Once Again, Hollywood Proves No Substitution For The Real Thing

Just one: What makes the people behind Swing Vote think they deserve to live? You want to see a real campaign ad? Let the McCain folks show you how it's done.




BAM! Picture perfect folks, blast fax kudos all around. Stoking subliminal racist fears? Check. Using celebrity as a stand in for "spoiled, vacuous twat"? Check. Painting your opponent as out of touch because he won't support your non-sensical positions? Double check. I'm gonna sleep through the rest of this election, wake me up when John McCain wins or Kevin Costner dies in a fiery plane crash.

(Nervous Laughter)

Please America, don't elect a man who apparently can't discuss birth control with a reporter from Time magazine.

Q: Earlier this week Carly Fiorina was meeting with a bunch of reporters and talked about it being unfair that insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control. And -

McCain: I certainly do not want to discuss that issue. (uneasy laughter)

Q: But apparently you’ve voted against (McCain laughter continues)

McCain: I don’t know what I voted -

Q: Voted against coverage of birth control, forcing health insurance companies to cover birth control in the past. Is that still your position?

McCain: I’ll look at my voting record on it, but I have, uh, (5 second pause) , I don’t recall the vote right now. But I’ll be glad to look at it and get back to you as to why, I don’t -

Q: I guess her statement was that it was unfair that health insurance companies cover Viagra but not birth control. Do you have an opinion on that?

McCain: (after 8 second pause) I don’t know enough about it to give you an informed answer because I don’t recall the vote, I’ve cast thousands of votes in the Senate. I will respond to - it’s a, it’s a (nervous)

Q: Delicate issue (McCain laughs).

McCain: It’s something that I had not thought much about and I did hear about her response but I hadn’t thought much. But I will get, I will get back to you today on it.

Q: Ok

McCain: I don’t usually duck an issue, but I’m, I’ll try to get back to you.

Alternet has more on what McCain voted on the issue, but I don't care how old you are, I'm still flabbergasted a guy who wants to be president responds to Viagra and birth control with nervous laughter.

Beatin' Yer MEaton

This is a post I have waited to write since the advent of this blog, but first, I had to sit through six starts by Adam Eaton, grinning buffoon of defeat, a 6'2" totem of everything that I hated to watch during a baseball game. Namely, some journeyman sonofabitch, short on talent and long on having a career ERA+ of 88 (88!) baffle the Mets over and over and over again. Not that I am alone in this feeling. Other baseball fans have dealt with this before, and I'm sure everyone whose favorite team was beaten by the Satan-aided Aaron Small in 2005 pondered giving up on the game entirely. Still though, this was Adam fucking Eaton we were talking about here, not Greg Maddux or even Mike Maddux.

Yet somehow, in 9 career starts against the Mets, Adam Eaton compiled a 5-0 record with a 3.29 ERA. He struck out 36 and walked only 17 in 54 2/3 innings. Every other team he faced at least that many times took him to the cleaners, except for the Dodgers, but fuck them. It wasn't even that the Mets have lost every game Eaton started against them. It's just that they never seemed to jump on him the way they should, and even when they did, things still seemed to go awry.

Last year, Adam Eaton was 2-0 with a 3.86 ERA against the Mets. His ERA for the year was 6.29. He gave up 30 home runs. So every time I sat down in front of the TV and heard Gary Cohen telling me about the Mets' trouble with Eaton, I always figured this was the game they'd get over it, and I could write a triumphant post crowing about overcoming one's demons, and so forth.

I'd mostly given up on that, so I missed actually watching the first couple innings while I was busy trying to make sure dinner didn't become a total wreck doing something manly. I heard it from the TV, but I barely believed it. There were the Mets, stomping on Eaton like so many child muggers on an unfortunate gentrifier. I watched for a few innings then figured, even at 10-5, this was going to end a laugher, so I turned it off and started reading Watchmen, which, in retrospect seemed like a great idea. If I had kept watching, I would see things keep going awry, but for once, not completely over the cliff.

