The Billiken's Bluff

Someone had to say it.



I said it two weeks ago and someone finally picked up what I was putting down:

This government is powerless. Fuck semantics. Shit is nervous over there. This is a Civil War.

I don't know that this will make a difference, but if the US.gov makes this distinction (admission) maybe they will look at alternate exit strategies like splitting the country into thirds or who knows what? (saying sorry wouldn't hurt)



I saw this story break on MSNBC, NBC's cable news brethren, at 9:00AM on Monday. Amy Robach, the newscaster, interviewing some former Army General.



She asked him what made this a civil war, why wasn't the government acknowledging that this was a civil war, what does this mean, et al.

The General began responding and I heard the sound of air bubbles surfacing.



A pop up graphic appeared in lower left hand corner of screen complete with its own graphic bubbles as wallpaper. A factoid informing the viewer that the General fought in the Gulf War or the General went to high school with Danny Glover or the General shares a birthday with General Custard.



Out of place. Not befitting of the gravity the National Broadcasting Company was trying to convey. This was not a small announcement. They were taking an editorial position on the War. They consulted experts, former military brass - sat in board rooms, made PowerPoint presentations and came to the executive decision that they would be THE media outlet, print, broadcast, whatever that took 3 years of caution, political correctness, media even-handedness and throw it to the wind.



They took a stand, proclaimed their position, tried to shape policy and the hearts and minds of US and Iraqi citizens. They tried to do this and then broke the story (to me at least) with a gurgle of air pocketed in water and a silly pop up window. A small point, for sure, but when someone can't get the minor details right, can't set the proper tone (or even understand the tone for that matter) the rest of the argument starts to crumble. A little bit of food on the chin that just won't go away, residual from that business lunch, and you can't look at the person without laughing anymore regardless of what wisdom they are speaking.



Savvy?

If the Gray Lady had the marbles to declare it a civil war she would have probably done so in a more serious way and not turned their first interview, the day of NBC's proclamation, into a VH1 I Love the 80s segment. She has good posture and a stately presence, in print.



or maybe she wouldn't have.



There is an awful lot of that Dick_&_Rummy_speak, nursery rhymes and fables, a lot of pouting of the lips and temper tantrums - playful and child-like from that Gray Lady, sometimes.

Good for this girl. If she wanted to, she could sell her Second Life assests and expliot countless people who have nothing better to do than to pretend they acquired belongings in a video game.

Seriously though, shes got assests worth a million dollars all tied up in a video game. I say sell now while the getting is good. Its only a matter of time until something else comes around and takes Second Life's popularity.

find myself on my death bed from radioactive residuals poisoning at the hands of a former director of the KGB turned President of Russia I hope to come up with something as poignant as this, Alexander Litvinenko's final statement:

You may succeed in silencing me, but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics claim. You may succeed in silencing one man. But a howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done.

He of silver screen magistrate







or rather he of over the top descriptives and gravely voice.



Fields of flowery language like One Hundred Years of Solitude





I heard him interviewed (sort of) intermittently, between extended monologues, on Wednesday.

I cringed at first when I heard him describe our 35th president as:

His mind was honey-combed with contradictions.

Who talks like this? Who can speak like this with straight face during an interview?



He then emoted this polished, rehearsed gem, about Lyndon B. on November 22, 1963:

His volcanic emotions kept under stern control - like a chess player thinking 3 or 4 moves ahead.

But when I heard this piece of prose:

Hysteria hung in the room like Spanish moss on the ceiling

Jack Valente had me



Consider me a fan

Israel developing anti-militant "bionic hornet". They say it will be operational in 3 years.

The flying robot, nicknamed the "bionic hornet," would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

[...]

"The war in Lebanon proved that we need smaller weaponry. It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons," Peres said.

I've seen this before 1960s visions from Phillip K. Dick and 2000s special effects realized by Spielberg:



And then what?



I once asked on this blog - what is Israel's industry? In the past I didn't immediately identify any one product or company with them as you do Sony with Japan, BMW with Germany, LG with South Korea. Someone responded back in the comments section that Israel is at the forefront of developing security, surveillance and military technology. They are a nation of engineers. And they grow Jaffa oranges.

