Brain Food

Watch this several times and I swear you'll be smarter. If you disagree with the President's position on health care premiums, it will still give you food for thought.

Chickenshit on a Pump Handle

Did I hear someone heckle the President of the United States? It was more than enough to see the entrenched Republican Rich Pimps sitting their wife-cheating hypocritical self-serving fear-mongering asses down on anything the President pointed out would help the Un-Rich, but then to have a member of those hallowed halls from the Republican side of the aisle disdainfully call out opposition? I don't even need to go back and see if Bush/Clinton/Bush/Reagan/Carter/Ford/Nixon/Johnson/Kennedy/Eisenhower (my lifetime) had to face that. It wouldn't be right for any of those men and it isn't right now.

It's as useless and insulting as chickenshit on a pump handle.

UPDATE: It was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) who yelled out to the President "You lie." He called the President a liar in the Congressional Hall on national television (except for Fox). He has since apologized but... He called the President a LIAR.

UPDATE II: Reaction to outburst. Nancy's hairy eyeball is priceless.

Happy and Safe 4th of July

Come near dark, my neighborhood is going to be raucous with the sound of illegal fireworks. I'm going to a friend's for pot-luck BBQ. Everyone be safe.

Anyway, this is far and away my favorite rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Kelly leads it off, Michelle holds her part, and Beyonce's mom didn't dress her. Oh, and goosebumps at the arrangement. The Supremes song-sigh near the end is so old-school.

Happy 4th!

All Your Answers Are Belonging To Me

The best part of this video...the very best...is the blow-dry journalist asking Pres. Obama if he was influenced at all in his response in this press conference by John McCain and Lindsey Graham whining that Obama was weak.

This is a great compendium of how a public official is supposed to behave. They try to flat-foot him but he's just not having it. And watch the journalist who is annoyed by getting called on his foolishness. Obama gracefully calls it bullshit, yet answers his question nonetheless.

This Is How It's Done

Shirley Bassey is 68 and still showing how it's done.

History Repeating
by RavenTV

H/T Crooks & Liars Late Night Music Club

Truer Words? Never Spoken

The dependably astute young Adam Serwer neatly points out the obvious about the meme du jour that Obama is tackling too much.

A word to the wise for those who think this line of argument will actually succeed at curbing Obama's ambitions: A black man who just got elected president of the United States is not going to be daunted by a bunch of talking heads telling him what he will or will not be able to do.

Does anyone actually think that President Obama would abbreviate his aspirations because beltway pundits think he should?  And as far as journalists go, they have become sheep, harmoniously bleating the new idea.  They are lazy and static and uninterested in real stories.

Wonderful Rest

Here's my bit of bigotry.  I think anyone who doesn't get some spirit moving in them when they hear a good gospel choir is in league with Satan.  By the end of this video, I was boo-hooing with joy for a good 5 minutes.

H/t Jack and Jill.

Feeling Big Now, Little Men?

This made me want to vomit.

H/t Smooth Like Remy from SeattlePI.

Here.  Watch it again.  Throw up.  Then watch what happens after they remove this young lady from her cell.  Perhaps a longer form will put it in context.

I get that policemen have a hard job, but if you can't do it professionally, it's not a field you should be in.  And you know what?  This mouthy young girl at least got to live.

Oscar Grant did not.  Do not watch if watching a young man face down on the pavement being subdued by several officers getting shot in the back upsets you.

I wish I could be more eloquent, but these two incidents just make me sick.

President's Address to the House and Senate

UPDATE:  I found and cropped this from Hulu.com.  It won't automatically play.

BSG

I'm watching Battlestar Galactica from the beginning.  I'm halfway through Season 3.  I forgot what a raging bitch Starbuck is.

Alan Brings The Nutty

Keyes is, like, 2 seconds from calling President Obama the anti-Christ.  I especially like his "Laugh, fools, laugh" line when the people off camera can't hold their giggles at the crazy.  It's sad, though, too.

Panama Canal Locks

This is so cool.  I was intrigued by the Locks when I learned about them in, what...grade school?  Wikipedia here.  H/t Andrew.

Love

Though I often wonder if I've just been single too long and heartbroken too many times and heartbreaker too many times and too uncomfortable with beings other than my poor dead cats (*sniff*) around me all the time and too selfish and too available and too thin-skinned and too cynical and too naive to ever have love, this video makes me kind of want it.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

It would be nice if you signed this petition and help some people have what I'm too chicken to have.

Dollhouse

Anybody that knows me knows that I am ALL ABOUT BUFFY.  Here's the story.

I completely ignored Buffy when broadcast.  Why would I want to watch some little white girl named Buffy no less, for an hour out of my life?  Please.  I'll pass.  I ignored it for 5 years.

Then...

I was home sick as a dog on, like, Thanksgiving or New Years Day or somesuch, and FX ran a marathon.  They didn't just run a regular marathon.  Apparently fans picked the episodes to air and the order.  I caught the two parter inaugural episodes of of Season 1 -- Welcome to the Hellmouth and The Harvest.

