It Helps To Have Goals

~~~



Tomorrow is Friday. It's an important day. It's not like all the other days. It's the gateway to the weekend. So tomorrow, we pledge unto thee the following: On Friday, we will not spend any time at all thinking about baseball or political races - our two favorite sports. It's an important test for us, since the 2008 baseball season's end is fast approaching. So is the election. After that, there will be a vacuum. From early November, through December, and into most of January, there will be no baseball games, and George W. Bush will still be President of the United States. We will be forced to live on tiny crumbs of news about the new President's appointments and maybe the December winter baseball meetings. That's a thin soup. So tomorrow is an important test. Tonight, let's all eat, drink, and be Opie. Go Rays.

~~~

Toot

~~~

Obama with his grandparents Madelyn and Stanley Dunham
(aka Toot and Gramps) at his high school graduation in 1979.

~~~

Tonight, We Are All Rays Fans

~~~

... except, of course, Red Sox fans.

~~~

Everybody Hates Rust H

~~~

Perhaps We Should All Panic

~~~

"The Phillies are going to The Show"



"Maybe chicks will dig us now!"
"BOOO-yahhhhh!"
"We're on the express line to Poon City!"
"Yes, because I too like girls. I do!"

~~~

Steve Jobs' Latest Remarkable Act

~~~


Apple Computer is now boring, and that's very good news.

Yesterday's Apple Special Event featured scenes to which every Apple enthusiast is completely familiar; Steve Jobs walks onstage in a black turtleneck and jeans. He paces like a caged, skinny tomcat. The event premiered Apple's new line of laptops. The new stuff breaks some ground. The clicky buttons are gone on the MacBook Pro. The trackpad is now glass. Neat stuff, all. The press, however, is somewhat bored. Stocks go up slightly. Ho-hum. But something hugely different did happen yesterday at that event.



Steve Jobs was on the stage for 51 seconds. Then he walked off leaving Tim Cook, another Apple executive in a black shirt, to occupy the stage. What this signals to us is that Steve Jobs is leaving Apple. Soon. He's got cancer. He's tired. He's been at this for a long time. Jobs knew that there would be panic, were he to simply announce he is leaving Apple. This was proven in August when Bloomberg accidentally posted their obituary for him. The obit was being updated, as most news media outlets do frequently. Someone accidentally made it public. Apple stocks dropped sharply, in spite of the fact that Bloomberg immediately released a statement admitting the accident.

For so long, people have come to think of Steve Jobs as synonymous with Apple. As though Apple will disappear without him. For year's he has been content to let that notion flourish. Yesterday saw something new and, in a weird way, a radical shift. Yesterday, we witnessed Jobs gracefully making his way toward the door while he steered us toward the notion that Apple will survive quite nicely without him.

Will it work? Of course it will. Apple is infused with the philosophy of Jobs. The person of Jobs is not nearly as important to the company as it once was. Without him, Apple will continue to grow and break down barriers and take more marketshare. That's what they do. If anything, the sheer inevitability of this fact will make Apple a more stable and boring and successful company.

It took a giant ego to make Apple what it is today. Quite often, that same egotism threatened to destroy the creation. Yesterday, Jobs showed that he is capable of letting others take the lead. He showed something we don't often see from him; the humility to allow us all to realize that Apple is bigger than Jobs, and Apple doesn't need the man who caused Apple to happen in the first place. It takes a real leader to do that. Even when the Jobs icon drops off our desktop, the operating system will be fine, and Software Update will continue to function.




~~~

Seven Stages of McGrief

~~~


1. SHOCK & DENIAL
"We got'em right where we want'em"
-McCain speaking about his plan to be 10 points down 3 weeks before the election.

2. PAIN & GUILT-
-An Alaska ethics inquiry found on Friday that Governor Sarah Palin abused her authority by pressuring subordinates to fire a state trooper involved in a feud with her family.

3. ANGER & BARGAINING -
"KILL HIM!" "TRAITOR!" "TERRORIST!"
-things hollered from the crowds at McCain and Palin rallies this week


4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS -
-See recent polls


5. THE UPWARD TURN-
-see today's Dow Jones Industrial Average


6. RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH-
-See Obama US infrastructure rebuilding plans


7. ACCEPTANCE & HOPE-
-see you November 4th

~~~

Who's Got Your Back

~~~

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is the nation's largest group dedicated to the Troops and Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the civilian supporters of those Troops and Veterans. As AARP is to your parents, IAVA is to the bad asses in our military. Two years ago, IAVA released a report card on how well the US House and Senate members were doing on issues affecting US military personnel. It looked like this:

The same non-partisan group has put up a new report on the House and Senate for 2008.

