LINK CHANGE ALERT: LeatherPenguin Blog

The Movable Type iteration of LeatherPenguin Blog is up, running, and pretty much laid out in a not ugly manner. It will probably go through a bunch of cosmetic changes as I get comfortable with the MT system, but for all intents, this here URL is now a ghostblog or a place I refer back to sometimes.

If you have it on a blogroll or favorites list, make the appropriate changes.

Shelly Silver Sucks

I already loathe the imperial bastard, so this kind of thing doesn't surprise me at all. And he'll get away with it, because Albany in such a corrupt town that no one will consider this to be any more than the normal way of doing things.

Richard Clarke's Legacy of Miscalculation

Since everyone is going to be getting their knickers in a twist and start using this clown's grandstanding on 60 Minutes to shill his self-serving book, it would be helpful to blunt the storm the anti-Bush crowd is going to try to create to include things like this in the debate. It's over a year old, so it cannot be written off as an attempt at 'kill the messenger' spin. The guy sounds like he was a shmuck left over from the Clinton administration who Condi Rice demoted, and now he's looking to cash in and grasping for some revenge.

Gonna Be A Long Week in LeatherPenguin Land

I gotta get off my butt and get some projects done. I have to paint the jacuzzi room, clean the basement, learn Webworks Publisher for Word, finish stripping and staining the curio Ginny bought at a flea market last summer, and finally get the Movable Type changeover under way. The LP Publishing website will be stripped and rebuilt from the ground up; all the crap that nobody looks at anyway gets yanked and the message boards get blown up, for starters. ICTUSonline goes into mothballs until I can figure out how to incorporate it into the new MT interface. Or not. Maybe I just put a bullet in its brain.

I have till Friday to pull this all off, because then I begin ten days upstate at Alexander's Inn to babysit my buddy Alex's two monster dalmations (160 pounds each...these two don't chase the firetruck, they haul it to the fire). Alex is off to Germany for a week to visit his family--especially his grandkid, who he hasn't seen in years. None of his neighbors want anything to do with the dogs, so he called me.

"Everybody around here is afraid of the boys," he says.
"I don't blame them," I says. "They hunt deer, Alex. Most guys chase critters; your guys stalk 'em and kill 'em!"
"They're my babies."
"They're mutants, Alex. I'm bringing Bootz with me."
"Good," Alex says. "The boys like Bootzie."
"So do I," I say. "When your guys realize you're not around and turn on me he'll make it a fair fight. He can keep Boris busy while Boomer is kicking my ass."

Most people spend a week in the mountains getting mellow. I'll be trying to avoid getting mauled.

EU Panics, Arrests Reporter Looking into Corruption

From the folks who think they could teach America a thing or two about nuance, we get this:
Reporter following trail of corruption in EU arrested

"The police said I was lucky I wasn't in Burma or central Africa, where journalists get the real treatment," he added.

They were right, you poor sap. At least in either of those places, you would have known your ass was on the line, and expected your own government to have at least paid some lip service to protecting you if something like this had occurred.

Mr Tillack said the raid was triggered by a complaint from the EU's anti-fraud office, OLAF. He was accused of paying money to obtain a leaked OLAF dossier two years ago, which he denies. ... As the author of a recent book on EU corruption, he has the greatest archive of investigative files of any journalist working in Brussels.

And they are pouring through those files, looking for the people who are disgusted with what a thoroughly corrupt thing the EU has become and turned to you to get the word out. Whichever of your sources they haven't rounded up before this became public better get their asses on a train or a plane, pronto.

The Americans - by Gordon Sinclair

Next time some moron starts spouting off about what bastards Americans are compared to the rest of the world, take a printed copy of this essay, tell them who, when and why it was written, recite it to them, then cram it down their throat while whistling "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

"ID? We Don't Need No Steeenkin' ID!"

The Emperor Darth Misha I is angry. I mean, really, really, nuclear fiskerama time angry. And he's damn devastating when he's hardcore like this

Another Kerry 'Foreign Leader' endorsement...

...that is turning out to be useless, if not downright debilitating: Zapatero Rejects Kerry Call on Iraq Troops
Keep 'em coming, JFK! Your foreign friends, like this piece of work and those you're keeping under wraps are working better than any Republican attack ad at undermining credibility questions voters may have about your status on the world's stage.

The Belgravia Dispatch Fisks Josh Marshall

The Talking Points Memo Spinboy tries to prove that Bushie Richard Perle ignores the "facts." One problem, Josh. You're the one playing fast and loose with the facts, and Jonathan over at The Belgravia Dispatch nailed you on it. Next time you're going to try to spin something involving a politician's response to a poll, read the bloody thing first!

