate candidate than Thompson ever was.
We may miss you on the campaign trail, Freddy boy, but we'll always have our Curly Sue DVDs.
RIP Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger, best known for his Oscar-nominated role as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, has died at age 28. He leaves behind a two-year-old daugher, Matilda Rose, whose mother is his former fiancée and Brokeback co-star Michelle Williams.
No details yet on the exact cause of death, although a drug overdose is suspected.
Fucking hell. I feel like I've been socked in the gut.
John Edwards: The second act
Having announced my selection in the upcoming Missouri Democratic primary (part of Super Tuesday, Inc.), it occurred to me that perhaps as many as two or three people might be curious as to how John Edwards earned the Waveflux seal of approval. The answer in one word: class, the manifestations and disparities of which give rise, Hydralike, to aspects of American society as varied as race, health care, education, taxation, housing, even environmental issues. The reality of class, the prevalence of poverty, is something that few care to contemplate. Poverty is decidedly unglamorous, after all, so much so that people avoid even acknowledging it, as if doing so meant risking contamination. It is, for many, evidence of moral failing - thus the emphasis in some quarters on helping the "deserving" poor. In a culture where the virtues of wealth, attainment, and upward striving are extolled from cradle to grave, going so far as to identify oneself as a member of a lower economic class is, well, a political clunker. To say nothing of being, in the age of The Apprentice, Paris Hilton, ad nauseum, a real media downer.
A presidential candidate with the courage to push class front and center, given the culture's hostility to the concept, was an easy pick for me.
Of course, Edwards' campaign was doomed from the start for that very reasons. Other circumstances (like being a plain old white-guy-running who lacks the compelling historical/rockstar interest of a Clinton or Obama) seem incidental in comparison. The sad fact is that forty-four years after the declaration of the War on Poverty - and incredibly, two years after Hurricane Katrina - this society simply isn't ready for the core message Edwards brought in his two White House campaigns: that policy, not charity, is the path to helping the poor.
So far as the 2008 presidential campaign is concerned, Edwards' chief role has been that of progressive conscience/gadfly to the two frontrunners. His presence in the race has served to prompt Clinton and Obama into making, at the very least, supportive noises on poverty issues. That's the best Edwards can hope for - and that alone justifies voting for him. What interests me, though, is what happens after the lights go dark and Edwards shuts down his campaign.
Edwards may be invited to play a role in a Clinton or Obama administration. If I could gain his attention for three minutes, I would implore him to decline such an invitation. I would recommend that he take a month off following the campaign, and then spend a long time in conversation with his fellow Southerners Jimmy Carter and Al Gore...after which he should go right back to his Center on Poverty in Chapel Hill. Edwards should return to what he has described as the work of his life, aware that there is much to do on a cultural and societal level before the nation can face up to the manifold issues of poverty. He should return to this work, confident in the knowledge that there is more than one form of public service.
Life is generous in that it often provides us with second opportunities, new venues for action and contribution. We have seen grand examples of political figures rising from defeat to accomplish more for the public good in private life than they ever accomplished while in office. I think John Edwards has the opportunity for just such a second act, if he chooses to accept the challenge of moving a culture toward the recognition of inconvenient truths.
(Cross-posted...and apologies for the wacky layout weirdness in the post which I hope no one saw.)