Maybe now that the Mets have finally tagged Eaton with that mythical "L", I'll be a little more calm regarding baseball's vagaries and about how sometimes a guy who I only think is good as a punchline can dominate my favorite team. When he spins his next 7 inning, 2 hit performance I'll just chalk it up to a good night for him instead of some curse. Somehow, I just don't see that in my future. I do however, see more triumphant blogging.

Politics as Football Alert

This could get (rhetorically) ugly:

NEW YORK (AP) — In a break with tradition, Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination at Invesco Field at Mile High, a 76,000-seat stadium, rather than at the site of the party's national convention across town.

I swear to the God I don't believe in that if Barack Obama uses his nomination speech at Invesco Field to talk about being the field general or the quarterback for the Democratic Party, or talks of scoring touchdowns and blowing the Republicans out, I will not vote for him.

On a lighter note, the AP also provides us with a little bit of trivia:

Separately, one official confirmed that Obama's aides were attempting to arrange a speech at a second dramatic venue: Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, part of Obama's July trip to Europe and the Middle East.

The Gate was the site of one of Ronald Reagan's most memorable speeches. On a trip in July 1987, Reagan stood before throngs of West Berliners and implored then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall dividing the city. The wall is no longer there.

Thanks, AP!

John McCain For President...

of Candy Land. So, we all remember John McCain's awesome "I Will Fix The Whole World and Bring Tupac and Biggie Back From the Dead and Make Them Shake Hands and End the Beef" speech, right? I think that's what it was called anyway. Well, Talking Points Memo asked his campaign how he was going to follow through on his recent not at all insane pledge to balance the budget in his first term. McCain's camp responded to them with forehead slap worthy talking point:

It's pretty straightforward, as we win, costs will go down with a smaller footprint over time, and those savings will go to deficit reduction. It's really the logical extension of Senator McCain's position as articulated in the 2013 speech. Achieving success in Iraq would obviously lead to reduced expenditures on the effort.

Onward to victory!

Some people might tell you this is proof that John McCain is a delusional old coot and that he's displaying the exact kind of attitude expected us to be greeted as liberators in Baghdad. I think he's just doing this to cover up for the fact that he's on record as praising the ugliest fucking shoes to ever exist.

Dude Ain't Even Trying Anymore

The two narratives of the Bush II presidency put forth by his detractors have been of Bush as the evil Nazi aggressor in full control of his faculties as he pushes the New World Order further to the forefront or Bush as a Judd Apatow-penned manchild just stumbling through the most powerful job in the world, manipulated by his evil advisers. Well, score one more point for the Apatow-penned manchild. From The Times:

TOYAKO, Japan — President George W. Bush looked into the eyes of Russia’s new president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, on Monday and saw, he said, “a smart guy.”

The two presidents spent more than an hour together here in their first face-to-face meeting since Mr. Medvedev succeeded Vladimir V Putin. Afterward, they said they had agreed on the need for Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions, but did not bridge their differences on Mr. Bush’s proposal to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

“I found him to be a smart guy who understood the issues very well,” Mr. Bush said.

Here's what Medvedev thinks about America, and by extension, George Bush:

MOSCOW — Russia’s new president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, less swaggering than his predecessor but as touchy about criticism from abroad, said in an interview that an America in “essentially a depression” was in no position to lecture other countries on how to conduct their affairs.

...

In the interview, Mr. Medvedev was asked about a call by Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to bar Russia from the Group of 8 because of its record on democracy. Mr. Medvedev, who easily won Russia’s presidential election in March after the Kremlin hobbled the opposition, responded that the question of democracy was irrelevant to the Group of 8 and, besides, the United States had more pressing matters to attend to.

“The Group of 8 exists not because someone likes or dislikes it, but because objectively, they are the biggest world economies and the most serious players from the foreign policy point of view,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Any attempts to put restrictions on anyone in this capacity will damage the entire world order.”

He added, “I am sure that any administration of the United States of America, if it wishes to succeed, among other things, in overcoming essentially a depression that exists in the American economic market, must conduct a pragmatic policy inside the country and abroad.”