John McCain results
Barack Obama results
Your Senators
The whole magilla

Remember when Senator McCain used to go on about Obama voting "present" (instead of yea or nay) in the Illinois Senate? He would go on about it being a gutless move to avoid controversial votes, and he was right. He doesn't mention it anymore. He hasn't mentioned it much since the US Senate vote that went overwhelmingly in favor of Virginia Senator Jim Webb's new GI Bill (77-22). McCain was against the bill, but he didn't come off the campaign trail to place his vote. 23 days from now, those same vets get to place a vote of their own.

Donate to IAVA.




~~~

Here We Go Dodgers, Here We Go

~~~

The Phillies are a good ball club. We love to watch Cole Hamels pitch. Jimmy Rollins? Chase Utley? Amazing infielders who glove, plant, throw, jump, and get it to the giant Ryan Howard at first as with Swiss watch precision. The staff and management of TNP like the team - LIKE. You know, as frienemies. We would hang out with those guys. The only problem is, we hate - HATE - their 43,500 friends. If baseball fanbases were commentators, Philly fans would be Ann Coultor.

How to make your own Phillies fan:

*Take one Yankees fan.
*Feed him a steady diet of lead paint chips and beer.

*Get a transvestite who looks like his mom to repeatedly hit him in the face.

*Force him to live in north Philadelphia.

PRESTO!

The Phillies are playing the LA Dodgers in game 1 of the NLCS tonight. We want them to lose and lose badly. We want a series featuring embarrassing errors and the ultimate humiliation of this very good team. If at all possible, we want the final game loss to happen in Phillidelphia so the national television audience gets those delicious shots of drunken, obnoxious Philly fans wearing defeat and deflated hatred on their fat nacho faces.

As noted at the end of last season, we also want Joe Torre to get to the World Series. If at all possible, we'd like his Dodgers to beat the Boston Red Sox. Since we're asking for stuff, we might as well throw in a wish for a victory lap around Yankee Stadium, with Rudy Giuliani duct taped to the hood of Joe's hoop-d.

~~~

Eternal Vigilence

~~~

~~~

Shuck It

~~~








~~~

Freedom of Some Speech

~~~



07-582 FCC V. FOX TELEVISION STATIONS QUESTIONS PRESENTED: Whether the court of appeals erred in striking down the Federal Communications Commission’s determination that the broadcast of vulgar expletives may violate federal restrictions on the broadcast of “any obscene, indecent, or profane language,” 18 U.S.C. 1464; see 47 C.F.R. 73.3999, when the expletives are not repeated.


" But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. "
- Tom Jefferson


On November 4th, 2008, we may or may not see a change come about that would irrevocably alter a massive governing body which has sought to control our personal lives over the past 75 years. To the FCC's credit, their actions over all this time have spawned a growth industry for innuendo.



Somewhat ironically, a Supreme Court case pits the FCC against Fox Television Stations - home of Fox News Channel. This coming election day, The Supreme Court of the United States of America will hear arguments, and eventually reach a decision, on whether or not it's ok for celebrities to offhandedly utter while on television or radio, "fucking brilliant" (Bono), "Fuck'em" (Cher), and our personal favorite, “Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It’s not so fucking simple.” (Nicole Richie).

Cher is up to her ass in trouble.
To Michael who? Copps?

Had these pronouncements been made on paid cable, satellite radio, magazines, or the innerknit, nothing at all would have happened. Since they were all invoked on over-the-air free television, the community of America was rocked to the core and in danger of imploding.

Hopefully, this case will show what kind of conservative judges we have up there in Supremica. Are they the kind of conservatives who feel that government should police our thoughts and words? Are they the type who believe that government should allow the Thought Market to run unregulated, on the theory that verbal expressions that are unworthy of society will be drubbed out by competing ideas and speech which can withstand the close scrutiny of the many? Hopefully again, whatever this court rules, it will be step towards better defining what can and cannot be regulated by these five white people:

Hi!

