The Dating Game (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

The stigma associated with gays in the Republican Party becomes particularly problematic when it comes to relationships with gay Democrats. The vemon is pervasive on Internet dating sites, such as www.friendster.com and www.myspace.com, where gay profiles are laced with acidic afronts to Republicans, from the guy who dislikes "red states," to the guy who clarifies in his "Who I Want to Meet" section that he is "not a Republican." I've been stung by that vemon as well, in a more overt manner, by a guy who stood me up after perusing my website, www.doriandavis.com, and who left me waiting at the subway station at Broadway and Houston Street.

I've visited a few right-wing dating sites since then and discovered that--unfortunately--the sites labeling themselves as "conservative," such as www.conservativematch.com and www.conservativematchmaker.com, are exclusive of gay Republicans in a different way: they make no accommodation for same-sex searches on their personals pages, nor do they include specifics about a user's sexual orientation. There is an underlying assumption that conservative men want to be matched with conservative women, and that conservative women want to be matched with conservative men. The creators of those websites--intentionally or unintentionally--are imposing their viewpoints on appropriate sexuality, and they are excluding the gay Republican.

That oversight is corrected by another popular site, www.republicansingles.com, that provides a space in its search engine in which a user can indicate a preference for same-sex partners. The seemingly-unimportant difference between www.conservativematch.com and www.republicansingles.com is signal of a major differentiation between two branches of the Republican Party, but it's also signal of a major differentiation between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: no where else--not on liberal dating sites, nor on conservative dating sites--can a gay Republican find, nor even search for, his appropriate match. In the end, it's here--at www.republicansingles.com--that gays can finally "come out" of the intellectual--and the virtual--closet.

It's all Bush's fault

Ex-Mayor of New Orleans right before implying Bush puts Iraq ahead of Louisiana:
"We really need the president of the United States to make this a priority. We have to stop the breaches in the levee."

Ken Wheaton:
Like what? Put on his Super W cape and fly around the world backwards really, really fast? Or should W and hop in his Magic Flying Cement Truck?

Easy

Matt Taibbi, formerly of the NY Press and now of Rolling Stone has this amazing ability to be a total moron and yet sometimes get the story that no one else is getting. His crashing a Wesley Clark meetup back in December '03 was just such a story. Now, Tim Blair quotes him on a trip to Crawford:

The movement likes to think of itself as open and inclusive, but in practice it often comes off like a bunch of nerds whose favored recreation is coming up with clever passwords for their secret treehouse. The ostensible political purpose may be ending the war, but the immediate occupation for a sizable percentage of these people always seemed to be a kind of rolling adult tourist attraction called Hating George Bush ...

At one point at Camp Casey, an informal poll taken around a campfire revealed that six out of a group of ten protesters, selected at random, believed that the United States government was directly involved in planning the 9/11 bombings. Flabbergasted, I tried to press the issue.

"Do you know how many people would have to be involved in that conspiracy?” I said. “I mean, start with the pilots . . ."

"The planes were flown by remote control,” a girl sitting across from me snapped.

I have really seen this 'argument' pick up steam lately. I've been seeing 9/11 conspiracy stickers around NYC. A commenter on a liberal site wrote, in relation to a different conversation, 'That’s so off the wall it’s gotta be true. Since 9/11, I mean.' It goes back to that step into crazy that hardcore leftists can't help but take. The fact that people in the world irrationally hate you and would kill you without thinking twice about it is a hard reality to accept. For a liberal, who thinks that two people can understand and accept each other if they just talk out their differences, it's near impossible. And for a true leftist, who believes that America is always bad and wrong, and that everyone else, particularly brown people, are usually right, the concept that Mohammad Atta would kill you the same way he'd kill George W. Bush, well, it's just too much. So, it has to be a conspiracy. It can't possibly be that 19 Muslim men killed 3000 people who were on airplanes and in their offices or having breakfast in a restaurant. Because if that's true, then they could be dead just the same. And all of their proper, correct opinions about the evil of America and the goodness of everyone else will mean nothing. The plane will fly into their office without ever once considering their politics.

Conspiracies make people feel smart, certainly smarter than the rubes who believe the official story, and if there's one thing leftists enjoy it's feeling smarter than everyone else. They let them hold on to prejudices (George W. Bush is the evilest man to ever live. He must've had a hand in killing his own citizens, I just know it!). Most of all, they stop them from wanting a real solution to our very real terrorist problem. If Atta and 18 other Middle Eastern men didn't do it, then there's no reason to need to change the Middle East, there's no reason to highten security, the only solution is getting rid of that madman George W. Bush. And, as we all know, it's much easier to get rid of a democratically elected president whose term ends in 3 years than of a vast network of terrorists who want us all dead. Conspiracy nuts will have their victory in 3 years, even if another Republican is elected. The rest of us will have to wait a lot longer for ours.

He's lucky it was just in the leg

Page Six:

Suge Knight, who was shot in the leg at Kanye West's party at the Shore Club, snatched a bottle of Hennessey from a fellow partygoer before he took the bullet. Knight was making himself a drink at someone else's table when a woman told him to stop. The hip-hop thug responded, "Oh, yeah?" and walked off with the bottle.

Today, 4pm EST.

(Click this graphic to listen)

Our guest today is Greg Gutfeld of Maxim UK and the Huffington Post. I discovered him pretty late (even got a wiseass Ken Wheaton comment for being behind the times) but Ace has been his biggest fan for awhile now. Should be a good show.

Call in with questions: 1-866-884-TALK (8255)

Update: Toby is live-blogging. Dawn Summers is on something resembling a vacation.

Another Update: Commenter Von Bek (!) is live-blogging this too!

For sale

I've got another Yuri Dvornik painting for sale on ebay. He's this amazing Russian-American painter who does mostly street scenes. This painting is of a street in SoHo, before 9/11 with the Twin Towers in the background. It's really beautiful. I have a similar one by him on my wall.

The best things in life are free.....

....so, obviously the Kerry campaign had to pay for Al Sharpton's campaigning.

Here we go

Headline: Netanyahu launches bid to oust Sharon

The best part about this is that all those people that despise Sharon and think he's such a hardliner will suddenly see him as the compromiser that he is.

Who are you people?

I thought the flasher story I posted yesterday was a bi-partisan, 'you go, girl' kind of situation, where we can all agree that flashing is bad. Reading through the comments the picture-taker is getting, I can see I was wrong. My personal favorites are the 'you stupid Americans, we Europeans frequently grope ourselves on the metro' comments:

*Why are you trying to prosecute him? Did he violate your rights in any way? Do you have a right to avoid seeing things that you don't like? Do you hate human sexuality? Are you a repressed Christian, is that why you're doing this? I don't know why you feel violated, and why you want to "protect" other women from your experience. He was a man doing what all men do. There's nothing wrong with that. You and the police that are the only ones here violating rights.

*Not that what this guy did was not distasteful, but really, are you hurt? Were you raped? Hit? Cut? Exposed to disease? "Violated" is terribly strong language for what in the grand scheme of things is nothing at all.

*Why would anyone be thinking about this for a whole week? It's not traumatising to see a penis, what is she, twelve? has she never seen one before? yeah the guy was beating off at her but you wouldn't be pissed off and thinking about it for a whole week. If anything you would be telling it to your friends and joking about it.

*So friendly_chic407, when did you realize you were a lesbian?

*My parents were burned at the stake for their non-puritan beliefs. Seriously, until every dog shits in it's own home then I will proudly condone masturbating in public.

*All this fuss about a man showing his ----?? America is not the world. It happens worldwide with females being the biggest culprits of exhibitionism. Only in America. :-)

*Although I definately agree that what the guy did is unacceptable behavior, I have to say I think this is going a bit overboard. With this being picked up by the media, the guy will be made into a social outcast. That is definitely more damaging than what he did. I'm personally sick of the attitude that it is wrong for someone to do anything you don't like. Again, I agree that it is innappropriate to do this, but the guy might need a bit of help or counseling, not a cruxifiction. Your actions (posting this on flickr) are, in my opinion, are as reprehensible as his. I'm sure you've caused him much more damage than your discomfort. Congratulations....

*ok, see no one would care over here in europe!
so what, he is not hurting anyone, you all need to take the stick outta your asses and stop being so prude!
if you dont like it, GET UP AND MOVE THE FUCK ON, god 40 years ago it would be a picture of a black man on a train, 30 years ago a homosexual, and today a "pervert" give it up....hes just an exibitionist, thats been goin on for years...

*OH MY GOD! THAT GUY HAS A PENIS! WHAT A SENSATION! HE MUST BE JAILED OR - BETTER - HANGED! You, americans, are so fun - "Oh, i was so traumatised, oh i want him to pay my valium bills, oh i can't ride a subway for 10 years since". When some of you, fat girls, going around with barenaked bellybuttons (fat) with pubic hair sticking over the pants - THAT is traumatic!

Ok, let's discuss Entourage

I miss writing about Six Feet Under on Mondays so let's try something different:

Any woman, even Mandy Moore, who would pick a guy over a besotted Vincent Chase is out of her mind. Discuss.

And the Ari Maguire storyline was cute, right?

The long-awaited, often-postponed blogger party

Every time I've tried to set the date, I got sad emails from people asking me to pretty please change it. So, September 20th. That's the date. Please don't make me change it again.

"Gay High" (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

This academic year marks the third anniversary of New York City’s disastrous appropriation of $3.2 million dollars for Harvey Milk High School—-an educational facility for gay and lesbian students--at the corner of Broadway and Astor Place. It's a small, homosexual academy that Mayor Mike Bloomberg has commended, along with its parent organization the Hetrick-Martin Institute, as a safe-haven for gays and lesbians who "have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools," but Harvey Milk High School is a colossal failure in American education; it is an intellectual gulag that separates the gay and the "straight" worlds, and eliminates the opportunity for mutual understanding between them.

It is forgivable that gay students are given a certain amount of deference considering the inevitable struggle associated with the “coming out” process, but it’s not forgivable that transgender students are given the free reign to live through a sexual identity crisis that constitutes mental illness during their high school careers, without the guidance from faculty and staff that they ought to seek professional help. (A guy wants wants to cut his arm off, we put him in a sanitarium; a guy wants to cut his penis off, we say, "That's okay--he's gay!")

How can we argue that homosexuals are capable of the same intellectual prowess and mental lucidity as their heterosexual counterparts, if they can’t succeed in the same schools? The most important step toward a broader social acceptance of homosexuality is a normalizing of homosexuality, and caging that sexual deviation within its own private school—as if it were contagious—is the exact opposite of a winning strategy to normalize homosexuality.

I’m not dismissing the putative damage that results from teasing and hazing in public schools, but the remedy to that damage is decisive action on the part of faculty and staff, not the lazy, impractical solution of building separate schools for the students whom the faculty and staff are failing to protect. These students “require” a special learning environment not because they are gay or lesbian, but because they practice anti-social behavior--from excessive piercings to inappropriate clothing--that has self-segregated them from the rest of their peers in public school, and that has made them perfect candidates for a zoo of deranged species, such as Harvey Milk High School. If we allocate money for separate schools based on individual patterns of behavior, New York City will be rich on appropriations, and poor on cash-flow.