Bob Herbert Still Doesn't Get It

The NY Times' Bob Herbert throws a bit of the old hissy fit over Bloomie's smackdown of insubordination. He's carrying on like a little kid who just got told he's getting left back becuase he can't keep up.

"Mayoral control means mayoral control, thank you very much," said Mr. Bloomberg. It came across as a sneer.

No, it came across as the facts of life for the city's educational community. Bloomie's in charge, and he's serious. You get in his way and he'll bury you. He's staking his entire administration on pulling the city's school system out of the sewer it's been wallowing in for the last twenty or more years, and anyone who gets in his way is gonna get stomped.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

Towards the end; the New Yorker bit. Dead-on; had no idea what that mook was talking about, either. I've pretty much given up on the New Yorker, but the wife doesn't want to cancel the subscription because of the poetry and the arts reviews.

NYPress - MUGGER

NY's Best Regularly Scheduled Pundit.
(Of course, in approximately two weeks, when baseball starts to count, I'll be kicking his Red Sox loving ass every chance I get.)

AND THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS...

Bill Whittle returns with the first chapter of what seems to be an exploration of Where We Are and How We Got Here. His retelling of his late 90's dot.com experience begins the story and frames (what I'm guessing is) his thesis well:

I learned a lesson that night – many lessons in fact. And to all you conspiracy buffs out there, who see the dark machinations of the Leaders of Industry pulling Hidden Levers in Corporate Boardrooms. I say simply this: Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by Stupidity.

This is followed by three sentences that neatly summarizes the current political landscape:

There was a time, an age ago, where the differences between what we call the Left and the Right seemed more or less academic; maybe the distance from one high-rise tower to its twin – close enough to see the coffee mugs and family photos on the other side’s desk.

Then something happened.

Now we peer across a divide so wide that we can no longer see the other side; where the residents of the opposing camps as not seen as having a difference of opinion so much as being considered insane.

Whichever end of the political spectrum lights up your life, you really should
read Chapter One right now, and keep an eye out for what follows. It looks like it's gonna be one hell of a ride.
(Thanks for the HeadsUp, Emperor!)

Paging Mr. Jarvis! Mr. Jeff Jarvis?

WHAT HAPPENED? I thought Howard was going to be fed to the Right Wing Religious Nutbag Wolverines? I thought your "Free Speech" Poster Boy was going to get slapped silly? He got fined $27.5K What's that? His monthly limo bill?

You got took like a schnook, BuzzBoy. Drank the Kool-Aid. Howard played you like a DU loon with his conspiracy crap. But he got himself a whale of media/blogville pump-up at a time when he was sliding off the public's radar. Good work! And don't keep ragging that "larger issue" folderal. It was business, the whole thing, nothing but business.

BLIAR: The Tale of Jayson

I disagree with the second sentence. Jayson Blair was and is a no-talent hack who knew what butt to suck. He'd been faking it since his days on his college rag. But Sullivan will dress up the dressing down better than I will, so I'll let him blow the bandwidth on this loser bastard.

Microsoft and Europeans in Standoff

I have no love for Microsoft. I'm an original victim of Steve's Reality Distortion Field. But this wringer Gatesville is getting put through is bullshit. What the European Commission is threatening is nothing more than extortion.

I've got Windows machines here in my office alongside my Macs; everybody's got Quicktime and everybody's got RealOne Player installed. And the Macs have Media Player installed, just in case I run into something that gives Quicktime agita or I want to see how something I'm working on plays in that arena. Prying cash and proprietary code from Redmond under the ruse the E.U. is using is nothing more than mugging the rich kid in the schoolyard for some lunch money and part of his locker combination so it'll be easier for you to get into his stuff some time down the line.

Think of it this way: You go to buy a car. The salejerk shows you two models, one with a radio installed and one with a hole in the dashboard with some wires sticking out where you can install whatever tuner you like. You are not an automotive audio geek; you just want to hear your tunes and couldn't give a damn about the radio's brand. What model do you buy? (3..2..1..)

Exactly. This has nothing to do with protecting consumers. Consumers could care less as long as the product does what they want with a minimum of fuss. Me? I'd buy the car with the hole in the dash. One of the first things I did when I bought my first computer, an Apple 2C, was violate my warranty and start screwing around with insides. 128K of RAM would not do! I wanted a Meg!

Whatever Happened to the 'Digital Divide'?

It wasn't too long ago that we kept hearing that term. But this Nielsen/NetRatings survey pretty much puts a bullet in that meme's medulla. It doesn't say what number of people are using the Internet, just how many have access. And I think their count is actually lower than it could be, since almost anybody can go into their local public library and do some surfing.