... this is why our country can't win a war:



Seriously, people. You just couldn't live without that PS3 for a few more days? You had to spend a night sleeping in a lawn chair on the sidewalk to make your life complete?



The good news, I suppose, is that a serious storm is potentially headed towards our friends. They will gain a greater appreciation for the shelter that they've momentarily abondoned as they are struck by hailstones at winds of 30-50 MPH. And they will realize that perhaps a wiser investment for some of the $600 that they are about to fork over to Best Buy would have been on a pair of rain boots as flash floods bring the water level to the middle of their calves.

-Pics courtesy of our good friends at Fox News ("We Report. You decide that these kids need to get some fucking jobs.")

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. I saw it going on a month ago now. It was good. In a Do_the_Right_Thing_/_25th_Hour_/_Native_New_York_way ... Bensonhurst!!! What!!, but in Astoria, Queens. It was KIDS.



It was me and my friends growing up, hanging out, doing nothing, but romantized and cinematized.



This dude was powerful.



In a Brandon Jacobs type way. Completely bowling people over. With bravado, brawn.



This guy was effective, like a character out of Fortress of Solitude, verbatim.



He was of steely-countenance per the usual.



But, what stood out was the scene where Dito, main character, and a new Irish student ride the elevated subway tracks, N, R, W, 7 in Western Queens, full of graffiti and what the fuck? Packed trains, smelling people closely.



I can't describe this scene in a way that displays its genius (genus) but it is short, so even if you see it you might blink you may miss it, so A Guide to Recognizing Deft Dialogue, Voice Overs, and Pulling on Emotional Heart Strings in a Complex, not Sappy Way...

This scene:



Irish kid, a tourist in new city, asks dumb obvious questions to Dito like have you ever been to Coney Island?



Dito, who's father gets nervous when he leaves the block for fear his horizon will expand beyond 30th ave, says to Irish kid, Nah, yo, never been out there. (And who has? I haven't been to the Statue of Liberty and I've lived within 15 miles of it my entire life. You have one life as a tourist another as a resident, right? Eiffel tower, Reclining Buddha, Coliseum... check, check, yes ... Empire State Building ... no) Dito, asks Irish kid, how is it being so far from home? Irish kid answers it's not so bad, I'm seeing things, going to Coney Island now actually, on this train. The normal-est dialogue you ever heard. But, behind them, voiced-over, each character narrates, not overtly, but tone-wise you can tell, that Dito's nah yo, really means that he knows his world is too small since it can't include a landmark known world-wide, across oceans, that resides 10 miles from home. He knows he is a bit sad and small. Irish kid knows that he is overwhelmed by the new city, the subway, by the Brandon Jacobs character. The voice over narratives function like a Gregorian chant, on this subway.



Something along the lines of we are laughing all the time to keep from crying. Or like Radiohead what if we could say everything of all of the time. Happy and sad. The dialogue at hand. And a removed, distanced, enlightened narrative that explained YOU. Minor, insignificant, and Meta. The conversations on a subway. And the monologue when you are repeating when you can't fall asleep. What you are really feeling and the easier truth that you will pick up and run with.

And you know what, I will come with you to Coney Island.

All speed and whistles heading west!

We may need emergency surgery in the studio.

Doing the peoples' work! Rumsfeld's vision coming to fruitition.

Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms (or actual Iraqi police moonlighting as kidnappers) kidnapped as many as 100 men from a Higher Education Ministry building. ID cards were checked to separate Sunnis from Shiites. It takes a while to kidnap 100 people and check IDs, where were the real police? Were these the real police. This government is powerless.

Fuck semantics. Shit is nervous over there. This is a Civil War.

Tonight I started reading Tao Lin's collection of poetry called You Are a Little Bit Happier Than Me. I like it and will comment on it when I finish reading it. But I also read a spam mail. It was one of those stream of consciousness narratives that accompanies an ad for some weight loss pills. I am intrigued by this. Who writes copy for spam mail to sneak past the censors, the filters? And isn't this spam free form, strange and kind of almost poetic? Can someone confirm any of this, or better yet explain how it works and who writes it? Wikipedia's explanations are lacking.