They'll stop killing their own children just as soon as they get all their land back....

....won't they?

This just in: Palestinians said committed to cease-fire

What's the future of rap?

If you only read one post today on gangsta rap by a Republican pundit, make sure it's this one by Robert George.

Even if that was so last week.

People are still linking to my 'The GOP's '08 nominee won't be a moderate' post, so do go over and continue the argument over there.

It's hard to be a flasher these days

As most of you fellow web junkies may have heard already, a woman in NY had a man expose himself to her on the train and she snapped his photo with her camera phone and posted it on the internet. It looks like the suspect has been identified and it's the co-owner of a vegetarian raw foods restaurant mini-chain in NY. I had been wanting to try the place but because of my all-meat-eating-all-the-time boyfriend, had not. So, thanks for that, Peter.

Me, me, me

I've made a couple of small changes to my 'About Me' post (though I really hated changing the age on the seldomly updated page). If you've ever wondered whether I've lived on a commune, when 'Hoist the Black Flag' airs (we're having Greg Gutfeld on this week so do find out) or what I actually do for a living, something resembling answers can be found on that page.

Abortion should be rare. Can we agree on that?

Commenter Jay sent me a link a few days ago about the staggering number of abortions in Russia. How staggering? They now have more abortions than births. Ivan quotes the article's explanation as partly financial: 'Careers traditionally favored by Russian women, such as in education and medicine, no longer pay a decent salary.' No longer? C'mon. My mother was teacher and my father was a doctor in Russia, I know that these professions never paid a decent salary.

Ambivablog has a corresponding post about how lightly some women in America take abortion. I think attitude goes a long way to explain what's going on in Russia. Sure, there are circumstances, such as financial or emotional considerations, that may lead so many Russian women to have abortions but I wonder what role plain acceptance plays in that culture.

True story: I was 17 and over my friend's place. Her mom was hanging out with us as we discussed another girl we knew having a child. Her mom said 'why didn't she have an abortion? What is it with girls these days that they think their child is the special child that should be born when they themselves are so young? There will be other pregnancies, why can't they just wait? I had 5 abortions before having _____, and she's had two already.' ('She' being her daughter, my 17-year old friend).

Whoa dude. TMI.

Since then, I've heard open, frank abortion discussion from Russian women I barely know: 'Yeah, I had one and then I got pregnant again right after that so I had another one.' 'No, she decided to get an abortion and wait until after he gets the promotion.' 'If we stay in NY I'll keep it, but I'm not moving to Miami and having a baby in the next year.' Russians are the only people I've heard actually be pro-abortion and unapologetically so.

So that's my take. A culture where abortion is totally ok and not at all stigmatized is a culture that will end up encouraging abortion. Maybe there are people who don't think that's so bad, but even at my most militantly pro-choice, I couldn't imagine that perspective.

Genius

John Hawkins interviewed Mark Steyn back in June but I somehow missed it and was directed to it by NY Girl. Here's his thoughts on Israel and 'the wall':

I haven’t spent a lot of time in “Palestine,” but, when I have, I’ve never seen any sign anywhere in Gaza or the West Bank of anything remotely resembling a "nationalist" movement. There’s plenty of evidence of widespread Jew-hatred and the veneration of death-cult "martyrdom," but not that anybody’s seriously interested in building a nation for the “Palestinian people.” So if you leave it to the Palestinians there's never going to be a state, only decade after decade of suicide bombings. One can advance reasons for this - it's no coincidence that the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth are the ones who have been wholly entrusted to the formal care of the UN for three generations now. But the fact is what Israel is doing is the only thing that will force the Palestinians to get up off their allegedly occupied butts and run a state: the Israelis are walling off what they feel they need, or what they can get away with, and it will be up to the gangsters of Arafatistan to see if they now feel like dropping the jihad and getting on with less glamorous activities like running highway departments and schools.

The problem with the Protest Warriors

Sometimes it's over people's heads:

There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War - Unless a Democrat is President.''

Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs.

Jess and I hung out with the Communists for Kerry last summer in Union Square and we saw that happen several times (minus any violence or even anger from our Commies.)

Grasping

Huffington Post is all over Ann Coulter saying that NY'ers would surrender if attacked. I've heard it said better.

Song of the Day

'Bad Diary Days' by Pedro the Lion.

I might need something more upbeat later this afternoon but I just had my first +5 hours of sleep in about a week and this fits perfectly.

Can you smear someone just by quoting them? (Part II)

'And I can just hear him saying "George Bush you are really an idiot".'
-Cindy Sheehan channeling her son Casey.

(See Part I here)

Elephant vs. RINO (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

The platonic rivalry between the two most visible factions of the Republican Party--Elephants (conservative Republicans) and RINOs (liberal Republicans, or "Republicans-in-Name-Only")--has been a constant source of amusement for the politicians, journalists, and policy-makers of the American Left.

Democrats refer to RINOs such as Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chaffee as "mavericks" for their "courageous" breaks with the rest of the Party on issues from Terri Schiavo to John Bolton. They hunt down RINOs to denounce George W. Bush's prosecution of the Iraq War, and they splash the quotes of those "maverick" RINOs on the front pages of The New York Times.

Democrats relish the internal strife within the Republican Party. They perceive this intellectual debate--which is absent in their Party--as a political crack-up at the most fundamental levels of the Republican Party. They see the Elephant and the RINO as two fumbling, primitive beasts fighting to the finish, like the monsters in Freddie vs. Jason and Alien vs. Predator.

But debate only enhances the intellectual strength of a political party, and it has only enhanced the intellectual strength of the Republican Party. After all, that is the essence of being a Republican: engaging in intelligent, informed, and persuasive debate with fellow Republicans and--regardless of whether we are Elephants or RINOs--having a thick skin.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter five of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Hatred for America is sometimes pushed to the point where it transmutes into hatred for ourselves. This is what we saw when the Disneyland near Paris opened in 1992. This event was denounced by our intellectuals as a "cultural Chernobyl." But you will notice, even without exceptional erudition, that a large part of Walt Disney's themes, especially in his feature movies, is drawn from European sources. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the musical scores in Fantasia, the reconstruction of the pirate ship from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island--all are borrowings from, and homages to, European creativity.

That these popular stories, the flowers of the imagination of so many different peoples over so many centuries, orally transmitted from generation to generation, then collected and fixed in written form, should finally appear in a completely new medium thanks to the unique talent of a California artist--isn't this an example of the unforeseeable paths and crossroads of cultures? Their dynamic motifs travel by varied routes and vehicles, ancient and modern, regardless of the prudish chauvinism of narrow-minded protectionists.

Read chapter six for Saturday.

I felt that there was a clown missing from the circus

And here he is now!

Rev. Al Sharpton Plans to Join 'Peace Mom'...

More proof that government officials don't have enough to do

Tennessee's Attorney General wants country singer Gretchen Wilson to stop using smokeless tobacco onstage. I'm unclear whether he also objects to her singing about Skoal, apparently her favorite brand.

Just wondering

If you have $15,000 for your ticket to a conference , what the hell can you possibly know about poverty?

Urban Elephants (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a Republican, is popular in New York City. He won 744,757 votes on November 6, 2001. He won 179,797 votes in Manhattan. But the fascinating statistic about that election which is never trotted out is the fact that there were only 99,000 Republicans in Manhattan. Who voted for him? Democrats.

Why did Democrats support Mike Bloomberg? Maybe they supported him because he'd been a life-long Democrat prior to assuming the Republican nomination for Mayor. Maybe they supported him because he'd brilliantly announced prior to Election Day, 2001, "I am a liberal."

But, regardless of their reason for supporting him in 2001, Democrats have ample reason for supporting him in 2005: In his first term, he has advocated a twenty-five percent hike in the property tax, amnesty for illegal aliens, a smoking ban in bars and restaurants, and a position on gay marriage that is so incoherent it literally allows "anybody" to marry "anybody."

That's good news for Democrats. That's a rude awakening, though, for conservatives who voted Republican because we believed in low taxes and individual freedom, or because we believed in the Republican Party. Earth to the GOP: He is not a Republican!

I'm not surprised that conservatives regret allowing Mayor Bloomberg to climb onto the back of the Republican Party, and to ride this Party into Gracie Mansion, during the campaign of 2001. For now, at least, we can empathize with our mascot--the elephants that Hannibal rode over the Alps during the campaign of 218 B.C.: sure, they won the Punic War, but they got peanuts.

Do to your children as your parents did to you

Soleil Moon Frye, who played Punky Brewster and inspired children everywhere to dress like little punks, has given birth to a daughter: Poet Sienna Rose Goldberg.

If you can't win, bitch.

The French are dying to discredit Lance Armstrong. It's really ugly.

This is probably frowned upon in the Kingdom of Saud

I got all excited when I saw on my sitecounter that someone in Saudi Arabia was reading me but then I saw they weren't here for the politics but for the old comment spam.

Like I was saying....

John Hawkins at Right Wing News has 8 reasons why Condi is a no go for 2008.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter four of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Parental irresponsibility, which allows youth to spend their time haunting the streets in gangs, is the principal cause of neighborhood degradation, the spread of violent disorder and the inevitable slide of young people--even children--into delinquency and crime. Municipal authorities have tried to do something about parental dereliction of duty, proposing either to reduce the state-paid benefits to parents guilty of neglect, or to impose a curfew that would make children under twelve or thirteen years of age return home before midnight. And for this they have been called fascists and racists by the parties, officials and journalists of the Left, which has been hard at work destroying one of the necessary conditions for assimilation [into our society].

Read chapter five for Friday.

Oh, thanks (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

Florida State Can Keep Its Seminoles

The [Seminole Tribe of Florida] helped university boosters create the costume for the Chief Osceola mascot, approving the face paint, flaming spear and Appaloosa horse that have no connection to Seminole history.

Yesterday, the National Collegiate Athletic Association agreed with the 3,100-member tribe and the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, which had also endorsed the nickname.

The N.C.A.A. removed Florida State from the list of universities banned from using what it called "hostile and abusive" mascots and nicknames during postseason play.

"It's not about an effort to be politically correct," Myles Brand, the president of the N.C.A.A., said in a statement when the ban was announced. "It is about doing the right thing."

Read the whole wretched thing.

UPDATE: The part of this debacle that I find most outrageous is the elitist attitude in Myles Brand at the N.C.A.A., who actually thinks that he knows what's best for F.S.U., and for the Seminole Tribe, when both of those entities disagree with him.

And one more

The recent special election in Ohio, between Republican Jean Schmidt and Democrat Paul Hackett, was close. Schmidt got only 52% of the vote in a typically Republican district. Liberals, like Daily Kos, called Hackett's defeat, what else, a victory, because it was so close. They saw this as proof that Republicans were going down. They chalked it up to Hackett being an Iraq war veteran and as evidence that Red America no longer supports the war in Iraq.

But, actually, as I learned by reading National Review (on dead tree, as they like to call it) this morning, there's at least one major reason that Schmidt might have done as badly as she did: she's one of them moderates that can barely win elections. Hackett attacked Schmidt for supporting tax increases. Let me rephrase: the Democrat attacked the Republican for supporting tax increases. I'm sorry, but if the Democrat is in a position to be chastising the Republican for raising taxes, that Democrat deserves to win. The only reason Schmidt won the primary is that conservatives split their vote in an 11 candidate field. I guess self-proclaimed RINOs could hope for the same thing in '08 but that's just unlikely to happen.

