Saturday, July 19, 2008

Blog does not pay

Obamas on The New Yorker
Apparently, many people found the recent cover offensive. Come on, America. Let’s keep that satire bland! Don’t you know there’s a war on?

Another downside of the recession.
The American Journal of Medical Pathology reported that in one Alabama County seven thieves died of electrocution between 1991 and 2001.

In 2006, a New Mexico a man was electrocuted while trying to cut copper wiring from a live transformer.

In Dallas, a man cut into a live power line, knocking out power to thousands and ending his own life.

Just last week, in Garland Texas, the son of the guy who owns Bargain Town Variety and Furniture Store shot a copper thief dead on the roof of their store.

And so forth…

Downside redux
AP “Grave robbers, a curse of burial grounds for centuries, are back for new valuables: metal ornaments that can be melted down for quick cash as copper and other metal prices climb. In West Virginia, it was vases bolted to headstones. In Washington State, it was bronze markers on veterans' graves. In Chicago, it was nearly half a million dollars' worth of brass ornaments.”

And so forth…

Supreme Court ruling aftermath
USA TODAY op/ed: “Edwin Sotomayor is the crash-test dummy in an upcoming legal collision between the National Rifle Association and Disney World. The 36-year-old was fired last week from his job as an unarmed security guard at the Orlando theme park after he took his .45-caliber handgun to work, the Orlando Sentinel reported.”

Security guards with firearms at Disney World? Wow! Bring the kids!

No Dowd about it….
I was about to write something about this myself, but John McQuaid (Curse you, McQuaid!) at the Huffington Post beat me to it: “Not sure why I bother, but what is it about Maureen Dowd, Barack Obama, and food?”

He then begins to tick off items proving her obsession, from her columns:

July 13: He looked frustrated when Sasha revealed that "my dad doesn't like sweets" and that he preferred "minty gum" to bubble gum. She then began singsonging "Everybody should like ice cream" before pointing a finger at the person who doesn't: "Except Daddy!"

(Her Obama impression, ladies and gentlemen) May 21: "… I've made sacrifices in this campaign. While you've been fake-eating and losing weight, I've had to stuff myself with all that greasy working-class junk food and chase it with Boilermakers."

May 4: Checking out what the vets were drinking, he announced, "I'm going to have a Bud." Then, showing he's a smart guy who can learn and assimilate, he took big swigs from his beer can, a marked improvement on the delicate sip he took at a brewery in Bethlehem, Pa.

April 27: Hillary is not getting much sleep or exercise, and doesn't, like the ascetic Obama, abstain from junk food and coffee and get up at dawn to work out on the road...He dutifully enthused about carbs, assuring reporters that when he had dinner as a child with his Kansas grandparents, the food "would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana. A lot of pot roast, potatoes and Jell-O molds."

April 23: In the final days in Pennsylvania, he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles, pancakes, sausage and a Philly cheese steak. He split the pancakes with Michelle, left some of the waffle and sausage behind, and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak.

April 2: At the Wilbur chocolate shop in Lititz Monday, he spent most of his time skittering away from chocolate goodies, as though he were a starlet obsessing on a svelte waistline.

McQuaid concludes: “Of course, this is all meaningless nonsense having nothing to do with what Obama might do as president, how he might do it, or even whom he might hire as White House chef. But even on its own terms -- as an attempted insight into Obama's alleged finickiness or his supposed distance from the Applebee's set -- it doesn't make sense. A presidential candidate is apparently attempting to eat right while having a mix of fried road food and catered campaign meals shoved at him eight times a day. He should be hailed as a role model, not damned for failing to wolf down every last fry.”

I got this email today from Zimbabwe. Maybe you did too…
“I am Mrs. Susan Tsvangirai the wife of the Harare's ... Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai…. Now I and My Family Are In German Refugee Camp Near Harare.{Zimbabwe} In My Custody Is Part Of The Funds For Campaign And We Are In a Lost to Repartriate The Sum Of $52million Dollars which we were meant to be used for the election campaign Pending On When The International Community Will Arrange A Free And Fair Election by the next few months. May You Find This Intresting Please Contact Me Immediately So I can Let You Know How To Contact My Personal Aide To Help In Movement Of This Funds Outside Zimbabwe To Sierra-leone. To Asist Us We Shall Give You 2% of The Sum For All Your Help.”

Two per cent of $52 million is, like, more than a thousand dollars! And I’d be helping the people of Zimbabwe! All I have to do is give them the right bank information and that money will be deposited directly into my account. Finally, life is good again. But how did she know that I’m an expert in moving large sums of money over African frontiers? She must be psychic.

Wait a minute… Didn’t I read this story back in the early 1970’s?
Reuters: “Dozens of partygoers at an outdoor rave near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas, Russian health officials said on Monday.”

Crime pays!
Reuters: “Thieves are breaking into tea gardens in India's northeast and plucking leaves, damaging tea bushes and hurting the industry, planters said.

“The thieves are believed to be villagers in the tea-growing regions of Assam, famed for its strong malty brew, some of whom struggle to produce saleable tea in their small backyard tea gardens created as part of an employment scheme a decade ago.

“‘These thieves are now so desperate, they come with bows and arrows, and homemade firearms,’ said Rupesh Gowala, who leads a tea workers association.

“’They clash with our workers whenever they are stopped from stealing. Two of our workers were also killed by them recently.’…”

More from the Huffington Post: “Phil Gramm May Be Gone, But His Porn Lives On”
Max Blumenthal: “Gramm's journey into porn began in 1973, when his brother-in-law, George Caton, rushed to tell him about an exciting low-budget soft-core production called TRUCK STOP WOMEN. A promo poster for the film boasted of its buxom stars: "No Rig Was Too Big For Them To Handle." Caton, who was in charge of fundraising for the production, asked Gramm to become an investor. To entice his brother-in-law, Caton showed him scenes of Playboy Playmate of the year Claudia Jennings displaying her bare essentials (she is naked throughout much of the film).”

Now, wait a minute…. I have seen TRUCK STOP WOMEN. It’s no GATOR BAIT, or even THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE, but it is an excellent motion picture. And if Claudia Jennings had not died in 1973 (car accident), I have no doubt she would have become Queen of the B’s.

Except we don’t have B movies any more. We don’t have drive-ins any more. All we have are sanctimonious progressives and phlegmatic rightwing dickheads. And are they even funding porn any more? The media are strangely silent on this.

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