Don't need to own a computer;
don't need an ISP.
Don't need much more
than an IE QuickStart Guide
and your own curiosity!

(courtesy of the LeatherPenguin SongStylings Scrapbook)

'Torching' Kerry? - Tomorrow's panic today

I was ready to go to town on Kerry's ridiculous--but nuanced--declaration, but I think I'll leave it to Mickey Kaus (The Republican Attack bit) to explain it.

WhackJob Update

Seems I asked my question a day too soon.
Courtney Love Arrested at NYC Nightspot

Worth Reading: The Right Coast

I've been dipping into this site more regularly. Rappaport's posts are especially good. They'll make the blogroll when I get around to finally getting my act together and bailing out of blogspot.

THE CHENEY TRANSCRIPT

As I noted yesterday, V.P. Dick Cheney unloaded on Sen. John Kerry yesterday in a speech delivered at the Ronald Reagan Library. An abridged transcript can be found here, the full transcript is where you'd expect it. A quickie search through GoogleNews shows it's already got some legs. I'm waiting to see how it gets treated by the Kerry Quick Response team, and the usual DU/Indymedia suspects, who consider Cheney just a hair below Ashcroft on their Evil-o-meter scales.

That Dean Endorsement is Working Well, JFK

It didn't take long for Kerry to realize the Dean Machine is Kervorkian at its core. You can't 'manage' a madhouse, Johnny. The Deaniacs still think you're Bush Lite, or worse. Shut the experiment down now...they'll cost you as many votes as they'll bring in.

Rumsfeld Hosts No-Holds-Barred Martial Arts Tournament At Remote Island Fortress

Via Frank J. from IMAO. The full report. The photo alone is worth the trip.

CHENEY COMES OUT WITH GUNS A-BLAZING

I'm watching him on FOX right now, and he is giving Kerry an ass-kicking. This is a transcript that is gonna be rehashed for at least a month. The only thing he hasn't done so far is call Kerry a cheap ass punk and challenge him to a knife fight in a Southie alley!

Quote For the Day/Prodi Award Nominee

www.AndrewSullivan.com

Yourish.com: Hell Bent

Meryl decides: "Like it's gonna hurt?"
The dancing dog is brilliant.

Spain Wasn't the First Election Swayed by Terrorists

Was gulping down the morning's first cup of coffee, listening to Curtis and Kuby talking about what other elections around the globe would be open to influence by Islamofascist's bombs. Curtis said something like, "now that they've shown it can work." Kuby replied, "For a second time. It got Bloomberg elected right here."

And he's right. Bloomberg was a stone loser until 9-11-01. But Rudy, who's opinion neared Beatitude in the following weeks, pointed at Bloomberg and Mark Green got stomped. Sure, Bloomie spent a ton of dough during that campaign, but he was toast before those planes changed everything. A lot of people forget that on Sept. 10th, 2001, Rudy was a lame duck, divisive mayor that the majority of the NYC voters just wanted to go away. He had gotten annoying and we were thankful for term limits. Within a month of 9-11, people were trying to figure out how to scrap the term limits law because both of the candidates scared the shit out of the reeling city. Rudy knighted Bloomberg as his successor, and the rest is history.

StrongBad's 100th E-Mail

He always cracks me up. Wait for the end! and find the easter eggs.

Why Is This WhackJob Still Loose?

If I pulled half of her stunts I'd be chilling on Riker's, waiting for a bus ride to Ossining.

Oh NO, It's the Politburo!

Somebody's gonna have to explain this one for me. Yo, Misha! Who am I supposed to go hammer? Prosecution or defense? Or just indiscriminate blasting at all parties involved? I just shoveled mine and my old coot neighbor's driveways and sidewalks...I feeling kinda cranky now that my fingers have thawed. (note to self: GLOVES, you moron!)

Rich Lowry on Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Remember this next time someone gives Franken a pot to piss in.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

From Tim Blair:HE CAN AFFORD IT. Where a certain New England Senator does backflips to endear himself to the pet lovers everywhere by telling tales that are either a)bullshit, or b)further proof the guy is a few fries shy of his Happy Meal.

BuzzMachine: RIP, John Seybold

He's the guy who coined WYSIWYG, which combined with my Apple 2C, Imagewriter, and I can't even remember the name of the software app (later adding my first Mac and Aldus Pagemaker), started this whole LeatherPenguin descent into InkStained Wretchedness and vainglorious self-employment as Head Honcho of my own publishing empire, which I've pretty much been allowing to fall into complete disarray these days.