I wouldn't want his vacation

Drudge reports that Bush was in Idaho speaking to 'hundreds of Idaho National Guardsmen'. Meanwhile, AOL is running a poll about whether Bush should be on vacation. I know liberals get all riled up that Bush dare leave DC in August but isn't it clear yet that the man is not on 'vacation', that he hasn't had a day of 'vacation' since he took office?

Continuing on a theme

McCain endorses teaching Intelligent Design in schools. RINOs everywhere suddenly confused: 'But, but we thought he was a maverick.' Yeah, a maverick with one eye on the poll numbers of primary voting Republicans.

I hate to be the one to say it (ok, no I don't)

I love blogs. I love blogging. I love the whole community and I love the fact that there is now this real alternative to the mainstream media. But, if anyone is under the impression that the rest of America is anything like the blog-world, they've got another thing coming.

For one thing, most people are not nearly as politics-obsessed. They've just got other things to worry about. I often hear from my smart, educated friends that they have no idea what I'm talking about my blog. I take for granted that blog readers know certain things already. An example can be my Pat Robertson post of yesterday. I mention that Roberts is dumb for making certain comments but never say what those comments were. Sure, you can click the link but the truth is that most people reading that post knew about the comments already. Here are some phrases that will probably not be recognizable to most of your friends who don't read blogs: 'Able Danger', Meme, Plamegate, Idiotarian, Daily Kos. We communicate in a very insulated world online. We survive in extremes. It's the way to get attention but it's no way to win an election.

For another thing, the blogosphere is also much more libertarian that the general population. If libertarianism existed to such an extent in the 'real world', we'd have a Libertarian party that recruited people who don't dye their skin blue or have wacky characters based on them on tv shows. They'd be viable. And even if the Libertarian party couldn't get it together, both Republicans and Democrats would see the importance of limited government, lower spending, greater rights for the states and support for any social activity as long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else. Anyone see anything resembling that from our two political parties?

I note all this because of the straw polls going around. Daily Kos and MYDD, two huge liberal blogs, both had Wesley Clark as the winner of their polls. If you think Wes Clark has even the remotest chance of coming anywhere near the nomination in '08, I want to be smoking what you're smoking. As uber-liberal Dawn Summers said when she saw the poll results 'what has gone so wrong with my people that Wesley Clark is leading in this poll?' Of all the 10 candidates that ran for the nomination in '04, Wesley Clark outcrazied all but two of them (Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton are tough to beat). He has said some of the dumbest things during his run and, in case people forget, he was brought in because Kerry seemed weak and Dean was a sure loss in the general. In other words, the Democrats felt they needed another candidate because the nine they had weren't going anywhere. The fact that he was a Republican 5 minutes before was neither here nor there. He could win! Except, of course, he couldn't.

It's not just the left that's in lalaland. The blogosphere right wants Condi or Rudy, or oooh maybe a ticket with both of them! Stop it. Condi and Rudy are amazing people. Rudy rocked my world as mayor of NYC. He made me interested in politics. I saw that it can matter who is in charge. I saw that NYC didn't have to be a cesspool of danger. And Condi, well, there's nothing I love more than brilliant women with a badass gaze. She hangs with the boys and has the president's ear in a way that very few do. I have such respect for her. But neither Rudy nor Condi has anything resembling a prayer to win. Rudy is on his third marriage. He supports gay marriage (an 80-20 issue nationally, with the 80 being against) and third trimester abortions. I just want all the Rudy for president people to understand that he will have to get out of a Republican primary before taking on the Democratic challenger. Primary voters are the most conservative voters. Primary voters are not voting for a pro-choice New Yorker who supports gay marriage.

As for Condi, put aside that no woman, much less a black one, has come anywhere near winning. The Condi problem is three-fold. First, she has never run for anything before. Wesley Clark was such a candidate. Please see above for more on that. Second, she's single. Oh Ken Wheaton doesn't mind? Well, that's terrific, she's in. Unfortunately for Ken, most Americans aren't atheist writers with a smart mouth living in New York City. Does no one remember the drubbing Howard Dean got for his wife not joining him on the campaign trail? Here's a story I've told before so bear with me: the last question of the last debate between Kerry and Bush asked them to say something nice about their wives. Bush gave his usual heartfelt Laura adoration talk. Kerry said 'I married up' and then launched into a story about his mom telling him to have integrity. I was in Colorado working for Bush. I was in a pretty liberal place, Durango, and the next morning all anyone was talking about was that Kerry didn't say he loved his wife. It was huge, literally the talk of the town. This isn't deep in Mississippi, this is a kind of hippie town in Colorado. Spouses matter. Condi needs to get one, and quick, or the rest of you need to surrender the fantasy that she is a possible candidate. Third, she has expressed pro-choice positions. Fine, there is a sizable pro-choice blogger community. But, again, she will have to get out of a Republican primary and she already has two previously mentioned strikes against her. It's just not happening. In fact, I don't think most of the people on Ruffini's list will be on the ballot in '08. You know how most bloggers know that Senators have a much harder time than governors and are much less likely to win? Yeah, the party has noticed that too. Look for the nominee to be a popular governor of a medium sized state. It'll be someone we're not thinking of right now and he (yes, he, people) will be happily married, likely to his first wife. He will have had plenty of experience campaigning, will be pro-life and unequivocally against gay marriage. Most of his secrets have already come out during his previous campaign. He will not have a New York accent.

I have to say, though, that at least the right side of the blogosphere is going for candidates that have no chance because they like and support them and their positions. The left seems to have chosen Clark for the same 'winnable' reasons they chose Kerry the last time around. Will they learn? The blogosphere might not, I have a feeling Democratic primary voters will.

No RoveHive?

Lileks mentions Kudzu in a typically excellent take-down of some of the arguments offered by the left.

Quote of the Day

My own sense is that this stuff isn't as important as we like to make it. Americans are unusually legalistic and unusually focused on constitutions. But plenty of constitutions have wonderful language on paper (the old Soviet constitution was great that way) and plenty of countries (Britain, for example) manage to get by without written constitutions at all. What matters more is political culture. If the Iraqi people want a free, prosperous country and are willing to work for it, they'll get that. If they don't, or aren't, then they won't.

-Glenn Reynolds

C'mon now

Headline: Woman Offended by Doc's Obesity Advice

First of all, why is this a Yahoo top headline? And, second of all, if PCness reaches our medical offices, we're all in big, big trouble. My doctor has told me I need to lose weight to have a healthier back. That's life. That's health. Deal.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter three of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Although [September 11] was the most spectacular, it was far from being the only example of a clear-sighted American analysis that foresaw the emergence of a new kind of terrorist warfare on home territory. The fact that defenders of human rights wouldn't take into account the right to national defense, which goes in tandem with the defense of liberty, and that they managed to dismiss these sensible warnings as the racist ravings of defense-obsessed fanatics only goes to show once again the naive blindness of democratic regimes. As long as calamity isn't actually crashing down on them, democracies are careful to maintain their vulnerabilities. But in no way does this ingenius propensity for suicide entitle Europeans to brandish slogans denouncing a supposed erosion of American liberties--as if the danger of "fascism" were particularly severe in the U.S.A., a land that in over two hundred years has never known a dictator, while Europe has been busy making troops of them.

Read chapter four for Thursday.

Go now.

Juan Cole has baselessly babbled that Steven Vincent, the reporter recently killed in Iraq, and his interpreter were having an affair. Ken Wheaton alerts us to the response from Vincent's wife. A must-read.

He's had a long 5 years

Stupid is as stupid does

Pat Robertson's comments were beyond dumb. But, earth to Venezuela, America has freedom of speech where you can say dumb things just like that:

Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Venezuela was studying its legal options, adding that how Washington responds to Robertson's comments would put its anti-terrorism policy to the test.

''The ball is in the U.S. court, after this criminal statement by a citizen of that country,'' Rangel told reporters. ''It's huge hypocrisy to maintain this discourse against terrorism and at the same time, in the heart of that country, there are entirely terrorist statements like those.''

I'd love to hear an administration official condemn Robertson's statement while defending his right to say it. And while we may give Robertson a collective 'duuuuuuude', he isn't going to jail or being fined for speaking his mind. That's called Freedom. In about 50 years when they're starving like Cubans and North Koreans and all their smartest people have been killed for speaking out against the state, I hope Venezuela will get to experience some of it.

Today, 4pm EST

(Click this graphic to listen)

Our guest today will be the incomparable Captain Ed of Captain's Quarters. Be sure to call in with your questions to 1866-884-TALK (8255).

Like busses

Last month, I had 5 ads, the most ever since the site began. My last ad expired a couple of days ago and now I have none. Apparently, seeing ads on the page encourages advertisers and so I'm offering ads to the first three people that respond in the comment section below. The ads can be for your blog or for your business but I do have final approval of all ads.

In NY tonight

The fabulous and talented Ivan Lenin will be performing at the New York Comedy Club's New Talent Showcase at 9pm at 241 E. 24th Street, between 3rd and 2nd Ave. Be there.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis )

excerpt from chapter two of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

The distinction drawn between so-called peaceful protestors--the majority--and a small group of violent anarchists who, we are told, infiltrate the former is misleading at best. How is it that one or two hundred thousand idealists enamored with peace are impotent to contain a few hundred terrorists who have come to break, wreck, smash and pillage? Things could get out of hand once maybe, but six, seven, ten times? In Goteborg, a town whose center had been "peacefully" demolished, the Swedish police had already cracked down on demonstrators using methods more appropriate for engaging guerilla terrorists than mere demonstrators: they had opened fire using real bullets, causing injuries but fortunately no deaths. Though when it comes down to it, wasn't this really a case of urban guerilla warfare? The ruse of these pseudo-demonstrators--actually, rioters--is to throw onto the police all responsibility for the violence that they themselves have initiated.

Read chapter three for Wednesday.

Quote of the Day

On Iraq, the split is a matter of substance. Some Democrats want to cut and run, while others just want to bitch and moan.

-James Taranto on the Democrats being 'split' on Iraq.

One last SFU post

Click on (can I get some appreciation for how sensitive I am being to people who have yet to see the show? Can I?)

HBO has posted the obituaries for everyone so if it went by too quick for you and you don't have On Demand or TIVO, check it out.

Are we going to go over the tax returns of all lottery winners?

Drug-dealer will go directly to jail, not collect $12 million dollar lottery winnings.

Don't get me wrong....

....I love when Hollywood Republicans out themselves. I just wish it was someone I had ever heard of.

Although, thank the lord for the small favor that Tom Cruise does not seem to be coming out as a Republican.

Did she win the contest?

Dennis Kucinich has gotten married

Via Patrick Ruffini's 2008 Wire.

Kucinich-supporter Dawn Summers' first comment? 'So, not gay?'