Mr. Medvedev said world leaders should realize that the credit crunch and a gathering global recession signaled that the worldwide economic architecture needed to be overhauled. He did not specify how this should be done, but indicated it should entail a reduction in the influence of the United States.

“It has to be improved, it has to be more up-to-date, better protected from risks, and it must not suffer from national egoism, financial and economic egoism, but must be more fair toward other countries; this is absolutely evident,” he said. “This system cannot be oriented toward only one country and only one currency.”

Of course, face to face, Medvedev shared in the lovefest:

The two had met before, when Mr. Medvedev was a top adviser to Mr. Putin. On Monday, they seemed somewhat familiar; Mr. Medvedev repeatedly referred to Mr. Bush, who celebrated his 62nd birthday here on Sunday, as George, as in: “I congratulated George on his birthday, which is also a very important thing, irrespective of summits out there — irrespective of our will, these dates occur in our life.”

To which Mr. Bush succinctly replied: “Everybody has a birthday.”

Everyone, eh George? Even...OSAMA BIN LADEN??? Just where does George Bush stand on terrorist birthdays?

Lenny Kravitz Has Fallen Farther Than You Think

Maureen Dowd wrote a stupid column today, mostly using someone else's words. So not only was it asinine, it was lazy. Ah well, 4th of July hangover and all that. But what stands out for me in the column is the first couple paragraphs showing that she's hip to what's going on:

This weekend, we celebrate our great American pastime: messy celebrity divorces.

There’s the Christie Brinkley/Peter Cook fireworks on Long Island and the Madonna/Guy Ritchie/A-Rod Roman candle in New York.

Uh...hello, what about the other guy in the Rodriguez family saga? I mean, I hate Lenny Kravitz, and I'm sure anyone who reads this does too. But are you telling me he's such a non-entity these days that even Maureen Dowd is dissing him?

Happy 4th of July!

Freedom loving, Republic supporting, capitalists who happen to be white, patriotic, and nationalistic get misrepresented constantly by liberals and white and non-white alike.

We get slandered as nazis who are national socialists seeking revolution when we certainly are not.

The root of this misrepresentation is hate, fear, confusion, and ignorance. Pretty much everything the Democrats are today when it comes to white non-Democrats.

Posted by Unemployed WASP at 8:50 PM on July 3

Damn I'm Good

"Man, Nancy Grace and Greta van Susteren are just loving their lives right about now, don't you think?"
-Pulp, July 1, 2008

I don't even need to watch missing white woman news to know that it's going on. I think that qualifies as a super power. This interview Greta van Susteren conducted with Brooke Bennett's father happened before the feds found her body and allegation of a child sex ring came in to play, so I'm going to try to catch Fox and CNN in the next couple days to see how hysterical they are.

Of course Fox, ever eager to play both sides of a story, uses the most sexualized picture of a 12-year-old girl they can find. I don't know, something seems wrong with picking the picture of the girl in eyeshadow and consciously trying to appear older when you can use a picture that screams she's 12.

Glen Sather Is A Cocksucker

Hockey has always been the sport that makes me most emotional. Maybe it's the non-stop aspect of it, maybe it's the violence, maybe it's the difficulty in scoring in it. So sometimes when I see bad news relating to the Rangers, I can fly off the handle. I'm not going to subject you to some hackneyed bullshit like cursing a lot and using all caps, but just know that with the news that Sean Avery will be taking his act to the Western Conference fills me with a bilious rage, especially after reading this Gawker item about him telling a blogger he was going to be jerking off to her that night and then texting her to let her know it was going well.

Avery wasn't going to score 50 goals or come near to recording even 60 points this year, or at anytime in the life of his contract. He was, however, the spark this team always seems to need because they're all a bunch of soft Europeans. For all the talk that he was a distraction in the locker room, the team performed much better with him than without him, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the Rangers' hot streak at the end of the 2006-07 season came when he got added to the mix.