Bloomie, Molinaro: "You Work For ME, Schmuck!"

When they threatened to disregard their bosses, three renegade apparatchicks got their heads lopped off. Good. And a lesson to the rest of you idiots involved in fixing NY's educational morass: You aren't running the show any more. Get with the program or you are gone! Bloomie means business.

Winds of Black Hate

Michelle over at A Small Victory says something I could never say without hurling invective in at least three different languages. There is no discussion when you try to engage these clowns in debate. It's Bush's fault, period. They'll say it's "all about oil" and when I show them the price of gas at the pump is going up, they're oblivious. But what can you expect from mooks who consider this piece of work a martyr to their cause.

French Sink To An All New Low

If these are the kinds of countries whose leaders are backing Kerry, I don't blame him for refusing to come clean on it. China, France Hold Naval Drills, Threaten Taiwan. C'mon Chirac. Just because you lost all those Iraqi petrodollars doesn't mean you have to turn into a crack whore to scrounge up business for your cronies.The funniest line in the article shows why the Chines Navy is not gonna be something to worry about for at least twenty years:

"Through this joint exercise, we hope to learn the French navy's combat training experience and combat thought," Ju was quoted as saying.

You don't know France's "combat thought," Mr. Commie destroyer captain? It's "Drop Drawers; Bend Over." Oh, and plumb their nautical minds for the best way to build boats that barely float.

Are We Supposed to Buy This?

According to Drudge, the pool reporter who started the whole "Foreign Leaders for Kerry" tempest is backpedaling, claiming he screwed up the transcript.

Cut the tape loose NOW, Healy. Not too many people are going to believe your story considering Kerry has never denied saying the original version; he just won't say who the "leaders" he was talking about are. You're offering him absolutely zero coverage with this late in the game mea culpa. And your explanation doesn't pass the LeatherPenguin smell test...I can't see how you can confuse the two words. One starts with an "F", the other an "M"...not even close, especially considering Kerry's monotone delivery.
UPDATE: Beat BlenderBoy again. It's getting easier every day.

Death to Europe and Middle East Despots!

With the results of the Spanish election fresh in his mind, the One Man Global Content Provider pulls something out of his archive from a year ago that still rings true. In other news--or not news if you're watching the Big Media outlets, Syria may be the next domino to go as these posts from Oubai over at FreeArabForum track the growing uprising against Bashar Assad and his Ba'athist bastards that seems to be gathering steam while everyone is preoccupied about what the Spanish elections will mean.

Screw Spain. This is more important. The US should gear up and cut the Iraqi Kurds loose to join their Syrian cousins, with American air cover paving the road for them. There's a slew of warbirds just sitting around out there these days; let 'em help the Kurds toss Assad & Co. out on their asses. Maybe we'll end up finding the WMDs buried in some Syrian spiderhole. I mean, they had to go somewhere.

And we owe the Kurds big time. Something like this will get us a trans-national allegiance with a tribe that has serious political ramifications in three or four other countries in that neck of the woods.

So Who Gets It Next?

Now that Spain's been bombed into submission, you know the bastards are scanning the horizon for the next tasty target. Poland's a no-go: Islamofascists would stick out too much, although being the Pope's hometown would make it appealing to a jihadist's heart. No, I'm betting here, and doubling down on Boston just ahead of convention time as the target. It's too damn fat a goose for them not to pluck. All those colleges, all those liberals...the bomber squads won't have to hide too hard; they can get day work speaking at the anti-war/anti-Bush rallies that'll be scattered around town while they get their logistics all squared away. And it won't be the Fleet Center that'll get lit up; it'll be something like Fanueill Hall or Fenway Park.

All over the blogosphere there's a slew of people weighing in on the results of the Madrid bombings influencing the Spanish elections. I've read a bunch of them, but Jeff Jarvis--who lately I've been raging at because of his tree-stump stupid Stern psychosis, nails my sentiments square on the head.

BTW, JJ BuzzBoy, when the hell are you going to feature actual Staten Islanders on the weblogs you're running at SILive.com? The closest thing to an actual breathing Staten Islander is the ridiculous "Island Girl," who sounds like a caricature created in your Jersey offices...nobody who lives here uses the Dump as a reference point. The Ferry is the most widely used local landmark, because many more people have actually seen it. If she is real, then you guys are truly Olympian in your disdain toward Staten Island by letting a dumb little yenta like her be the only local voice in the blogs.

Johnny Ramone: Rebel in a rebel's world

GABBA GABBA HEY!

Arianna Huffington: Six tips to get Kerry to White House

Take her advice, JFK da 3rd. I mean, really, follow her advice. I'll supply the manhole cover when your ass slides into the sewer.