Everything matters

I am in a mood today. I started the day with a 'nothing matters, everything dies' attitude, after a night of tossing and turning while trying to get Six Feet Under out of my mind (sidenote: if you didn't watch it you clearly will think I'm nuts, but if you did you're probably feeling what I'm feeling today) and now I'm just angry at everyone and myself for treating life like it lasts forever, while having petty squabbles about things that ultimately don't matter.

So, there's a war in Iraq. And, according to Hotline's Blogometer, 'The war in Iraq is over and we have lost, say a growing number of liberal blogs. Conservative bloggers too are distressed, with some speculating that the war will be lost if Iraq's constitution turns it into a theocratic state.'

These liberals, they've been hoping for a loss forever. Nothing matters but smearing George W. Bush. Fuck the Iraqis and their freedom to actually have a constitution to reject or fix or work on. Forget the fact that Iraqis were being killed en masse under Saddam, that they never had a glimmer of hope or opportunity to better their lives. Forgeet that they lived with a fear most Westerners will never understand. Forget about the two wars Saddam started, the fact that he used chemical weapons on his own people, that after 9/11 we couldn't have loose threats hanging around the Middle East, riling up their populace and neighbors against America. Most of all, don't think twice about the fact that leaving Iraq now will doom them. Just think about Bush and what a chimp he is and how he's doing all this for Halliburton anyway.

As for the right-leaning bloggers, they seem to have specific issues with the Constitution and actually offer solutions to improve it. Imagine that. Iraq won't be perfect, and if you listened to the first dozen or so speeches from Bush before and since the war began, he repeats again and again that it will be a long road. There will be setbacks. There will be death. But it is something we had to do, for our protection and survival. We need to normalize the Mideast, we have no choice. When we hit snags, we have to remember that and not throw up our arms and scream 'all is lost'. Because, actually, all was lost in Iraq before we got there. It can only get better from a time of human shredders and childrens' prisons.

Life is not forever and it matters what we leave behind. You can want the US, and the Iraqis, to 'win' this war or you could take glee in every setback because you feel it is evidence that you're 'right'. You can spend your time on earth bitching about Bush and hoping for failure in Iraq or you could do your best to improve your situation and that of others. I want Iraq to succeed. Do you?

All apologies

Sorry for the lack of posting. Will be back with a bang shortly, promise.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

excerpt from chapter one of Anti-Americanism
by Jean-Francois Revel

Once upon a time there was a genuine environmentalism, which flourished in the sixties, precisely in the United States. But it has long-since been hijacked by a mendacious pseudo-environmentalism, a mask for stale Marxist cant colored in green. Note that ideological environmentalism sees nature menaced only in those nations where economic liberty reigns to a greater or lesser degree--and above all, of course, in the most prosperous of them all.

Read chapter two for Tuesday.

Am I the only one who thinks all these things are good?

The way that choice was made, and the reasons for it, provide a vivid illustration of several hallmarks of Bush's style, including his insistence on protocol, his concern with precedent, his resistance to intrusions and his aversion to hand-wringing.

-Washington Post on whether Bush made a mistake not meeting with Cindy Sheehan.

The article is classic MSM, complete with quotes from Chuck Hagel, a note that Bush naps, and requisite snippets from newspapers in India and Australia on the situation. The most ludicrous part of this ludicrous piece is the quoting of ex-Clinton aide George Stephanapolous as saying 'a lot of Republicans would say . . . that this is the president's Swift boat moment'. Uh, sure, George, name one that is not a Senator from Nebraska.

Film at 11

Newsflash: Palestinians discover Israelis are human.

'It's not the 50's, no matter how you dress'

Six Feet Under discussion coming up, right after the episode for once.

Update: The song in the Six Feet Under finale was 'Breathe Me' by Sia.

Everything ends. Click on to read about the last episode ever of Six Feet Under, the best show on television.

I don't cry at movies or sad books. But I just cried my head off watching this episode.

I was ready to say it wasn't anything special, a random tie-up of loose ends with funny moments (like Billy grasping Ted's beer bottle and saying 'I am so jealous of you'). Brenda imagining Nate coming to terms with the baby. Claire falling into Ted despite Christian rock (?!) and Republican leanings. David coming back to reality. Ruth finding something to do with her time (helping Brenda).

But then that ending. Shocking, amazing, heartbreaking. Everyone dies. They've been telling us that since day one. You never know how, it could be during an armed robbery, on a cruise ship, playing football or in bed at 101. Finding out how it all turns out for the Fishers (and the Chenowiths and the Diazes) felt like a gift. Thank you Six Feet Under, you were amazing and I will miss you so much.

Dorian's Book Club (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

Have you been itching to read a particular book, but worried that you might be too busy to commit to it in August or September? Me too. Maybe a few of us can start a little book club online, at my website doriandavis.com. That way, we can motivate each other to finish this stuff, and we can have a little discussion group. I'm reading a book a week, starting Monday. My first one is Anti-Americanism by Jean-Francois Revel. The next three are The Science of Harry Potter by Roger Highfield, South Park Conservatives by Brian C. Anderson, and The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan.

Blogroll Update

All New Yawkers:

Atlas Shrugs

A Guy in New York

Glowie's Vista

Where has our country gone?

Stone

By the way, the blogger party is not happening on the 25th, too many people asked me to change it. Definitely in early September, leave suggestions as to when in the comment section.

Comment/question

Yaron is in Israel and says the disengagement is, reasonably so, a hot topic. He's also busy breaking the hearts of pre-teen girls but that's neither here nor there.

I was talking to my friend SMVP last night, someone who has long been for the disengagement, and talk turned to the West Bank. What's the current plan? Will the West Bank be completely 'disengaged'? Will there be no Jews at all there? SMVP said that there are whole cities, not settlements but actual cities, with mixed Jewish and Palestinian populations in the West Bank. What will happen there? Does anyone know?

Vote for Keisha

I got an email from Keisha C. Morrisey, a young Republican woman running for Female District Leader and State Committee-woman in the 70th Assembly District, which is Central Harlem. She's got pictures with all the big Republicans in NY like Rudy Giuliani, Roy Goodman, Sandy Treadwell, Rick Lazio and then she also has pictures of herself with Jay-Z and Mobb Deep (bottom right). I wish I lived in Harlem so I could vote for her.

Pizza Pizza

Back in 2004, I wrote 'I think pizza is the food I've missed most while I've been in Colorado. I mean, I don't even think Manhattan does pizza well, the rest of the country (much less the world), just can't compare.'

Nearly a year later, Dawn Summers writes

'There's no pizza like New York pizza. (And yes, I have had pizza in Rome, Naples, Chicago and New Haven, so no need to email me directions to Pepe's or JoJos or whatever that place is called. )

Like Champagne and Feta, the word Pizza should be applied only to the New York version. All others should get some generic "flat bread with sauce and cheese" name like "sparkling wine."

How about "cheesy bread?"

But my snobbery does not end at the borders of the Empire State. Oh no.

I hereby do you one better, and localize it into the very teeny-tiny borders of the borough of Brooklyn.'

Wow, the best pizza in the world is in Brooklyn. There's an original idea I've never heard before.

Dawn has a review of the top Brooklyn spots, she chooses DiFara as the winner and though I like it better now than I did the first time I had it, Totonno's remains my favorite. As for her L&B experience, I admit Dawn had it on an offnight but it is really outstanding pizza that deserves a second shot. I'm buying, Dawn, if you're driving.

Check out Slice NY for all pizza all the time.

Answers

Joe Grossberg has a good summary of why Israel had to leave Gaza.

Stop the searches

When the subway searches were first announced, I was under the impression that police would turn a blind eye to contraband, such as drugs or alcohol, that may be in bags they are searching. Now, for the record, I don't carry around dime bags or open bottles of gin, not to mention the fact that I rarely take the train, so it wasn't a personal concern. It turns out that police will be arresting people for anything illegal in their bag. I know this isn't going to change anyone's mind that supports the searches, but I hope people can at least see the glaring problem with them if they're going to be used for busting pothead kids. Fine, you don't care about your civil liberties, at least care about your money that is being wasted on this whole sorry idea.

Vs.

Just like I feel there is no debate about the superiority of Biggie over Tupac, or Jay-Z over Nas, I see a clear winner in the Nevermind v. Appetite for Destruction competition (as discussed here by Todd A.) and it's the Guns-N-Roses album.

Nirvana's Nevermind captures an era. For me, I was in high school, and I came back from vacation to have everyone, from the hip-hoppers to the rockers, talking about Nirvana. Everyone loved the angst, and I did too. Nothing wrong with being moody. I actually liked In Utero, their follow-up album, better, if only because I could sing 'Rape Me' and annoy my parents and teachers when I explained it wasn't actually about rape and so could sing it all the live long day.

But that's the problem with Nirvana, they're frozen in time, probably to the moment that you first heard 'Smells like Teen Spirit' and their sound has become dated. I want to say that Kurt Cobain's suicide played some role in this but the truth is that Guns-N-Roses haven't come anywhere near making a full-length album since The Spaghetti Incident, an underrated album of covers they put out in 1997, and Appetite still sounds as relevant today as it did when it was released back in 1990. And while GNR's Chinese Democracy is as illusive as Democracy in China, there's still the possibility of a real reunion as the lead singer hasn't blown his brains out. He just gets extra points for that.

Word to describe last Sunday's Six Feet Under episode.....

.....ewwwwwwwww.

Brenda and Billy making out was too much, even as a dream sequence. It icked me out pretty bad and I especially resent the idea that a close brother-sister relationship inevitably has those undertones.

The two political scenes made me cringe, the one where the dead soldier's sister mimics 'freedom, freedom, freedom' and when Claire melts down and yells at the SUV driving mother with the 'support our troops' bumper sticker, both were just too over the top. The actress who plays Claire is usually amazing but she doesn't play drunk well. I once saw her in an episode of Law&Order playing a mentally slow character and her portrayal of drunken rage wasn't too different from her role playing then.

How is need-to-be-totally-honest-about-everything Brenda going to explain to Maya where she came from? 'Well, Maya, your father, or who we think is your father, married your mother because she was pregnant and he had found out that I was cheating on him with every college guy, or two, that crossed my path. Then, your uncle, who very well may be your father, likely killed your mother and then himself. And the guy we're pretty sure is your father died after cheating on me with grandpa's daughter, your step-aunt, waking up from his coma only long enough to dump me.'

I don't know if it's the mark of a good show that I watch it mostly with my hands over my eyes but even the annoying parts keep me interested and entertained. I'm really going to miss it when it's gone.

Fine, it's just me then

A staggering majority of New Yorkers favor subway searches.

Whoa

William Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts, to run for Governor of New York.

I am of the mind that it would be great to have a Republican beat Spitzer but as it is nearly outside the realm of possibility we should instead take this opportunity to grow the state party and cultivate future candidates. Don't get me wrong, whoever is the Republican nominee for governor will likely have my support. But, this reeks of a mad scramble and it's a bad scene in NY politics that we have to make moves like this.

Well, that explains his last album

Eminem checks into rehab.

Update: Apparently, the drug is Ambien. And their commercials make it seem like the safest drug ever.

Me, me, me

Turns out, I have a wikipedia entry. I don't know who put it up, and there's an error in it that I will correct at some point (I don't write for Townhall, though I have written one book review for them). Just wanted to note how cool I am. Noted.