Any burglar can eat an ocean about a bullfrog, but it takes a real hole puncher to be a big fan of some oil filter.
A light bulb related to the wedding dress prays, and the unstable support group reads a magazine; however, a bowling ball around a dolphin pours freezing cold water on a pork chop. When a completely fractured spider is secretly false, a boiled fundraiser gives secret financial aid to some football team.

Tupac got murdered, Biggie got murdered, Jay Z makes too many records to not have a few potholes in his playlist.



Andre 3000 from Outkast keeps making music, but with a few exceptions, i.e., The Mighty O off of the IdleWild soundtrack, he stopped rapping 6 years ago, after releasing Stankonia.



I heard The Walk it Out Remix on Hot97 while driving home tonight.

Kinda catchy, but the type of thing that didn't exactly appear to be intricate, layered.





One verse ended with the query:

How can I say this and be polite, don't make me have to kill you, aight?

Material for a dissertation in cultural criticism course at NYU this was not. The last person I expected to hear on the next verse was Andre,



not just because of the tone already set in this song, but because he does not rap anymore, he croons.



The lyrical content couldn't be more disparate in the verses. Like Jay Z and Kanye in Diamonds are Forver Remix. Jay-Z ignoring the theme, or throwing spite at Kanye's attempt at social consciousness. There is not a common theme running through Walk it Out by DJ Unk featuring Jim Jones (the We_Fly_high_you_know_it_BALLIN!!!, dude) and Andre 3000.





It is also like Hugo Chavez invited onto US soil and critiquing his host country from their podium at UN and pulpit at Harlem Church.



Andre 3000 tries to talk sense to the real talkin', long white t-shirt wearin' (dip) set, who happen to reside on the same track. Oh my. Some excerpts from Andre critiquing the rap world and hip hop culture he left behind (in (and for) his spaceship) years ago.

Walk it out like an usher, if you say real talk I probably won't trust ya.

If you want to go to war with guns, my pleasure, even Jesus had twelve disciples on the lever, excuse me I mean trigger, whatever.

Your white tee, well to me, look like a night-gown, make your momma proud take that thing two sizes down. Then you'll look like the man you are, or could be. I could give a damn about your car, but then I would be.

My boy is wicked smart.



But it's not just a good verse, it's well-placed, in a song with this dude who epitomizes everything that is dead, soul-less, unoriginal and boring about hip hop today.


WAKE UP!@#!@#!@#$

Jones looks like he can't even stay awake listening to his popular, painfully slow-paced, plodding song called We Just Ballin.

Andre 3000 is calling him out (among others) and is just so much more adept and crisper. The song also appeals to The Billiken's Bluff because it mixes high_culture/low_culture, street smarts and books smarts, violent hip hop brag talk with nuanced turns of phrase. It's like a port city from the past. A cosmopolitan melting pot. A trading mecca where varied ideas and goods change hands. Like a bazaar in Constantinople or Babel.

Those moments, those what you might call liminal, Limit, frontier, edge zone experiences...are actually now becoming the norm. These multiplicities and distinctions and differences...that have given great difficulty to the old mind...are actually through entering into their very essence, tasting and feeling their uniqueness.

I am thoroughly excited and encouraged by Andre's unexpected appearance on this track. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.

I dont know how much weight to put on this, but is Sacha Baron Cohen going to be in legal trouble?

But now the villagers of this tiny, close-knit community have angrily accused the comedian of exploiting them, after discovering his new blockbuster film portrays them as a backward group of rapists, abortionists and prostitutes, who happily engage in casual incest.

They claim film-makers lied to them about the true nature of the project, which they believed would be a documentary about their hardship, rather than a comedy mocking their poverty and isolation.

I doubt that Cohen will ever have to face consequences in Khazakastan (because he will never, ever, ever go back to that forsaken country). But should we even care if the producers lied to get the movie made? The fraternity SAE is threatening to sue Fox also, claiming that the producers made them drink and encouraged them to act stupidly.

Admittedly, I havent seen the movie yet, (but I plan to soon) so I cant speak on the portrayal of the villagers or the college kids. I am inclined to think that this is a situation where people are pissed off because they made a poor decision, and now want someone to make it up to them. So cry me a river college boy. Thoughts?

To sum it all up, in closing...

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, i don't know how they got out, dear!!!

And now on to the great new wonderful (post)...