New York Daily News - NHL's penalty shows punch

Sherry, you can kiss my ass when you pull yourself away from Bettman's. He and Colin are weasels. They are terrified to smack the crap out of a player who deserves it, and wait for the Vancouver DA to give them some cover for running the bastard out of the league. At minimum, he should have received a one year suspension and a huge fine that he had to pay, not the team. The Canucks should get their own financial beatdown for fomenting this. Bertuzzi should be beaten down, drawn, quartered and gone. The team, from the owners on down, should be made to pay. They helped put that kid in the hospital; they gotta be made to pay more than a lousy quarter mill.
Oh, BTW, here's the funniest sentence in the article:

Rangers enforcer Sandy McCarthy said that the NHL's suspension was sufficient.

"Rangers enforcer..."
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Biggest Oxymoronic Sentence Zuckerman's Tribe Can Buy!

NYU Won't Look at Reality

They want to blame the most recent flying farkup on the fact that she's not from NY? Look around, you dumb ducks...how many of your students are from the 5 boroughs?

Kerry fails to back up foreign 'endorsements'

Watch the false tongue fuck dance.

Oh, "Duh?" Like You Didn't See This Coming

Susan Lindauer's Work Record
BUSH KNEW!!! (oh, wait a minute...they all got "D" after their names....
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT ASSHAT BEHIND THE CURTAIN!

Cornell Daily Sun: College Kids Ain't So Dumb

Cornell Daily Sun: Just Say 'No' to the Cornell Fund
money:

So, to the class of 2004 and to the alumni of Cornell University, I ask you this: are you happy with the way Cornell pisses away money on flat panel monitors and our JCPenney logo? Do you think that leftist indoctrination should be the hallmark of a well-rounded education? Does it please you that underrepresented minorities accepted to the School of Arts & Sciences scored on average 200 points lower on the SATs than their Asian-American counterparts? Are you content with the fact that one of our new "professors" is a rambling lunatic of a failed politician who supports an apartheid regime? If so, then by all means, send in your $20.04 or even more if you're one of the few lucky students with job offers!

This is why I posted this. Either one alone would make a sane alumnus hurl; the two as a tag team....

Tim Blair: KERRY REELING

I'm too cranky to blog about anything of personal import other than sport. I'm too wrapped up in an inner rage to even talk to people face to face. And there's no animals in the family compound dumb enough to get within my kickin' zone. So read this.

EXTRA! BLOGGER GETS RESULTS

A win for the good guys.
Oh, That Liberal Media: EXTRA! BLOGGER GETS RESULTS
UPDATE: I beat PuppyBlender again. Jarvis is still a roaring ass. Nobody gives a shit.
(Me, holding sign: "Will load trucks for acknowledgment" Cars keeps trundling by....)

Is This the Democrats' most powerful weapon?

Well, who writes the checks?
George Soros - By Sebastian Mallaby

keep digging, mook
BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

BETTMANN'S A JOKE

He's Gotta Be Kidding
First off, to the punkass in question, Bertuzzi, who, in a weepy press conference declared:

"To the fans of hockey and the fans of Vancouver, to the kids that watch this game, I'm truly sorry. I don't play the game that way. I'm not a mean-spirited person."

Yes, asshole, you do play the game that way. We got video proof, you mealymouthed piece of shit. He was skating away from you and you corralled him and tried--not to send a message--but send him to sleep with the fishes. If whichever of his linemates hadn't jumped on you when you were grinding his head into the ice, you could have killed him. Cry all you want, but pray to whatever God you got that your jury isn't made up of people who know the game. Because they'll lock your ass up, same as baseball breathers are ready to hang Barry Bonds. You fucked with the game. You clowns come and go; the Game is what we give a shit about.

In the same Toronto Star article, the public representative of the immedancillaryliary victims--Moore's teammates and fans--the Denver Post weighs in:

"The league should ban Bertuzzi for life from any association with professional hockey, much as Major League Baseball did with Pete Rose for gambling, a far less serious offence."

What McSorley did, the incident everybody uses as comparison, was viscious and dumb, and it cost him his career. What Bertuzzi did was on a magnum level worse. Bertuzzi tried to turn a kid who had already received his payback for a LEGAL hard hit into a stain no Zamboni could clean up.

Now, Bettmann:

You pussy little bastard. You fine the team, but you let the coach take a walk. He's as guilty as Bertuzzi. Once the first period brawling had been concluded he should have declared Moore "off-limits" for retribution. You cannot fine the organization and leave the coach blameless. He represents the fucking team! The biggest reason the NHL is in the mess it is in facing the new CBA is that you are a gutless wonder who is afraid of both sides of the table when it comes to negotiations. You should be dragged out to some god-forsaken patch of ice and have your head used as the middle of a game of shinny.