Looking at Katherine

Qando thinks Katherine Harris is looking hot while Greg at Liberteaser says he will be leaving the Republican party if she is the candidate for US Senate from Florida.

Qando link via Conservative Grapevine.

Yo, stop it

Kanye West Calls for End to Gay Bashing

No Comment

This is a few days old, but I'm just catching up on my reading and saw this in BOTW from Tue:

"Bill Dalrymple, 56, and best friend Bryan Pinn, 65, have decided to take the plunge and try out the new same-sex marriage legislation with a twist--they're straight men. . . . The two--both of whom were previously married and both of whom are still looking for a good woman to love--insist that after the humour subsided, a real issue lies at the heart of it all. 'There are significant tax implications that we don't think the government has thought through.' Pinn said."--Toronto Sun, Aug. 6, 2005

If only his fingers meant 'peace' and not 'victory'

Hamas' political spokesman Khaled Mashaal flashes V sign during a press conference in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005. Mashaal said Wednesday that Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was an important achievement, but would not lead to his group's disarmament. Mashaal also told reporters that his group was still committed to a six-month-old truce with Israel, but said 'our joy should not let us forget the march for liberation and the restoration of the rights of the Palestinian people.' (AP Photo/Marwan Assaf)

Can't watch, can't look away.

I heart James Taranto

Because only he can write like this:

A Teachable Moment

A local insurgent attacked a settlement near Crawford, Texas, yesterday, Reuters reports:

Some 800 white wooden crosses, bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq like her son, have lined the road near the area where [Cindy] Sheehan has pitched a tent. Witnesses said they saw a truck dragging a pipe and chains drive over some of the crosses on Monday night.

Larry Northern, 46, of nearby Waco, Texas, was arrested and charged with criminal mischief in connection with the incident, Crawford Police Chief Donnie Tidmore said.

Now, we have no truck with mischievous criminals, but at the same time it's important to understand what motivates people to do things like this. After all, one man's vandal is another's freedom-fighter. The Sheehanoids should be asking: Why do they hate us?

Think about it: If outside settlers were occupying your land, demonizing your leaders and slandering your country, wouldn't you have feelings of rage and hopelessness? Again, we're not condoning what Larry Northern allegedly did. Our point is that only by understanding what drove him to this desperate act can we put an end to the cycle of recrimination.

Edinburgh on my mind

_

Martyr?

AP:

Sharon, who championed the settlements for years, said the images of settlers being removed from their homes were heartbreaking.

"It's impossible to watch this, and that includes myself, without tears in the eyes," he told a news conference.

But he urged settlers to show restraint.

"I'm appealing to everyone. Don't attack the men and women in uniform. Don't accuse them. Don't make it harder for them, don't harm them. Attack me. I am responsible for this. Attack me. Accuse me," Sharon said.

Welcome Back!

Harry Siegel, of the blog New Partisan, is taking over my beloved New York Press. I love him already:

Mr. Siegel said that to a degree he is taking the paper back in time. "Under Russ Smith, the paper represented a more credible, serious, and ideologically open alternative to the Voice, and I'd like to see it again that way," he said, with a thick Brooklyn accent.

More on loving the NY Press here and here.

Tonight in NYC

Tonight's Archives Listening Project presents: AN EVENING OF BOLLYWOOD, Plus movies and Indian food at 12" Bar (179 Essex St, just below Houston. Free Admission.

I swear I could hear Jessica over on the left coast exclaiming 'free Indian food and I won't be there?! Damn.'

Quote of the Day

Note: getting answers with which you do not agree still constitutes getting an answer.

-James Lileks on Cindy Sheehan

This should be bigger news

Howard Dean, huckster.

Alarming News: a sanctuary of honesty

Tell me the truth, do we love 'Jamrock' by Damian Marley (click the link to listen to a little bit of the song ) or do we hold it against him that he'll never be his father?

Update: Ok, fine, don't comment. I've decided I love it all on my own, especially at the end where he's all 'Jamaaaaaaica, Jamaaaaaica'. You can see the video here.

Goodbye Gaza

I've been trying not to watch the withdrawal from Gaza. I have very mixed feelings about it. I didn't know I would feel such emotion about it, but I do.

On one hand, I know that the situation, as it stands, just can not last. How long can Gaza be Israel but not really Israel, Palestine when there is no Palestine? How can the settlers continue to live when they need the protection of the army just to survive?

On the other, it's just heartbreaking to watch these soldiers kick people out of their homes, soldiers who call the settlers their brothers and cry as they remove them. It bothers me that this concession is being made with little promised in return. I am unhappy that the message we are sending to the Palestinians is that they are the only group of people on earth who can not live with a minority population the way, say, Arabs, live in Israel. And, of course, the Hamas protests featuring their famous masked gunmen, have begun in earnest.

If abandoning Gaza leads to peace, if this is the turning point that we'll look back on when the Middle East has flourished and peace reigns, then fine, this land was given up for Israel to exist in peace. But, really, I can't help but think the move will be regretted and that Ariel Sharon's legacy will be that of a duped compromiser. This is a situation where I really wish I'm wrong.

Update:

More on Gaza:

Jeff Harrell

Vodkapundit

Kesher Talk

Roger Simon

Little Green Footballs

And make sure to read this site, live from Israel.

Blogroll Update

NYC:
Ambivablog
Enrevanche
CCS178

DC:
Reasoned Audacity

Georgia:
Red State Rant
Trey Jackson

In the brand-new Pennsylvania section (I went for the Billy Joel lyric, thanks for the suggestions):
Daily Missive
Informed PA

Boston (though he's actually in NH):
Joust the Facts

Update: Oh yeah, and the NY Sun has a blog now, It Shines for All.

Vote or die?

Lorraine Bracco, Dr. Melfi on Sopranos, attended a Bloomberg for mayor rally while Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher, will be attending a fundraiser for Manhattan Borough President candidate Carlos Manzano (I saw the invite over at Ari's).

Personally, I don't make a move without consulting with Silvio. We all know he's the only one that can be trusted on that show.

Today, 4pm EST

(Click this graphic to listen)

Guests today will be Heather MacDonald, a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a Contributing Editor to City Journal, and Robert Spencer, director of JihadWatch.org.

Dawn Summers will be live-blogging.

We love John from Greenville but we could use some other callers so do call in with questions to 1-866-884-TALK (8255).

Who knew?

It turns out there may be two HuffPost writers worth reading (with the first being the fabulous Robert George, of course).

That's me! That's me!

We like Captain Ed.

Can you 'smear' someone by just quoting them?

Cindy Sheehan:

*I'm going all over the country telling moms: "This country is not worth dying for."*

*We might not even have been attacked by Osama bin Laden if 9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through and, if I would have known that before my son was killed, I would have taken him to Canada. I would never have let him go and try and defend this morally repugnant system we have.*

*We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now.*

Most pointless conversation I've had today

Walking through security at the airport in Nashville, my bag was pulled due to a lighter in the inside pocket. A man searched around in my bag and then ran it through the machine again only to discover a second lighter, this time loose in my bag.

As he searched the bag again, I said 'I know it's not your fault but doesn't this seem silly to you? I arrived in Nashville on a plane with the same bag with two lighters.'

'Well, ever since that shoe bomber, Reid, we've been taking lighters.'

'Yes,' I said, 'but the problem with Reid wasn't the fact that he got the lighter on the plane but that he got the bomb on. The lesson from the Reid security lapse shouldn't have been to confiscate lighters but instead to look harder for bombs. Taking away my lighters only distracts you from that goal.'

'Ok,' he said, 'you're all set', as he nodded toward my gate.

If they were any more anti-Israel they'd be Al Jazeera

Headline: BBC denies charge of pro-Israeli bias after complaint by Muslim leaders

It's not that liberals are crazy....

....it's just that they can't help but argue themselves into the crazy territory.

Examples.

Normal position with which I disagree: 'Privatizing Social Security is a bad idea.'

That step into insanity: 'There is no crisis with Social Security! Social Security is in good shape.'

Normal position with which I disagree: The government should step in whenever its citizens are in need.

That step into insanity: Bush not supporting ______ program means that he hates children/puppies/old people.

Normal position with which I disagree: 'The Iraq war was wrong because Saddam wasn't a threat to us and we should've finished Afghanistan first.'

That step into insanity: 'The Iraq war was for oil, Bush was trying to make his daddy like him, Iraq was better under Saddam.

There are many others but I've got a plane to catch pretty soon so go ahead and give me yours in the comment section.

Justice Sunday II

This conference is going by very quickly, I can hardly keep up live-blogging the speakers.

I missed blogging on two good ones, Bishop Harry Jackson of the Hope Christian Church and Bill Donohue, an interesting New Yorker who heads the Catholic League and who I've had the pleasure of meeting a couple of times at different events in NY. Both did a great job.

Red State:

Up next is Bishop Harry Jackson. Jackson was the rock star of the press conference. Discusses the black church in America, and making an impact in community. Jackson has done work with church growth guru George Barna, and discusses a shift in the black church in America.

Says that justice is broken - sees color and race, says that not only is she blindfolded, she's sitting down on the job. "Many African-Americans are afraid of the word 'conservative', they think it's a code-word for racist... if there's not a process in this nation, then those who are the least empowered... will be most in danger when new people come into power."

Says that the black church is not going to let America go down into moral decline - "I'm not just black, I'm an American, and beyond that, I'm a Christian." Jackson realizes the same thing I have about the pro-life cause. When your cause is swallowed whole by one party, that's the death of your cause. A brilliant speaker and passionate activist.

Captain Ed:

6:56 - Bill Donahue of the Catholic League turned in a good stemwinder of a speech. He noted that Catholics and evangelicals had rarely worked together, but that the people should "get used to it" in the future. He picked out Mario Cuomo, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy for particular criticism for their pro-abortion stands and votes, and told the people gathered here that he had more in common with the people here than with those Catholics.

Evangelical Outpost:

6:47pm -- Bill Donohue, the President of The Catholic League, missed his calling in life – he should have been a Southern Baptist preacher. Donohue is good humored and witty and speaks as if he has too many words and not enough time to say them (the speakers, who have only a few minutes to speak, are way too rushed). He makes too many quips that fly by too fast but he gets in some good jabs at Mario Cuomo, Ted Kennedy, Christopher Hitchens, and people who think monkeys fell out of the trees, lost their hair and became “Adam and Eve.”

We love Zell

'If they make it harder for us to pray, we'll just pray harder.'- Zell Miller.

I can't remember now, why did Zell Miller retire after only one term (though, in a way I'm happy he did or I would've never met Herman Cain)? This is a man who can seriously fire up a crowd.

Justice Sunday II

Bill Hobbs, a terrific Tennessee blogger, has some good live-blogging of the proceedings.

More Justice Sunday II

I guess they forsaw that people would take issue with the politics and religion combination because several of the speakers have defended it.

Chuck Colson from Prison Fellowship Ministries: 'We're not looking for power, money. Let the Christian Church never be seen as a special interest group. We love G-d and love our neighbor like we are told to do. It's about seeing all of life under the word of Christ, of course we care about Justice. Don't be angry at your opposition. We need to love them.' He tells a story of opposition being abusive to a pastor friend of his and how turned the other cheek and just smiled while they threw condoms around his church.