Freedarko put me onto the t-shirt stylings of Lemar and Dauley. I want to purchase colorful icons like this:



Jordan demi-god of all that is hip and urban and upwardly mobile and full of gravity and levitation.



Or the likeness of Ghostface (Killa):



But riddle me this, would the man emblazoned on one of the smoothest-looking t-shirts I've ever come across, even wear something as pedestrian-simple as a black t-shirt?



Would Tony Starks, known for stately velvet robes, golden eagle idols of bracelets and Wallabies dyed in Martian Moonscape dream technicolors be able to transmutate this style into an American Apparel undershirt?



Urbana's Paper Magazine party last year that featured characters like this:




free love like this:



free yay like this (two turntables and a mic, MIC!):




and some random out of place youngsters like this:




had a soundtrack that nearly exclusively featuring Ghostface. It was the only music artsy enough for this crowd. His lyrics are obscure. His narrative bordering on James_Joyce's_Ulysses-like_genius. His manner of dress fanciful and formal. His Daytona 500 video, a pre-supposed post-modern Warhol factory video screen in Williamsburg, BK 50 years in the future, at all points extending out from here.



Needless to say the only way to capture this type of virtuoso is in a t-shirt. I mean how else, where else? in a bottle?



This would be the cornerstone of any average joe's outfit. For Ghostface himself, I imagine it would be functional a matter of need, not style. Something to wear to sleep, or to the gym.



The only way to capture this style or emulate it, is to wear a simple t-shirt. This is how people convert, via water-down what they respect, strive to be, into what they ultimately wear on their sleeve.

Of course this is really a critique or discussion, as per the usual, of the 600 lb gorilla/elephant in the corner of the room. Your political party of choice is no different. Your belief in all that is cool and righteous in the world screen-printed on the t-shirt that fits most properly (political analogies fail under the weight of the fact that I tire writing about them as soon as the sentence begins...Ghostface is easy, Mid-term elections, damn hard!).







People turn their ignorance into virtue. Simple-mindedness into a strive towards simplicity of thought. Ethnocentricity into clarity. Lack of awareness of other cultures and countries into Nationalism, into My Country Tis' of Thee. "US #1, Greatest Country in World." "Kazakhstan, Best Prostitutes in all of Central Asia," and so forth and son on.



Biting yes, an indictment, maybe. But watch Borat, it can be funny too.



And maybe one fine day after we win the war on terror you can wear that mustache, but until then you should probably shave it so you don't look like one of them and that way you can fit in.

Ok?



that's the spirit, clean shaven like the NY Yankees.

What are you?

I have so many names.

There is so much to say about this and I'm just distilling it down to some easily critiqued jabs. But here I go...


(don't hit)

Something along the lines of...

But you like yourself. You believe you live the right way. That others, the others are out to get you.



To make you live a different way to teach strange things like the union between a man a woman can also involve another man, or two women, or a Congressman and his intern, or a president and young woman.

This makes you angry, but not because you can't understand it, but because you can. It's not political double-talk, it's simple. It's straight forward. Black and White even.



You know these things and know right from wrong.

Or how about babies and abortion or stem cells and even Evolution. This is straight forward too. There is natural and unnatural. Cloned sheep are certainly not natural. Agreed all around?



The missing link of course between big business interest and lower-class virtue.





But let's not be hasty.



This is not an indictment of the idol - Ghostface, Bush. This is an exploration of how their bases, t-shirt purchasers or voting public, feel a connection to their fearless leaders.

1) Ghostface's style is beyond you middle-American_teenager or you big_city_blog-writing_free-magazine_party-going_twenty-something. A t-shirt is a far approximation.

2) G.W.B may look like you and talk like you and have been an alcoholic like you and loves Jesus like you but he is not like you. He is being used like you are being used. But he is wealthy. He fits an image and and his Party crowned him their leader. They threw the more qualified McCain under the bus in 2000. They'd do the same to you if they didn't need your vote.