LILEKS (James) The Bleat

OK. I admit it:

There surely is a God, and I wonder if He didn’t create this universe so it could lead up to the moment of absolute sublimity I am experiencing now. It’s not my surroundings that please, although they’re fine – the kitchen is clean, the dishwasher churning away, the flowers on the table still giving off a faint sweet scent. It’s not the knowledge that I can sleep an extra 15 minutes tomorrow morning and hence can watch some TV for the first time in five days when I’m done with this. It’s the three items to the left of my laptop: a small ration of Maker’s Mark, a wedge of Irish Cheddar Cheese, and some thin Italian meat derived from a pig. I’m not saying that the universe was designed solely to lead up to this moment of bliss, but I wouldn’t discount the idea right away.

I'm more times than not insanely envious of Jimbo's life.

Smoking ban scrapped after bar sales plummet

Wow! I'm Shocked!
People are going elsewhere when they're told they can no longer smoke in a bar? Who'd a thunk it? Oh, yeah, I remember who...anybody who ever ran a bar.
At least these folks watched the till and realized the mistake they had made before it put them out of business. Here in BloomBurg, Mayor Mike just brushes off the bar owners' howls as sour grapes while long-time neighborhood pubs shut their doors because of this asinine law.

Hey, Mikey! here's a bit of logical progression for you:
A: Lotto/Kino machines in nearly every tax generating bar.
B: Lotto/Kino machines generate invisible taxes for city, state.
C: AntiSmoking law drives people away from tax generating bars.
D: Tax generating bars lose customers; Lotto/Kino machines lose users.
E: City, state loses two tax streams.
F--- You, you stupid Nanny BigBucks mook.

What the Hell is Going On at NYU?

Four seemingly sane students decide pitching themselves over a rail is better than living while attending a school in the heart downtown Manhattan? And all of them kids; none old enough to even buy a beer. I think it's time academe stops bitching about the validity of SAT scores and starts demanding pysch profiles before accepting students, especially those who are going to be away from home for the first time.

WOO-(BUCKY DENT/AARON BOONE)-WHOO!

LET'S GET THIS ON!

"This is what baseball is all about," said A-Rod, who has hungered to be in the middle of such a battle.

Reminder to the new Bronx Zoo Crew: Bagging the Series would be nice, but beating the Beantown bastards so hard they're all screaming for a suicide shot is all we want this season. (for my market friends: go long on Pepto-Bismol futures...it's gonna move better than gold on the East Coast this season.)

Oh, and destroy the Mets after they've claimed Clemens' scalp. Give them a pass till they plant his ass. Pettite I still love...but I'll pay the bail when Rocket gets nailed.
Praise Mel Gibson! This season is gonna be so much fun!

THE MACHINE
It exists somewhere in my mind, on a plane too subtle, primitive and complex to fit within the constructs of Jeung or Freud.
The Machine is not anger or rage. It does not interfere with my intellectual capabilities. It does not preclude thought. It is not some form of shock, and does not cloud my mind; if anything, my cognitive abilities are heightened because the emotions are cut out of the loop. It is also not some adrenaline rush. Adrenaline will numb pain, and narrow awareness. The Machine does not do this. You still hurt, and you are very aware of your surroundings.
The Machine is a great and hideous strength. It is a place in the mind that seperates you from what you are doing, while leaving your mental faculties engaged and active. The Machine is unaffected by hunger, pain, or pity.
READ THE WHOLE THING

GO TO BOCA, BRESLIN
They forgot to put something back in place when the doctors diddled with your brain, Jimmy. You used to be the mouthpiece for the Average Joe. But now you're all rich and shit; pushed off the Devil for a few days more, so now shit like this constitutes the best you can do? How does Ronnie still let you write when your pissing all over yourself?

Cash out. Go to Boca. There is a reason you are no longer a columnist in the Big Leagues, but get to play at the edge of the game...people feel sorry for you. It's goddamn Newsday, Jimmy! A Long Island paper, fer chrissakes. You ain't New Yawk no more. You always run blind qoutes because you never leave your little cocoon and no one wants to admit that they talked to you. The new breed of hoods scared you into your Upper West Side hideaway fifteen years ago. Cantakerous is cute, but you wore out that suit. You used to be my pinnacle, Bres. Now be a good Snowbird and fly. One way ticket. Play a pony for me when you get there.