My regular readers know: I'm a fighter not a lover.

'We do not claim the right to speak for every American, but we do claim the right to speak'

Tony Perkins, of the Family Research Council, said the above line to great applause. Some of the bloggers at this event are uncomfortable with the combined religious and political message. Maybe it's because I'm Jewish but I don't feel any awkwardness. These are people who are guided by their faith and, of course, they're going to want to promote their ideas to the public. They have a right. I think the bigger concern among the bloggers is that the Christian message is muddled with politics, as opposed to the political message being muddle by Christianity. I don't have a dog in this fight, Christians need to decide for themselves whether engaging in politics will hurt their main message or whether it is the obvious extention of their goals.

Jim Daly, from Focus on the Family, said that rights are not given by government but given by G-d and joked that the ACLU would've taken the founding fathers to court. It's a good point, we are not given human rights by men.

Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, mentions the Kelo decision as an overreach of the Court. His major point is that the court should be sensitive to the want of the majority.

Tom Delay is on now. Many of the protesters outside were carrying anti-Delay signs. Captain Ed wonders if there will be a rogue protesters inside during Delay's talk. So far, no sign of any.

Delay is on the idea of separation of powers. Powers to make laws is vested in Congress. Courts are limited to interpretation. Federal courts seem to have forgotten this. Rights are invented. Long-standing values are found to be unconstitutional. He talks to respect for judges but says this respect does not grant the powers judges have assumed in recent years. 'Elections are the cornerstone of democracy.' 'We're here to protect the Constitution so that it can keep protecting us'.

More live-blogging coming up, I'm going to take a little walk around.

Funny, the Russians in Brooklyn are experts at it

Headline: Russia's consumers learn to buy on credit

Damn.

I wish I had gotten here early enough to have something to disclose.

Justice Sunday II

Well, I'm here, at the Justice Sunday event in Nashville, Tennessee.

I saw my buddy from the RNC convention, Captain Ed, and met Joe Carter from Evangelical Outpost, Leon H. from Red State, Trey Jackson from Jackson's Junction, Charmaine Yoest and Lance McMurray from Red State Rant. There are other bloggers here I've yet to meet, all of them are listed on the Justice Sunday page.

There's a protest outside, of course, though Downtown Lad will be disappointed to know that few of the protesters mention gay issues, and instead focus on abortion.

Wouldya look at that

Andy McCarthy:

Interesting note: the United Nations is extremely worried about a terrorist attack against its Manhattan headquarters. So what is it doing? Why ... it is building a security fence.

Though, regarding their concern of a terrorist attack, as my Scottish friend Urbane McMeercat once said 'that would be a bit like pissing in their own chips, wouldn't it?'

Woooo Tennessee!

Thank you for making my visited states map look just slightly less pathetic:

create your own personalized map of the USA

My previous map is here.

Others

I'm celebrating 4 sensational years with my beautiful Peter, and also getting ready to leave for Nashville tomorrow morning, so sorry for the light blogging. This blog was around for our first anniversary, back when 9/11 was still so fresh in our day to day lives. I'm not going to mush out on you guys but should you choose to be in a relationship, I hope it's with someone as amazing as him.

To keep you from gagging may I suggest some excellent, not at all sappy, reading:

Ari on love.

Bunni on outcrazying the crazy.

Cathy Seipp on her high school reunion.

Comment Away!

The comment section is now operational.

Yeah, where?

Where are the liberal do-gooder groups on Iraq?

Mmmhmmm.

BOTW is on the Cindy Sheehan story. They highlight Cindy Sheehan's speech from Monday on what she imagines she would say to the president if she got her second chance to talk to him. In addition to calling him an 'evil maniac' and demanding he quit, she would say:

Cuz, we're not freer. You're taking away our freedoms. The Iraqi people aren't freer, they're much worse off than before you meddled in their country.

You get America out of Iraq, you get Israel out of Palestine

(massive round of applause)

And if you think I won't say bullshit to the President, I say move on, cuz I'll say what's on my mind.

This is just a synopsis and I highly recommend you read the whole thing.

Nope, no publicity seeking here.

Cenk Uygur:

This grieving mom has been...accused of putting on a public circus, lambasted as a publicity seeking grandstander...

Cindy Sheehan:

Yesterday was kind of a blur to me. From running around from interview to interview, to getting a visit from Viggo Mortensen, it was a whirlwind of activity. I have discovered that the White House press corps is always looking for something to do and someone to cover. We have been happy to oblige them. We had a press conference today with Gold Star Families for Peace and Military Families Speak Out members.

Update: Ken Wheaton writes on the Media's complicity in this circus.

All Cindy all the time

There are 16 posts on the main Huffington Post site right now, and every single one of them is about protesting mom, Cindy Sheehan. And, of course, each one says the exact same thing. The idiot liberals on there are hoping that they can damage Bush politically with this grieving mother. Nothing is done or said unless it can hurt Bush. They really couldn't give two figs about Cindy Sheehan, it's all about their Bush obsession. And really, it's an illness. Whether it's Sarah Jones blabbering that 'George W. and his feckless flock of draft-dodging warhawks somehow wrested control of our country away from sane people', David Swanson urging people to go to Crawford to join Mrs. Sheehan because 'Crawford, Texas, is where the party is' and 'Going to Crawford will be fun', or Steve Cobble asking 'Lexington. Selma. Crawford?', they come off as total lunatics. They ignore the fact that this woman has already met the president and that she was of a completely different disposition then. She lost her son. I feel for her. But yelling at Bush and becoming a puppet for the left won't bring him back. And these jerks should stop using her for their dumbass political opportunities.

I know I should sit back and let the online leftist community make liberals as a whole look bad. Elections are easier to win when the other side seems so deranged. But their behavior offends me as an American and as a human. They're disgusting, tripping over themselves with glee at her protest and writing things like 'An arrest will be a disaster for Bush. A growing crowd through the month will be a disaster for Bush. His only way out -– given his refusal to meet with Cindy -– is to hope that people get tired and go away.' Their gross strategizing on the back of this woman with a dead son is a new low, even for people who make a lifestyle of hitting below the belt.

Deep Thoughts, by Dawn Summers

Unfortunately, I'm privy to these thoughts a little too often even when she can sleep.

And suddenly it makes sense that Dawn Summers likes Jimmy Carter

From BOTW:

The Peanut Farmer
Columnist George Will settles a score with Jimmy Carter and reminds us of just how petty Carter is. At issue is Carter's recent claim that Will "had stolen my briefing book" and given it to Ronald Reagan's campaign, which used it to prepare for the sole Carter-Reagan debate. Will acknowledges that he inappropriately (from the standpoint of journalistic ethics) participated in the debate preparation and that the Reagan campaign had the briefing book, but he says he was not its source.

Carter also claimed recently that Will wrote to him "asking for forgiveness." This too is not true, Will says. "The only letter I ever wrote to Carter was in response to one he wrote to me on Oct. 29, 1993," Will writes, and he quotes from his own letter setting Carter straight on the false briefing-book allegation.

What's most striking about the story, though, is Carter's 1993 letter to Will, which Will quotes:

His letter began: "For a number of years I have felt some resentment toward you because of the reports that you either knew about or actually used my personal briefing book in preparing Reagan for our campaign debates [sic]." He added:

"Because of this feeling, and despite my lifetime interest in baseball, I even refrained from reading your 'Men at Work.' Recently, in order to learn how to be a better Braves fan next year, I spent $1 in a used bookstore for the book, and really enjoyed it.

"Even if the news stories about the debate incident are true, I feel that we are even now.

"Best wishes,

"Jimmy Carter"

So Carter (a) nurses this trivial grudge for 13 years (and still is after 25 years), (b) refuses to read Will's book because of it, (c) feels vindicated when he finds it on the remainder table, and (d) writes a letter to Will boasting about (c)! Next to this guy, Bill Clinton is Winston Churchill.

Read the George Will column. Will sees Carter's slap and raises him a sharp finger to the eye.

Notice

I'll be in Nashville this Sunday for one night to cover Family Research Council's Justice Sunday event.

Yes, they are paying for my flight and hotel. I mention that because Jeff Jarvis had some words on the whole situation. Charmaine Yoest, who is so sweet and set everything up for me, blogs about that here. Captain Ed, who will also be blogging the event, also has a post on the matter.

I think it's fine to have travel expenses covered if you are blogging an event. In fact, if anyone else wants to fly me out and put me up, I'll blog any event you've got going. It doesn't mean I'll say anything positive about it. Charmaine points out that her trip to Live 8 had several sponsors and she 'still also ended up being pretty critical' of her hosts in several posts. And while I'm open to blogging anything, I actually do want to attend Justice Sunday because as some of you may have noticed, I'm kind of into the whole conservative politics thing.

If I have any readers in Nashville, do drop me a line.

I'm sorry but, what?

British Airways canceled all its flights from London's Heathrow Airport on Thursday at the peak of its summer holiday season, stranding some 20,000 passengers, following a series of wildcat strikes.

Wildcat strikes?

First they came for the cigarettes but I wasn't a smoker so I did nothing. Then they came for the cupcakes....

N.Y. Wants Trans Fats Off Restaurant Menus

'18 years. 18 years. And on the 18th birthday he found out it wasn't his.'

One in 25 fathers is not biological parent - study

It's in the Guardian and it doesn't say if this is just Britain, world-wide, or what. I've been asked why it is that Jewishness is passed on through the mother, as opposed to Christianity that goes by the father. Well, you'll always know who the kid's mom is.

Oy

Donald Trump has launched a blog to impart wisdom such as 'The glamour and grandeur of my buildings and my life are no mere trappings' on the masses.

Via Media Bistro, as is the post beneath this one.

Yeah, gee, I wonder why

Columbia Journalism Daily notes the Air America money scandal story and wonders why none of the business dailies have picked it up. I was going to send the link to Brian Maloney, who is all over this story, but he's already a few steps ahead.

Solicitation for Pennsylvania help

With Steve Silver moving to Pennsylvania, I now have enough PA blogs in my blogroll for them to have their own section. I can't think of any songs or sayings about Pennsylvania with which to name their section, can you?

Rap and politics, always a winning combination

How odd. I just mentioned the old rap group 'Black Sheep' earlier today and now there is a post on Liberteaser arguing that they're libertarians. In another song, I believe called 'Any Pull', there is the line 'Dres is down with self maintaining' so maybe the 'teasers are onto something.

I love Jeb Bush

On the NCAA penalizing Florida State University for using an American Indian nickname and symbols:

"I think they insult those people by telling them, 'No, no, you're not smart enough to understand this. You should be feeling really horrible about this.' It's ridiculous," Bush said.

Bush said the NCAA must have better things to do than sit around worrying about the nicknames adopted by its member institutions.

"How politically correct can we get?" Bush asked. "The folks that make these decisions need to get out more often."

We don't need no stinkin' husbands

Neither Hillary Clinton nor Jeanine Pirro have photos of their husbands on their websites.

Via Politicker.

As if the U.S Senate race wasn't scary enough already....

....there's this.

He's celebrating by going shooting!

Yaron is one of the coolest people I've ever met. Go over and wish the boy a very happy birthday.