As it stands now these schlub wankers won't tell broadcasters if they messed up until after they mess up. Then they can fine the network of stations, the individual stations, or, the person who made the statements (if they're paid to broadcast). These fines can be as low as a couple hundred thousand dollars and well into the millions, if your name is Howard.

While this case is being heard, will the lawyers for Fox and the FCC use the actual words in question, or will they resort to using phrases such as, "The F-word"? Logic would dictate that the defendant Fox (the other F-word), would look the justices in their eyes and say, "Fuck and Shit". The United States prosecutor should have to water down their own speech in order to prove their point. We shall see who blinks, and it shall be most entertaining.

This election day, in that vacuous Neverland of time between the polls closing and the networks prematurely calling the election, we can amuse ourselves by listening to Nina Totenberg's one-woman play wherein she reads everyone's lines from the day's oral arguments. In particular, we love when she does Antonin Scalia. She tends to subconsciously drop down to a slightly more baritone. If the actual words are used in court, will Nina repeat them on NPR? If she does, will the FCC fine her?




~~~

18-24 Year Olds Do Not Answer Polsters

~~~

If you want to track the opinions of America's Future, you can't call them on the phone. There's no wall phone hanging in their kitchen. They won't answer carefully worded questions with a princess phone cradled on their shoulder while they do their nails for the big sock hop. When they're ready to offer an opinion, they'll do it on their own terms, whenever they feel like it. That's because every last one of them has one of these.




This mobile transceiver allows the youngsters to talk to friends and family from virtually anywhere. They can also send electronic messages - often encoded with cryptic terminology - to one person or many.

Demographers have been confused and befuddled by this free-flying segment of our populace ever since the current group's grandmothers were getting knocked-up in blacklit rooms full of stoned naked misogynists, cleverly disguised as sensitive deep thinkers. Back in the day, kids simply ignored the phone ringing off the wall because they knew it was either their parents, The Man, or some uptight suit calling to tell them it's-3am-there's-too-much-noise-doncha-people-ever-want-to-go-to-bed.

The young folks of today are still nearly impossible to to reach in any amount that might provide a meaningful analysis. If you want to know what they think, you're going to have to sit quietly and wait til they feeling like talking, or sift through millions of comments on collegehumor.com, or maybe just take a peek at state voter registration numbers, which show that an alarming number of them are signing up and watching very closely.

Demographers boldly press on. It appears that their most recent findings indicate that if one wants to win their vote, one should throw a cougar on stage and have her make kissy faces while shredding away at the guy whose face is on all their t-shirts.



Pundits: "She far exceeded expectations."
Dude, anything short of Palin taking a dump
on stage would have exceeded expectations.
-recent post from some random dude on the Twitter




~~~

Uncoolness

~~~

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- New York Mets pitcher Ambiorix Burgos was driving an SUV when it slammed into two women who later died of their injuries, police said.

Local police still were searching for Burgos on Wednesday.

Police Col. Eulogio Taveras said Josefina Minaya Martinez, 38, and Angely Fana, 29, were struck Tuesday evening by a new Hummer registered to the 24-year-old reliever in his Caribbean homeland. The women died at a hospital in Nagua, a town 112 miles north of the capital, Santo Domingo.

"The investigation indicates that Burgos was the driver of the (vehicle) that hit the women," Taveras said in a statement, adding several witnesses identified Burgos as the driver.

Although a relative of the right-hander, Edwin Silvestre Sanchez, told police investigators he was the driver at fault, Taveras indicated Sanchez likely will be considered an accomplice.

"We are extremely disturbed by the reports regarding the player's potential involvement in the hit-and-run accident that unfortunately killed two women in the Dominican Republic," the Mets said in a statement. "We take this matter very seriously and have begun an internal investigation to ascertain the facts. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the families of the victims."

******************

OK, but one question; "The New York Mets have begun an internal investigation to ascertain the facts"? Is Major League Baseball going to wade into a Dominican criminal investigation and possibly defend this guy?

~~~

Short Attention Span Theatre

~~~

Here's what the election campaign looks like on Twitter:

~~~

Threadcount Is Everything

~~~

HALF-BREED MUSLIN!

Sign posted in (shocker) Florida

HALF-PRICE MUSLIN!!

Sign posted in a liberal fabric store

~~~