THE ANTI-ELITE HOTTIE
Laura Ingraham: Hollywood Heads in the Sand

PURSE OUT OF PIG'S EAR TIME
It's 3:00AM on March 6th, which means in a little more than 24 hours, I have to decide if I'm going to the Staten Island St. Patrick's Day Parade. It's a pretty good warm-up for the Big Show.

Among all the madness and strife that makes up my current day to day, this seems like a no-brainer. Partake in various libations; laugh at the amateurs who cannot keep pace. Ponder for a nano-second joining the march with the Hibernians whom I've duly provided my dues, and decide to demur when the reaction of my always accompanying Bootziedog to all that attention suddenly wells up and slaps me out of such thoughts.

Listening to Lehrer on WNYC/NPR while writing this is not conducive to coherence. Some snotty Frog is being interviewed who constantly refers to our President as "Bush Jr.," and pines for the relationship that Europe had with Clinton, and hopes it will be restored by the election of Kerry. Which has just made me kick one of the cats without looking to see which one it was. I hope it was not Tilly. She is pristine; the other two are evil.

Where is the Bootz when I need him to chase a cat? Oh, yeah, it's now 3:25AM. He's not dumb. He's sleeping on my side of the bed right now. Head's probably on my pillow. Evil Nazi Sheepherding traitor. I'll spend the money and get uncle to ship me one of those beast wolfhounds he raises to keep his greyhounds in check. (That'll teach the pup. New guy arrives: smallish. One month later: outweighs your puny ass!) Spoiled little bastard gets away with murder because he's Mommy's favorite. His brothers are banished to yard duty because they'll eat the cats when people are asleep. Never happen with Bootz.

The Frog is some high slot Le Monde moron. He's trying to make a case that France is necessary, both economically and politically, while he keeps dropping "cowboy" into his desciptions of American actions. His "opponent" in this triangular roundtable is an editor from the International Herald Tribune, which is the international edition of the New York Times, which means his drawers are around his ankles while he screams "free shot" to his Froggy friend. I've been holding off screaming and tossing the radio across the room because doing so would wake everything and everyone sleeping in the house and out, and I cannot face the cacaphony doing such would rain down on my ears.

NOTE: CONTINUE WHEN AWAKE. DON'T POST UNTIL 2+ COFFEES.

BEGGING FOR THE WHIRLWIND
Mike Lupica: This logic fails test
Lupica's dead-on: Orza's gotta go before he buries the players' union under an avalanche of public disgust and Congressional action that can ultimately cost big league ball their congressionally approved monopoly status. As The Lip puts it:

He really thinks he is John L. Lewis, even working with A-Rod and Jeter and Manny Ramirez. He thinks that an association with $252 million ballplayers and $190 million ballplayers and $160 million ballplayers, all free to make these huge individual deals, are steelworkers, or the Teamsters.

Jeez, the International Olympic Committee, no great bastion of ethical action, realized what steroids were doing to the public's perception of the Games and banned them. Even goddamn stakes horses get tested to make sure they aren't seeking chemical advantage! Being obstinant in the face of this furor is gonna mean asterisks being planted next to the names of McGwire, Bonds, and other players who have been battering the bejesus out of baseballs since the strike, rewriting the record book in the process.

All any disinterested party needs to do is look at those players' rookie cards and then look at them now; do the same to a player like A-Rod. Then tell that disinterested party that steroids had nothing to do with the newly manufactured muscleheads' performances. They'd laugh until they fell on the floor.

I'm a long time Friend of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Seeing those cheating bastards glorified in Cooperstown kills me. If any of them end up getting inducted before Pete Rose, I'll cancel my membership, because it'll mean that the Hall and the electors have accepted "Better Records Through Chemistry!" as part of their criteria. Pete Rose might have been an asshole, but he never cheated on the field. These guys did.

A.M. Rosenthal: Farewell
Good luck, Abe. I'll be looking for the book, and I hope the columns are not too few and far between.

RICHARD COHEN IN THE MoDo ZONE
This is the kind of stuff that just leaves me shaking my head at the lengths some pundits will stretch to make their point. Cohen's fever dream conversation with Cheney just makes it tougher to take Cohen seriously when he writes something serious. You want to make a point, Dick? Hit the morgue files and Nexis/Lexis; pull words out of Cheney's mouth instead of putting your own there.

KERRY: BUSH DIDN'T LIE!!!
So the reason Kerry says he was misled into voting for going into Iraq was that he never expected Bush to actually do what he said he would do? According to this, that was his story when he met with the S.F. Chronicle Editorial Board. What Bush said at the UN was "rhetorical," not something any savvy Beltway Boy believed to be the real deal.

So why should I believe anything Kerry says? According to this, bullshit is SOP for career DC.