Blogroll Update

Shanna is a personal chef in DC and her blog, Fine Dining Solutions, makes me hungry. If you live in DC, hire her.

R.A.P at M.S.G

Continuing with my random, excellent summer, Dawn Summers and I, along with several of my friends from Brooklyn, attended Anger Management III last night, the tour featuring 50 Cent and Eminem.

Having seen rap shows on tv, heard about them from my brother and friends, and having seen everyone from Black Sheep to Cypress Hill to NWA in my youth, I knew that there might be some smoking happening at the show. Dawn Summers had no similar framework and was stunned when cigarettes and other various smokable items were lit up all around us. 'Where are the police?', she'd say from time to time. When the woman in front of us was smoking a cigarette, Dawn tried to talk to me loud enough for her to hear 'I mean fine, she's smoking marijuana and that's not legal anywhere so she's smoking it here but she's got to know that smoking cigarettes in public, indoor spaces is illegal, right? She must've been to NY before, right?' I would 'shhhh' her because, really, I wasn't ready to throw fists because Dawn didn't know that there would be smoking at a rap show.

50 Cent was great. He is a born performer, naturally able to get the crowd going. No one is ever going to accuse his music of being too 'thinky' but it's fun and he put on an excellent show. Eminem is another story. While I used to think he was one of the few good live rappers, last night was not his finest hour. He seemed tired and bored. I've written before that I think his last album, Encore, really sucked. It's boring, condescending and has no beats. And, since this tour was in support of that album, with a few of the radio hits thrown in, the show was really unbearable.

The highlights of the night, for me, was seeing 50 Cent live, seeing the resurrected Mobb Deep, who are the latest act to sign with 50's record label, and hearing Obie Trice do the one song that I love by him- 'Got Some Teeth'.

My friend Fedya, who got us the tickets, said that last night was the last nail in the coffin in terms of his listening to rap anymore. He didn't enjoy the show. It's funny because for the entire time I've known him, he's been trying to get me into hip-hop. Now that I like rap, he's out.

This NY Times review of the show is actually extremely accurate.

Update: Dawn's take.

'Hoist the Black Flag', today at 4pm EST (Bumped to get your attention)

(Click this graphic to listen)

We said we'd take a week off to retool. Well, we certainly took that week off. Retool? Not so much. Nevertheless, Ace and I are back today with guest Brian Maloney, a talk host who is all over the Air America money-from-Childrens'-groups scandal.

Call in with questions to 1-866-884-TALK (8255).

Update: I hear Dawn Summers is back to live-blogging after her own 2 week hiatus.

What's a little Communism between you and a friend?

More than 1,100 died fleeing East Germany: report

Why not Randy Daniels?

I'm glad Jeanine Pirro is running against Hillary, don't get me wrong. I'm happy we have someone whose name doesn't inspire a resounding 'who?' ala Howard Mills, the candidate against Chuck Schumer last year. And, my main complaint about her running was that we now have two candidates against Hillary, an extremely tough race as it is, but none for Governor or Attorney General.

Well, I'm wrong. We do have a candidate for Governor. New York Secretary of State Randy Daniels is running against Eliot Spitzer. I vaguely knew this based on emails I've gotten from his staff but I though that state Republican Chairman Stephen Minarik had put the kibosh on it. A NY Times article a few days ago notes 'The state party's chairman, Stephen J. Minarik III, has indicated that Mr. Daniels lacks the name recognition to be a competitive candidate, and party leaders appear more interested in others, including Tom Golisano, a Rochester billionaire who spent millions of dollars attacking Mr. Pataki when he ran for governor in 2002 as an independent, and Jeanine F. Pirro, the television-friendly Westchester County district attorney.'

Well, we now know Pirro isn't running for Governor. And Golisano has made third party runs before, against sitting Republican governor Pataki, so I can't see him being embraced by Republican voters (although once the party embraces his money the voters may follow ala Bloomberg.) Republican politicos will exclaim 'The voters won't care! Pataki is unpopular!' or 'Republicans hate Pataki!' but they're dreaming. Yes, Pataki isn't beloved, and yes he has done some serious damage to the state party by not recruiting or assisting candidates, but any Republican to win three terms as governor of NY will have some serious clout with the voters, like him or not.

The other option I've heard involves William Weld, former governor of Massachusetts. Are we Illinois? Do we need to import Republicans to lose in our elections?

The same Times article notes: 'more than a few Democratic officials have questioned how warmly Republican leaders in the state would welcome the candidacy of Mr. Daniels, who, if successful, would be the state party's first black nominee for governor.' Are we going to let 'Democratic officials' get away with calling us racist? Am I missing where they have fielded black candidates in anything but absolutely sacrificial lamb roles like Carl McCall? I worked for a state-wide black Republican candidate in Georgia who came in a close-second of three in a primary against two sitting Congressmen. Surely New York Republicans won't give a fig about their nominee's color. Minarik was accused of not wanting Daniels because he's black and he responded 'That's absolutely ridiculous and offensive. The problem I have with Randy Daniels is that he has less than 5 percent name recognition with the public and he doesn't have any money.'

No, actually what's ridiculous is the Republican party not having a candidate for governor this late in the game with an opponent like the funded-to-the-gills Spitzer. Also ridiculous is that the state party chairman doesn't seem to understand that his put-downs of Daniels won't improve his fundraising and, as he's currently the only candidate in the race, that's a problem. And what's offensive is that our state chairman seems to think we won't notice that we have no candidates, for anything other than the nearly impossible Senate race, for the forseeable future.

So, why not Randy? He got a great reception at CPAC, though I admit having missed his talk. I had several people mention to me that he came off very well and was quite impressive. He used to be a Democrat, which some people may see as a problem but I see as an asset. If your parents are Republicans and your friends are Republicans, you tend not to question your allegiance. But if you started out as a Democrat and then converted to Republican (in NY of all places!!!), that shows a spunk that we need in our elected officials. Some of the best Republicans, like Reagan and Giuliani, started out on the other side.

If Minarik has a better idea, I'd like to hear it and quick. In the meantime, Randy Daniels has my attention and my support.

Everything ends

'You could've dressed'
'I couldn't'
'Well, the rest of us managed'
'Well, the rest of you win.

Latest episode of Six Feet Under after the jump

So Nate is really dead. Really, truly, organs harvested, unembalmed-body-with-no-coffin-in-the-ground-dead. I really thought they wouldn't do it, that it would turn out to be a dream sequence or a visit to the other side like last time. But, no. Dead as a doornail.

There's two episodes left. I guess Ruth is getting back with George (big mistake, huge) but grief (and obvious loneliness) can do that. I hadn't spoken to one of my really good friends for over a year and we reconciled when he showed up to my grandmother's funeral. It's hard to stay mad at someone who 'is there for you' during a bad time. But my friend just needed to be taught a lesson about selfishness while George is a nightmare. Run, Ruth, run.

It drives me crazy that Maggie came to the funeral. If I was Brenda, we'd have a cat fight on our hands. Who does she think she is? She's the sad daughter of the lunatic everyone hated. And she slept with Nate while his pregnant wife waited in the church for them to show up. Gross. Stop with the sad little girl shit, Maggie needs a smack across the head. Hard.

Claire ending up with the lawyer is just a little too cute. But, like a lot of things about Claire, it would be completely realistic. I was a lot like Claire in my teens. Very rebellious and different. It's not that I'm not anymore, it's just that it gets exhausting to never fit in and you start to want to be normal. Claire seems to be at that stage now.

I don't know what will happen to David. I guess he will be fine because he's sort of the family rock when the flighty Fishers lose themselves. His flashbacks of his kidnapper may just be grief. Or, geniune trauma. Who knows?

How do you think it will end?

Did I mention I'm having the best summer?

Guess who is going to see the Anger Management Tour, featuring Eminem and my boyfriend 50 Cent at Madison Square Garden tonight? Guess!

Quote of the Day

Critics of race-based affirmative action have for a long time suggested that preference programs based on color reinforce racialist stereotypes, perpetuate a culture of victimization, strengthen racial balkinization, and taint all achievers of color with the implicit suggestion that their success is owed in large part to programs that eschew merit for cosmetic diversity. Progressives respond that critics of affirmative action are likely closet racists who use code words like “fair" and “merit" to hide their hatred of minorities behind a construct that inherently preferences whites. Unstated in all this—but increasingly obvious in posts like Mithras’—is the sense of ownership over minorities progressives who support affirmative action assert whenever they criticize non-whites who break with a leftist orthodoxy they implicitly credit for that individual’s success.

-Jeff Goldstein responding to a post by a dumbass leftist that accuses Michelle Malkin of only succeeding because of her race and gender.

Blogger Party

Ok party people, based on the responses last time I think we should have that blogger bash on Thursday, the 25th of August. How does that sound? If I get a collective 'noooooo' then we can maybe move it but two weeks from Thursday is the date otherwise. Comments please.

(Memo to NY Girl, I promise we'll have another when you're back in the US).

Something is really, really wrong here

Rosie O'Donnell will play Golde, Tevya's wife, in 'Fiddler on the Roof' on Broadway.

Encouragement

Go leave Joey McKeown some comments on his mushroom burger so that he'll open comments more often.

Regarding Six Feet Under

I haven't seen yesterday's episode yet so, same as last week, punishment will be swift and severe for anyone who spoils anything for me.

Here we go

Westchester D.A. Pirro will challenge Clinton

Blogroll Update

Charles Star, formerly of that horrible Rickblaine.com, now blogs at Stay Free magazine. He'll still get just about everything wrong, but maybe now he'll do that from a slightly less annoying location.

W.C Varones is now located in the California section of the blogroll.

Another one in NYC: Irwin Chusid is a self-described 'radio personality, author, producer, music historian, landmark preservationist and media hacker'. He truly rocks, check him out.

Update: We love musicians here at 'Alarming News', so please welcome Harleys, Cars, Girls & Guitars to the blogroll.

Update: Thomas Paladino used to head the NY chapter of Protest Warrior. His blog is NY Republican.

Who says violence never solves anything?

Because I think a little violence is definitely in order here:

Theo Van Gogh's son assaulted at school by Muslim classmates.

R.I.P

Peter Jennings, dead at 67.

When will liberals learn that throwing money at a problem will never solve it?

Headline: Rich liberals vow to fund think tanks

Don't hate me because I'm.....

....having a great summer. Spent the last 36 hours at Ari's lake-front house in Connecticut. Tanning on the private little pier, swimming, barbecueing, Hold 'Em, just the girls-perfection.

Song of the night

'I'm on Fire' by Bruce Springsteen.

Who, us?

Here's an interesting rap video criticizing the Russian-American community in my hood in Brooklyn for being materialistic and shallow. The Russian rapping in the song is actually far better than the English, I think, but an interesting listen even for those who don't speak Russian.

What are these rights you speak of?

Jonah Goldberg:

When Ramzi Mohammed, one of the failed bombers in the second wave of attacks on London, was surrounded by representatives of the decadent, infidel West, he didn't shriek, "Allahu Akbar!" and throw himself at his captors in a suicidal lunge for martyrdom. No, instead he whined, "I have rights! I have rights!"

