Monday, August 31, 2009

Profiles in Consistency


Well, during war a month is a long time...

"The President does not describe this as a 'war on terrorism'."

- John Brennan, Chief of White House Office of Homeland Security
8/6/2009

"You can't under-resource the most important part of our war on terror."

- Robert Gibbs, White House Press Secretary
8/31/2009

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Americathon


Okay, this movie was made in 1979. Though I remember seeing it, I don't recall any details except it being pretty cheesy (saying a lot since I was 12 at the time). It was probably more than somewhat lame. After all, it starred John Ritter as the President of the United States of America.

The rest of the cast included Harvey Korman (as a cross-dressing TV star), Peter Reigert (better known as "Boon" from Animal House), Fred Willard (please comment if you know of ANY good movie he was ever in), Jay Leno (this guy's been around forever!), Meatloaf, Elvis Costello, Howard Hessman, and George Carlin (as the narrator).

Americathon was set in 1998. And incredibly, if not entirely on schedule, many of its predictions of future world affairs came true. These include:
  • America is deeply in debt to foreign lenders
  • The US Dollar is severely devalued
  • The US President is young, charismatic, and compassionate; exuding hope during the most desperate of times.
  • The USSR has collapsed, no longer of serious world consequence
  • China has become a global superpower and embraced capitalism
  • Oil reserves have been almost totally depleted
  • Nike is a huge multi-national conglomerate
  • Jogging suits are fashionable casual wear
  • Network television has been given over to reality-based programming - much of which deals with non-traditional, taboo, absurd, and even dysfunctional themes
  • Several Indian tribes have become wealthy
  • The Beach Boys are still together
I'm not sure when the Arabs & Jews will overcome their differences. But with this movie's track record, it's gotta be any time now.


Stuck in the Middle With You




All Grown Up


All grown up
and you don't care anymore

- Elvis

On the Other Side


So I'll drink some more
I'll love them all
I'll drink even more
I'll hate them even more than I did before

- Casablancas

No Matter How Much I Booze

I lose so many nights of sleep worrying about my responsibilities
Are the problems that screw me up really down to him or me
My ego will just confuse me
Someday it's gonna up and use me

- Pete

Monday, August 24, 2009

Breaking News from 1971

I got a tee shirt back on Father's Day.

Reasonably nice, light blue, with a guitar motif and the words "Rolling Stone" scrawled across the front. Attached to the label was a postcard for a free subscription to the iconic -- if no longer cutting edge -- music magazine.

How about that for progress? Buy a tee-shirt and get a free magazine subscription. It used to be the other way around. How many SI football phones, TimeLife screwdriver sets, Alfred E Neuman alarm clocks and the sort litter my parents' basement (or more likely their local landfill)? Does this mean if I buy a toaster, Black & Decker will give me a free bank account?

Anyway, I got my second issue last week. And what would you think I found -- in these modern times! -- on the cover of the Rolling Stone?

The weighty importance of Blink-182's reunion tour? Revelations about pop's latest plastic creation, Lady Gaga*? Hip college favorites like Wilco or Modest Mouse? The coolness of being Jack White?

Nope. Not even close.

No, Rolling Stone parodies its own irrelevance with THIS cover:



Seriously? In 2009? The Editor's Note at front of the mag says the Beatles were pretty popular back in the day. And apparently, a lot of people still like their music.

The story inside says the band succumbed to the excesses of success: inflated egos, hurt feelings, drug use, corrupt management, creative differences, Yoko, bad hygiene, shoddy English dentistry; the exact same stuff that got David Lee Roth kicked out of Van Halen. I guess not everyone got the memo.

Well, at least there's always hope for a reunion someday! Unless one of them dies or something.



* Lady Gaga was already on it, naked, covered in bubbles. Original. Right Marilyn?


Saturday, August 22, 2009

Methinks you, Sir, are a douchebag


Letter from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, to Scottish Minister Kenny MacAskill

August 21, 2009

The Honorable Kenny MacAskill, MSP
Cabinet Secretary for Justice
Scottish Government
St. Andrew's House
Regent Road
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
EH13DG

Dear Mr. Secretary:

Over the years I have been a prosecutor, and recently as the Director of the FBI, I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors, since only the prosecutor handling the case has all the facts and the law before him in reaching the appropriate decision.

Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law, having been the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991. And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of "compassion."

Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world who now believe that regardless of the quality of the investigation, the conviction by jury after the defendant is given all due process, and sentence appropriate to the crime, the terrorist will be freed by one man's exercise of "compassion." Your action rewards a terrorist even though he never admitted to his role in this act of mass murder and even though neither he nor the government of Libya ever disclosed the names and roles of others who were responsible.

Your action makes a mockery of the emotions, passions and pathos of all those affected by the Lockerbie tragedy: the medical personnel who first faced the horror of 270 bodies strewn in the fields around Lockerbie, and in the town of Lockerbie itself; the hundreds of volunteers who walked the fields of Lockerbie to retrieve any piece of debris related to the breakup of the plane; the hundreds of FBI agents and Scottish police who undertook an unprecedented global investigation to identify those responsible; the prosecutors who worked for years--in some cases a full career--to see justice done.

But most importantly, your action makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988. You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution. You could not have visited the small wooden warehouse where the personal items of those who perished were gathered for identification--the single sneaker belonging to a teenager; the Syracuse sweatshirt never again to be worn by a college student returning home for the holidays; the toys in a suitcase of a businessman looking forward to spending Christmas with his wife and children.

You apparently made this decision without regard to the views of your partners in the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the Lockerbie tragedy. Although the FBI and Scottish police, and prosecutors in both countries, worked exceptionally closely to hold those responsible accountable, you never once sought our opinion, preferring to keep your own counsel and hiding behind opaque references to "the need for compassion."

You have given the family members of those who died continued grief and frustration. You have given those who sought to assure that the persons responsible would be held accountable the back of your hand. You have given Megrahi a "jubilant welcome" in Tripoli, according to the reporting. Where, I ask, is the justice?

Sincerely yours,

Robert S. Mueller, III
Director


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Witch Aircraft

So my 11-year old rides his bike up to the local air museum and scores a flight in a WWII vintage B-24 bomber. Gets a seat in the cockpit no less. Proof that 'just showing up' can get you places.




Wednesday, August 5, 2009

O Canada!


Does anyone have my rant on Canada? Wrote it a couple years ago. Went off on the hosers' insecure identity. Something to the effect: "How deep in crisis is your identity, Jean-Pierre?"