OH, CANADA,
your bureucrats shame our lowly American pencil-pushing PC apparatchicks in their absolutely-nutso Barking Moonbat whackjob ability at crafting insanely retarded edicts.

CHESS IS RACIST?
I thought this was nuts when I saw it commented on in Taranto's Best of the Web (scroll to bottom), so I had to go take a look. It is a fairly ludicrous premise, as the comments accompanying the article seem to be trending. I hadn't heard of "The Algebra Project," which the article described as thus:

Moses and Ware came up with the basic concepts of The Algebra Project in 1969. Also around this time, Ware began formulating the plan of attacking racism in chess.

One problem: According to The Algebra Project's website:

The Algebra Project was born out of one parent's concern with the mathematics education of his children in the public schools of Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1982, Bob Moses was invited by Mary Lou Mehrling, his daughter's eighth grade teacher, to help several students with the study of algebra. Moses, who had taught secondary school mathematics in New York City and Tanzania, decided that an appropriate goal for those students was to have enough skills in algebra to qualify for honors math and science courses in high school. His success in producing the first students from the Open Program of the Martin Luther King School who passed the city-wide algebra examination and qualified for ninth grade honors geometry was a testament to his skill as a teacher.

Sounds like the article's author got punk'd.

SEE, YOU HIPPIE BASTARDS!
Check out my Morality! 53% liberal, 47% conservative

SO WHAT IF HE'S A RED SOX FREAK?
He still gets my vote as NYC's best regularly scheduled pundit.
NYPress - MUGGER - Russ Smith - Vol. 17, Iss. 9

Howard Stern - The shock jock in winter

He's a provocateur whose time has passed, a shock jock who shocks no one.

He's over; has been for years. He couldn't change his game and when push came to shove Clear Channel sent him into the abyss. He's racked up too many fines to justify his threat to their bottom line in the current clime. And he works for their main opposition in the broadcast wars. That he lasted as long as he did on their stations amazed me. Leno recognized a walking corpse and started tearing at the bones before it turned into dust.

SOME WELL EARNED RESPECT
It was the album that made me pick up a guitar (John Entwhistle's star turn on "Quadrophenia" made me trade it for a bass). I blew off this show because Deep Purple without Blackmore is as wrong as Led Zep without Jimmy Page. And after all these years "Made in Japan" is still the greatest live album any heavy metal act has ever released. When Blackmore smashes his guitar onto the stage and storms off during "Child in Time," then comes back with a new axe and just goes nuts, man...nobody else has ever matched that kind of ferocious.

I BE HE....

You are Rerun!

WHO THE HELL IS RERUN?
Which Peanuts Character are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Popcorn and Passion

BUZZBOY STILL SUCKING THE STERN-O
I think I'm gonna be forgetting about Jarvis for the foreseeable future. He's gone too far through the looking glass. His blind allegiance to the egomaniacal has-been is just too much. We've been through this already. (scroll, find: "hypocrit*")

Now he think's he's defending a juggernaut or something.

I predicted that Stern would end up going to satellite and he talked about it this morning. He said that if he went onto satellite, they'd sell 12 million receivers immediately; "they wouldn't be able to make them fast enough." It would change the entire radio industry, making broadcast stations worth a helluva lot less, he said, and he's right. Radio had no appointment programming until Stern came; if he goes to satellite, he will bring listeners and excitement and revenue with him.

Howard isn't going anywhere unless Mel Karmazin says so. Howard's under contract to Infinity/Viacom, and neither of the main satellite broadcasters has the money Stern would demand, or the balls to battle Mel, to bring Stern's act to their town. And Stern's audience are not all the mindless lemmings that you seem to devolve into when it comes to Howard's defence.

Radio had no appointment programming until Stern came;...

Oh, bullshit! Music fans turned the dial to their favorite DJ's station at the appointed hour ever since there were DJs. Whether the DJ was Jonathan Schwartz spinning Sinatra, Wolfman Jack howling at the moon or one of the Rambling Gamblings. I have followed Vin Scelza and his "Idiot's Delight" radio show all over the damn dial, but if Vinny goes satellite, he better offer an Internet stream or it 'sayonara, paisan!' Stern would only draw rabid acolytes like yourself to make such an investment in a three-four hour radio show.

Stern's supposed raw market power is an extremely overhyped meme. He maybe--MAYBE--had some good pull once upon a time, but that time is long gone. He didn't get Christie Whitman elected NJ governor in '95, anymore than Bob Grant took Mario Coumo down. His legions are not gonna storm Circuit City for satellite tuners just for him. They'll just crank the dial left or right and find the next guy.