So Glen, you rotten fucking punk, what's next? You already sewed the seeds to fuck this up last year during that awful arbitration session, you couldn't ink Avey to an extension when you had exclusive rights to negotiate with him, you couldn't land Marian Hossa or even Ryan Malone. If it really is going to be the Jagr/Sundin show, we better make sure the games get out on time to catch the early bird special. And let's not forget the awesome six year deal(!) for a guy who's 31(!). I am so angry. I hope Glen Sather falls down the stairs tonight.

And somehow, as if someone in Bristol wants to make me punch the TV, the Sox/Rays game has been interrupted by a commercial break in the middle of the inning for the second straight inning.

America! Fuck Yeah!

America might not be number one in literacy, infant mortality, worker's rights, overall happiness, health care or quality webcomics, but the next time some faggoty foreigner turns his nose up at our homeland, you tell him you'll kick his monkey ass just as soon as you're done blowing this line.

WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) - The United States leads the world in rates of experimenting with marijuana and cocaine despite strict drug laws, World Health Organization researchers said on Tuesday.

Countries with looser drug laws have lower rates of abuse, the researchers report in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

The survey of 54,000 people in 17 countries found that 16 percent of people in the United States had used cocaine in their lifetimes -- far higher than the next highest rate, found in New Zealand, where 4.3 percent of people reported having used cocaine.

More than 42 percent of Americans admitted to having tried cannabis, closely followed by 41 percent in New Zealand, Dr. Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and an international team of colleagues found.

...

"These findings add to our understanding of substance abuse world-wide, and suggest that drug use is still a major problem in this country, pointing to the need for more effective prevention interventions," U.S. National Institutes of Health director Dr. Elias Zerhouni added in a statement.

Or, does it suggest drug abuse is awesome and only Americans realize it?

Good News For Fans Of Murder And Mayhem

Bad news for Newscorp's MySpace can still be good news for Newscorp's Fox News. Funny how that works.

As the FBI joined the search for a missing 12-year-old Vermont girl, state police on Friday released a surveillance video believed to show footage of one of the last glimses of Brooke Bennett before her disappearance.

State troopers had previously refrained from publicizing the footage from a security camera inside the Cumberland Farms store, where Brooke said she was meeting a female friend.

The tape shows the girl and her uncle walk into the shop, go to the register to buy something and then leave, each going in separate directions, with Brooke apparently walking away by herself.

She was seen about 45 minutes later inside the Randolph Village Laundromat, police said.

...

A major focus of the investigation was centered on her online activities.

"As we all know, warnings have gone out countless times, in this world that we live in today, there are folks that visit places, social networking spaces such as MySpace, whose intentions are not good. And they come from far away," said Baker.

Police want to hear from anyone who was in Randolph on Wednesday between 9:45 a.m. and 11 a.m., even if they don't think they saw anything, Baker said.

The girl was reported missing around 9 p.m. Wednesday after her uncle dropped her off at a convenience store about 12 hours earlier in Randolph, where she'd said she was going to meet a girlfriend to visit the friend's sick relative in the hospital.

But police believe that Brooke fibbed and may have been bound for a meeting with an unknown person whom she'd been communicating with on the social networking site MySpace.com.

Wait, since when is "fibbed" an acceptable word to use in news stories? In other white girl news, the Zodiac Killer is back (probably not)!

A symbol similar to one often left by the nefarious Zodiac killer of the 1960s was scrawled in lipstick on a mirror in the North Carolina hotel room where Army Spc. Megan Touma was found June 21, police said.

A letter sent to a local newspaper and published last week also contained the symbol, a circle with a cross through it.

"I will start using my role-model's signature," writes the author of the letter, which was posted on the Web site of the Fayetteville Observer.

...

Police questioned the letter's credibility, and believe the author's claim of being a serial killer was an attempt to mislead investigators and the media.

Man, Nancy Grace and Greta van Susteren are just loving their lives right about now, don't you think?

From The Dept. Of Who Gives A Fuck

My package of non-name brand bacon proudly notes that it contains zero grams of carbs and is trans fat free. Well thank God for that.