So likes and dislikes turn out not to be issue based,

WMDs, stem cell research, war of terror

or even logical,

Voice be metal like Von Harper radio bubble
Murder sleep away camp, the fly lady champ
The arsonist, who burn with his pen regardless
Slaying all these earthlings and fake foreigners
In the Philippines, pick herbal beans, bubbling strings
Body chemical CREAM, we burn kerosene
The conviction of my tape is rape, wicked like Nixon
Long-heads inscriptions with three sixes in
Kiss the pyramid experiment with high explosive
I slapbox with Jesus, lick shots at Joseph
Zoomin like binoculars, the rap blacksmith
Money's Rolex, with sparkles, Chef ragtop is spotless
I'm Iron Man no cheap cash metal I'm steel alloy
True identity hidden inside secret tabloids

it's more of a feeling.



===============================================================

Junior year of high school I joined the debate team for a minute. I needed extra-curricular activities to appeal to the admissions boards, that sort of thing. Went to some practices and brain-storming sessions and stormed my way through two debates.



The third was derailed by someone's mother turned debate official. I made my points, rebutted the opponent,



it could not have been more clear, I thought



but the mother/officiator/moderator couldn't see me point



I like Bill the Butcher's character in Gangs of New York.

Newly-elected Irish Police Commissioner:

Mr. Cutting is attempting to draw me...into an argument... that would no doubt end in bloodshed...and the compromising of my office...What do you think? Shall I engage in silence, this relic of the ancient law...or, shall I be your chosen voice...in a new testament, in a new world? There you are, Bill. The people have spoken. The very notion of violent reprisal benumbs them. Come on up. Let's see if we can resolve our...grievances the democratic way.

Bill the Butcher, aptly responds by throwing a hatchet at the Commissioner:

That my friends, is the minority vote.

Later...

Tammany Hall:

You killed an elected official? Who elected him? You don't know what you've done to yourself.

Bill the Butcher:

I know your works. You're neither cold nor hot. So because you are luke warm...I will spew you out of my mouth. You can build your filthy world without me. I took the father, now I'll take the son. You tell young Vallon, I'm going to paint...Paradise square with his blood. Two coats!

I feel this futility in argument, this fury at being unable to get my point across, verbally (or bludgeon-ly) to convince anyone and everyone of just how correct I am, and I feel like, maybe I'm not the only one.





And that's pretty much the way I feel about it.

I want to end every one of my arguments, my debates and tirades with a fiery explosion. A pyrotechnic exclamation point, so as to leave no doubt that my argument has been tattooed across the skyline (and your forehead if necessary). No challenges, just a loud whistle and boom and some bright colors.

C'mon Got, Kanye is NOT alright. He's an arrogant poseur. He has no sense of humor. Yeah, he knows how to construct a catchy song and some of his lyrics can be pretty clever. But on the whole, his music isn't THAT good, certainly not enough to justify the amount of press coverage and acclaim that he receives.

Kanye is a clear example of the lowered expectations that are present in all levels of American culture. Mainstream music - along with books, TV and movies for that matter - are just so mediocre in the year 2006 that when someone like Kanye comes along and is merely decent, he is anointed as a superstar. His closest parallel is The Killers, another group of solid musicians who made a debut album that had about 8-10 pretty good songs. Apparently, that's enough to be considered one of America's best new artists. Recently, they just released their second album, which they are calling the best piece of music to be released in the last twenty years. They claim that it's "bringing music back?" What the fuck? And just like Kanye's second album, half of it is pretty good and the other half is downright unlistenable.

So Kanye hasn't earned the right to upstage his peers and inform the world of its collective inferiority to him. Not just yet. Jay-Z has that power if he wants it; so does Dave Chappelle or Edward Norton. If Dave Chappelle was enough of an asshole to jump up on stage as Adam Sandler won an award that should have been his, we'd have no choice but to watch him with grins on our faces in the silent understanding that Dave got screwed - even if he's not handling it all that well. But with Kanye? He needs to get off the stage and back into the studio to record that masterpiece that we've all been hearing about.

I started writing this as a comment, but it was getting too long, and we seem to be having a postage competition, so here we go... quantity, if not quality.



I think Kanye's songs are pretty decent. His beats are superior, in a jazzy, soulful, Pete Rock kind of way. And as far as his performance ... he's a straight diva.



He says ridiculous shit. Wears fur coats, aviator shades, diamond rings and leather pants. He's a showman.



It's his party and he'll cry if he wants to. That sort of thing. I kind of like it.

Award Shows are nonsensical,



it's not like Kanye is treading on sacred ground here.