There is a scene in The Harvest.  Jesse, geeky friend to geeky friends Xander and Willow, has been turned into a vampire.  He's at the Bronze (local teen club), stalking Cordelia, the uber-popular girl bitch who in the past had been downright cruel in spurning his advances.  Vampire Jesse watches her dancing and when a slow song comes on, he walks over, takes her hand and starts dancing.  Unaware that Jesse is a vampire or indeed that vampires exist, Cordelia reverts to mean girl mode and says "Hello, Caveman Brain...." and continues to whine abuse at him.  He fixes his deep vampire sex eyes on her and says "Shut up," and Cordelia melts and says "Okay.  One dance."

I laughed my ass off and was hooked.  Despite my awful illness, I think I stayed up 24 hours watching every episode they broadcast.  I felt like the universe had let me down.  Why didn't anyone tell me Buffy the Vampire Slayer was like this:  well written tight as a drum story telling with suspense, humor and heartbreak.  I felt really cheated and kind of ashamed of myself that I judged the show so harshly based on the title and what I thought it was.  Bad.  Bad me.

The finale to Season 5, entitled "The Gift" is, in my opinion, the best hour ever written for television.  Watching each time, I whisper to myself "That's the bravest thing I have ever seen."

I gobbled up all things Buffy.  I descended into deep nerdy geekdom and started writing for a fictional role playing website (now defunct) called LA By Night, which based its environment on the Buffyverse but in which you designed and wrote your own characters.  The character I designed was a 200 year old vampire named Parasol.  Hmmm.  Maybe I'll revive her on an alternative blog.  She was a good character.

I wore my zombie cult follower badge proudly.  I proselytized about Buffy every chance I got, bringing several members into the fold.  I went to comic cons.  I paid big money to go to the John Kerry fundraiser creator Joss Whedon threw where I talked to him for, oh, 35 seconds and walked away renewed.  I got tix to the broadcast of the last episode at the Hollywood Athletic Club with about 1500 of my fellow zombie cult followers.  I found I liked my fellow zombie cult followers tremendously  -- conversations with those who shared my obsession were long, deep, thoughtful and bonding.  I bought books, magazines, action figures (yes, action figures that are STILL in the original packaging, you Philistines).  No.  I am not ashamed.

Every year, I hold a 10 day marathon of the entire series which, of course, I have on DVD.  Each year, I learn and see something new about the Buffyverse and myself.  What I perhaps glossed over last year when I watched, now has meaning and substance this year because of where I am in my life...even at 52.  No.  No.  I am not ashamed.

The creator of Buffy is Joss Whedon who, if you're going by me, is a god walking amongst us.  He can write the hell out of a scene and he gets women.  He gets how women relate to men.  He gets how women can't relate to men.  He gets how strong women are naturally.  He gets that women are no less human than men.  He gets me.  How do I know?  Because I cannot count the times I've been watching Buffy weeping bitter salty tears on my couch going "Yeah, Buffy girl.  I know.  I know.  I know."  And Joss wrote and created that.  He is brilliant and I throw the gauntlet at the feet of anyone who says otherwise in my presence.  No.  No.  No.  I am not ashamed.

(Here is an interview with Joss at Salon.)

He has a new series on Fox called Dollhouse, starring Eliza Dushku who played my favorite character in Buffy -- evil slayer Faith.  It premiers Friday.  Because I promised tribute to whatever entity governs television marketing, Hulu will have it up the next day.

I'll be stalking Hulu at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Stating The Obvious: Is The GOP Tanking The Stimulus For Political Gain?

From Brian Beutler (pronounced Boyt-ler), the young man who was shot by a mugger last summer in DC regarding Republican obstructionism to the stimulus bill.  Playing off of John Cole's post about the purpose of partisanship re the bill:

...If you understand that the core of the Republican party loves nothing more than doing big business' bidding (and I'm sure they'd love to be helping big business right now) then you have to conclude that their current actions are intended to deepen the depression so that the Democratic party fails.

Basically what's happening is that Republicans are looking ahead to November 2010 and November 2012, while big businesses are looking ahead to their coming quarterly SEC filings, and that's bringing the GOP's two chief purposes into tension with each other. My guess is that if Mitch McConnell sat down with the good folks of the Chamber of Commerce, he'd try to convince them to eat big losses now in order to enjoy major perks when Democrats lose power. But that's a Devil's arithmetic that even big business can't countenance. Self-preservation has become the Republican party's only rudder.

Is the Republican Party that craven?  Is being in power so important to the party that they would tank the American public for 2-4 years to achieve it?  Or are Cole and Beutler just cynical?

Hmm.  The House vote on the bill was telling.  Eleven Democrats opposed the bill.  Not one Republican voted for it.  Not one.

Upshot?  I don't think Cole and Beutler are cynical.

Note to self:  Come ON, you lazy hussy.  Will you please write something about the difference between Republican and conservative.

Off topic:  Here is a good discussion between Beutler and Ta-Nahisi Coates in which they discuss Beutler's shooting.