So if Kanye West makes a wacky claim like:

"If I don't win, the awards show loses credibility."

or

"[My video] cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons. [I should have won the award]"

I don't feel that he is sacrileg(ing) some sacred institution. He's piling garbage upon garbage. He's throwing bad money after bad. And besides that he is earnest. Taking a cue from George W. Bush, whether you like Kanye or not, you can't really argue that he is lacking in faith and veracity. These men believe in things - seatbelts, Jesus, music video superiority, and the democratization of the Middle East. And despite sometimes lacking in the articulation, there is little double talk.



They shoot straight.




[[Speaking of Blood Diamonds. I thought the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio about diamond trading in Africa might be decent but the commercial/trailer has one excerpt that boasts:



"In the USA it's bling bling, over here its bling BLAM!!!"]]

Back to Mr. West... I wrote a term paper about him, to mixed, grade B- reviews, I've written posts about him, to somewhat better acclaim. I am almost fascinated by this guy.



His episode with Mike Myers during the Katrina Telethon cemented this. He might have been wrong about Bush and the federal government's hating of Black people. His rant might have been far-fetched, or offensive. But he believed what he was saying. He wasn’t trying to make the headlines, he wasn’t (at least during that appearance) from the school of all press is good press. He was nervous, nearly tearing up during the telethon. Other people were thinking what Kanye voiced. People were saying this in their homes from Queens to New Orleans. People said/say/will_say that Bush/Republicans/affluent_Whites do not care about Black people, minorities, that they continually exploit them and then fail to help them when in need. Right or wrong, accurate or not, this is how people talk. This is the dialogue that goes on just outside of the public sphere, inside the house. West believed what he was saying while on camera. It is impossible not to recognize - Bush, West, or otherwise - when someone truly believes what they are saying. Not John Kerry stumbling while awkwardly attempting his political stilt walk



- unable to tell joke or make anyone believe that he has a single belief - but true honesty, whether you agree or not. Bush is closer to this honesty, earnestness than Kerry, but then again, I would say, so is Bin Laden.

Kerry, Hussein and Puff Daddy in one camp ... Bush, Bin Laden and Kanye in the other.

Drafting teams for The Day of Reckoning game.



Anyway the Katrina Telethon shattered (awoke) numerous conventions of the time, place, medium Kanye was speaking/standing/living_in.

That's always valuable and respectable whether you are right or wrong. It made me think not only about if what he said might have had any truth in it, but also about why other people (celebrities, anyone in media) are virtually across the board - opinion-less tele-prompter-reading drones.





Anyway, Kanye is alright. And you might be too.

I stumbled on this a few weeks ago when i was clicking through IMDB (i love this site). "Atlas Shrugged" was written by Ayn Rand, one of the most vocal anti-communist writers of her time. I find it both humurous and ironic that Angelina Jolie is going to play Rand's strongest female character, from her most powerful novel.

This is not ironic because Jolie is a communist (i dont think she is, and prior to writing this i looked for references to it and couldnt find any). It is ironic because of her work with the UN, a political body that Ayn Rand would have found both disgusting and ammoral. Rand's Objectivist philosophy can be described as anti-charity. Or better put, not acting out of self interest is ammoral.

"Atlas Shrugged" is a great book, even if a little over the top (ok, a lot over the top). I encourage anyone to read it because it will help clue you in to why libertarians think the way they do, and what goes through their mind when they have to pay taxes to support things like welfare. Its a commitment though; if i remember correctly its about 1000 pages. I would also like to add that i think Jolie is going to do an excellent job playing her, and I cant wait to see the movie.

Classic. I love reading about this guy.

Just wondering.



COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Rap star Kanye West was named Best Hip Hop artist but still came off as a sore loser at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

Kanye apparently was so disappointed at not winning for Best Video that he crashed the stage Thursday in Copenhagen when the award was being presented to Justice and Simian for "We Are Your Friends."

In a tirade riddled with expletives, Kanye said he should have won the prize for his video "Touch The Sky," because it "cost a million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. I was jumping across canyons."

"If I don't win, the awards show loses credibility," Kanye said.

As disenfranchised as I feel with the Bush administration, they champion women rights more than you think. Its a wonder you dont hear more from women groups about the savage treatment towards females in the Muslim part of the world.

http://www.jpost.com

Say what you want about conservatives and abortion rights, the fact is that by spreading liberty women in Iraq and Afghanistan have more freedom now then thay ever had. And that is thanks to the Bush administration. Where are the feminist groups to thank Bush for liberating millions of women in the Middle East?

I am a huge fan of the show Lost on ABC. I think it is the second best show on TV, being slightly edged out by South Park. Now, even though this ranking is due to the slip in Fox's 24, I still never miss a weeks show.


ABC has announced that after next week's episode, they will delay the rest of the season until February 7th. 7 episodes into the 3rd season, they are going to delay for 3 months to air the next 16 episodes. This angers the hell out of me. Last season ABC consistently had 2 or 3 week breaks between new episodes, and didnt even announce if there would be a new one until that day. The reason they do this is clear: They hit the fall sweeps and the spring sweeps so their ratings can be high for both.

But for this tasty development:




I might have abandoned the show. But for some reason, these ABC producers get the hottest women. Even the annoying Australian chick is smoking.

This comes as no surprise to me. Michelle Malkin has got word that the MinuteMen speech at GeorgeTown has been interrupted by a fire alarm being pulled. Schocking. Really, I am at a loss for words here.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006256.htm

AHEM! MOONBAT! ahem...

"PALM BEACH, Florida (AP) -- Donald Trump's display of patriotism is apparently too flamboyant for this chic oceanside town.

Palm Beach officials cited Trump for hoisting a large American flag atop an 80-foot pole at his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate and club.

Town officials said the real estate mogul has violated zoning codes with a flagpole taller than 42 feet and for erecting it without a building permit and permission from the landmarks board.

Trump has until November 27 to apply for approvals or face a December 21 code enforcement hearing that could result in $250-a-day fines.

"You don't need a permit to put up the American flag," Trump said Tuesday. "The day you need a permit to put up the American flag, that will be a sad day for this country."

Lee Hanley, vice chairman of the town's landmarks commission, previously said the 15-by-25-foot flag makes the town look like "we have an Okeechobee car dealer," referring to a strip of auto dealerships along Okeechobee Boulevard in West Palm Beach.

Trump responded in a letter last week saying that "anyone who objects should not, in my opinion, hold a public office of any kind -- at least not in this country."

The flag first appeared outside the estate October 3."

-CNN

Cheney today in Montana:

Time and time again, we're seeing examples of Democratic Party leaders apparently having lost their perspective concerning the nature of the enemy we face, and the need to wage this fight aggressively. No sharper example can be found than the Democratic Party chairman himself, Howard Dean, who said the capture of Saddam Hussein didn't make America any safer. And maybe it should be no surprise that such a party would turn its back on a man like Senator Joe Lieberman, who has been an unapologetic supporter of the fight against terror.

Instead they highlight people like John Kerry, their presidential nominee in 2004. Aren’t we lucky he lost that election? You remember John Kerry – the senator who voted for the 87 billion dollars before he voted against it … the guy that was always lecturing us about “nuances.” He’s the one, you’ll recall, who last year said that American soldiers were “terrorizing … children” in Iraq. And just this week he took another swipe at the U. S. military. Here’s what he said, word for word. Quote: “You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” End quote. Well, apparently Senator Kerry’s the one who needs to be educated.

Of course, now Senator Kerry says he was just making a joke, and he botched it up. I guess we didn’t get the nuance. He was for the joke before he was against it.

As a leading Democratic senator, John Kerry needs to learn that the men and women serving in Iraq aren’t there because they didn’t study hard or do their homework. The all-volunteer force represents the very best of this country. They’re smart, patriotic, exceptionally well trained, and dedicated to their mission. They are heroes, and they are the pride of the United States of America.

Kerry says he was just calling Bush stupid. Its a sketchy excuse, given that it doesn't make a lick of sense: Bush got better grades than Kerry at Yale, and anyways Kerry voted for the same decision to go to war. In addition, it is a matter of historical record that Kerry started out in politics by slandering the troops that fought in Vietnam and has said things about the troops fighting now, including that they were "terrorizing children" (This guy was ALMOST PRESIDENT!).

Still, in this case I'd have to say that I don't know why yo but I believe him.