I was willing to bet we'd be arguing about this odd plea for weeks. One side would complain, "Can you believe the chutzpah?" The other side would applaud how even alienated Islamic youth have learned to respect the majesty of our criminal-justice system.

Of course, I'm squarely in the "Can you believe the chutzpah?" column.

Read the whole thing, it's excellent.

More hotness

The Politicker is running a '10 most beautiful people in City Politics' contest. Having seen people in NY City politics, I can't imagine they'll come up with 10.

Update: The results are in.

Hot or not?

GOP Vixen held a poll for hottest world leader and I was one of the judges. Check out the results here.

Bush is such a homophobe

Obviously he picked a fellow homophobe for the Supreme Court.

Despite the fact that he hates when I write about him....

Sorry for my absence yesterday, my brother had just gotten back from spending over a month in Spain. It was the longest he had ever been away from home and I spent the evening listening to stories from his time away (before heading to the rockingest 'Wifebeaters' show).

Ronnie is my favorite person alive, and my biggest influence despite being 5 years younger than me. He's the most non-bullshitting person I've ever known and there is no one that I trust in the way I trust him.

One of my classic stories about my baby brother involves him visiting me while I was living in Scotland. He was talking too loudly, or something, and I said to him 'you act so American'. I was maybe 19 years old and took America-criticizing as a substitute for actual thought. He was 14, and obviously much wiser than me, since he said 'I am American'. I remember loving that answer. He wasn't going to try to be anything but himself just because someone might not like it. In a world where everybody fronts and poses, I always find him completely authentic.

A couple of years ago, he was dating the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. I'm not exaggerating. He came to my 24th birthday party with this total goddess who was wearing $5000 Dolce&Gabbana pants (all the girls at the party were staring at the pants, all the guys at her). Even now, years later, people who were there that night still ask me about her, she was that stunning. He broke up with her because she wasn't 'amusing'. He's actually a lot like Dawn Summers, in that they both find the funny in every single situation and he needs a girl that does the same. Breaking up with this girl (who, by the way, is also very smart and cool) was just huge. As Ivan would say: rezpect.

Ronnie has a whole vocabulary of unusual phrases that get picked up by everyone around him. 'Guy' and the exasperated 'buddy', two of my favorites, came from him. Lisa's personal favorite 'you dizzy broad' originated in Goodfellas but was popularized by him. I was telling Dawn last night 'Ronnie came back with a bunch of new phrases, which of course you and I will adapt as our own'. 'We're such losers picking up our slang from him', she said. At that moment Lisa leaned in, 'so what are some of the new ones?' 'Oh, that's good, so it's not just us that are losers,' said Dawn.

He's given me my share of headaches. When he calls me and says 'Karol, you know what happened....' I know nothing good can follow, and we don't discuss why he almost missed by birthday two years ago. But he's getting older and smarter and those calls, which were a little too frequent when he was in his teens, aren't happening as much at 23.

Travel, especially for any real length of time, can really change your whole outlook. He has a new appreciation for air conditioning (one of the key realizations of an American spending time in Europe, I think) and met people that he would've never spoken to if he wasn't in a situation where he had to. He's looking forward to catching up on this season of 'Entourage' and finally going to see 'Wedding Crashers' I am beyond thrilled that he's back but also really happy he went.

Searches are stupid

Like most pop-culture magazines, Radar is pretty braindead politically but this post on the subway searches, including an undercover operation in Arab garb, is right-on.

No, really.

Someday someone will write a book about the NY blog scene and the various affairs, scandals, gossip and outrages but that person won't be me and in the meantime I just want to make it clear that there won't be any removal of anyone from the blogroll for any reason (short of calling me a liar or a racist). You'd think I'm kidding about people asking me to delink others, but you'd be wrong.

Yet another 'Six Feet Under' post

Click on.

Quote of the Day:

It's probably not that big a deal, since Nate is a fictional character, the show is ending forever in three weeks again, and characters on SFU always continue to speak and interact with others even after they're dead.

-Steve Silver on Nate's Death

I would add: Not to mention that Nate has 'died' before, complete with death card.

Someone isn't getting a crocheted pillow for Christmas

Martha Stewart's release from home confinement and her electronic anklet has been delayed three weeks to the end of the month after the New York Post exposed her breaking the rules.

Via Media Bistro.

NYC this month (Bumped to remind people that attending the Wifebeaters show tonight is a must)

The event list for August is now up at my other site RightEvents.com.

This Wednesday is a big night as there are a bunch of cool events going on. There's a Republican Jewish Coalition event, a state-affiliated NY Young Republican Club party, and a Jinx Magazine debate. Regardless of which of those you choose to attend, the one event not to be missed that night is a performance of the Wifebeaters at Bowery Poetry Club at 10pm.

A marriage made in Atlantic City

Last night, during a poker game, Dawn Summers fell in love. The guy was adorable, sweet, charming (and totally checking her out) but all that was just gravy compared to the one bold card play that won her over.
No, I'm not kidding.

Buuuuuuuurn

From an upcoming Vanity Fair article:

Aniston also hasn't lost her sense of humor. On Pitt's recently dyed blond hair, she says, "Billy Idol called he wants his look back."

Hiatus

Ace and I are taking a break from 'Hoist the Black Flag' this week to retool and consider the direction of the show. Rightalk will be rebroadcasting last week's show with Jonah Goldberg at 4pm EST.

I've tried handling it like an adult, now it's time to handle it like a blogger

A few weeks ago, I was home alone on a Saturday night. I had offers to go out but nothing seemed appealing. Dawn and I were chatting on Instant Message when I typed 'wanna go to Atlantic City?' She asked if I was serious and well, I wasn't but now that she wanted to go, I was! At around 10pm, we were in her car on the way to AC.

(Funny sidenote: neither of us have written about that trip because we're really thinking of turning it into a screenplay, it was that insane.)

We had called around to various hotels and they were pretty booked up. We were fine with playing for a little while and then heading home but, of course, preferred to stay the night and not have to worry about the driving. Also, whether or not we had a room would determine how long we'd stay at the casino. I started calling different hotel chains to see if they might have something under 30 miles away from Atlantic City. Marriott had nothing. Then I called Hilton.

There was no availability at any of their bigger hotels but there was a Hampton Inn Bayside not two miles away from Atlantic City that could be ours for the night for a mere $89. Before I yelped 'we'll take it!' I realized there could be a problem. See, it was 1am. Technically, that made it Sunday. But I didn't need the room Sunday-Monday the 17th-18th, I needed it Saturday-Sunday the 16th-17th . I confirmed and reconfirmed and rereconfirmed that the operator understood this. I stressed that we would be checking in in about 4 hours. I repeated again and again 'so that's the 16th-17th and not the 17th-18th, right?'

Right.

So, we played for a few hours and when we started to get delirious from all that pumped in oxygen we called it a night. We got into Dawn's car as the sun rose over beautiful Atlantic City. We pulled out of the Tropicana parking lot as the hookers counted their money, the dealers were just heading to bed and the homeless people were finding comfortable stoops.

I had dutifully written down all the hotel information, including its phone number and our confirmation number. I called the hotel to get directions. The guy that answered was confused. 'You've already checked in, right?' 'Uh, no, we're going to be checking in now.' 'But, we're completely sold out.'

You know how to take a reservation, you just don't know how to hold a reservation.

I read the desk guy our confirmation number and he found no such number in the system. I called the main Hilton number and told them our story. The woman put me on hold as she tried to figure out the error. When she came back she knew the answer to what had gone wrong: Because we had made a reservation for a date that had already passed, the computer automatically went to that date in the following year. So, we had a reservation for July 16, 2006. Terrif. She suggested we go to the hotel and get the half-asleep desk guy to get us a room at a nearby hotel, which we knew were all booked up because we had tried calling the main Atlantic City hotels number earlier in the night. We did not feel that sounded promising, especially since it was 6am and we were surrounded by the dregs of society in the ghetto of Atlantic City (I'm sorry commenter Jay, I know it's your hometown but you have to admit the strip is nasty, particularly at dawn).

So we drove the 2+ hours home, through the heaviest rain I had seen since I saw flooding in Scotland, cursing Hilton the whole way. Since then, I've sent three emails and have gotten zero response beyond the promise to forward my complaint to the relevant department. What's funny is that Hilton really is/was my favorite hotel chain. It's the one I would seek out while on roadtrips and the one I had logged the most stays at. But this was a big mistake and the fact that they haven't even responded to our complaint is ridiculous. So, here you go Hilton, a couple of thousand people reading this when it could've just been between you and me (and Dawn).

SFU on my mind

Claire's hearse from Six Feet Under will be painted onto NYC buses with the roll-out of the 4th Season DVD. It's pretty cool, check it out here.

Spot the difference

What he says: The Rev. Al Sharpton announced Monday he was forming a coalition to promote racial unity between blacks and Hispanics in the city, hoping to ease a long-running rivalry over jobs, housing and schools.

What he means: Wait. So I can fleece people by starting racial problems on behalf of both African-Americans and Hispanics? Sweet!

Ok, I'm ready to discuss the latest episode of Six Feet Under

And go.

I had diligently avoided any mention of the show but I was getting tons of hits from people searching for Nate+dead+Six+Feet+Under or various other phrases. So, I started to suspect Nate was dead. Then, my friend Matty, who doesn't watch the show, called me and while discussing 'Entourage', the show on after SFU, asked 'oh yeah, and why is that guy in the hospital with a bandage on his head?' I knew what he was referring to immediately. 'You're not talking about SFU, are you?' 'Ummmmm, no, I'm talking about a uh, different show' DAMN. Well, now I knew Nate wasn't dead, which made sense because I couldn't see him dying before the season was over.

So, now that I've seen the episode, I have three words: what the hell? Nate wakes up from a coma long enough to dump his pregnant wife and now he's what, dead? Maggie has the gall to stay in the hospital the whole night with the family and then to come back the next day and hold his hand? And if Nate is dead, as previews seem to suggest he is what with his family attending his funeral and discussing him in the past tense, are they really going to Terri Schiavo it with Brenda and Ruth fighting over what gets to happen to him? They set it up in last week's episode when Rico angrily yells at Nate that if their latest corpse has a husband, he's responsible for deciding her arrangements. That would be so political and boring. Could it all be a dream? SFU loves the dream sequence. Can they really kill Nate off? Really?

How many episodes are left, anyway?

UPDATE: A pretty good piece in Salon about the show. My favorite part:

But here's the sick thing: Nate has, from the very beginning, served as the perfect blank protagonist onto which the viewer is meant to project him- or herself. The degree to which we despise Nate is directly proportional to the degree to which we hate our own selfish, lazy, endlessly rationalizing selves.

Urg. I hate that this is so dead-on. Everything I hate about flighty, moody Nate I hate about myself.

Can I get an "Amen"? (By Guest Blogger Candace)

So maybe I'm not still allowed to guest-blog, but I'm doing it anyway because you all need to read this article, from the Centre for Independent Studies. Excerpt:

The recent and sudden interest in both Christianity and Islam has been fuelled by the threat that their more robust forms, generically labelled ‘fundamentalism’, are believed to pose to the stability and comfort of the secularised West. Consequently discussion of religious matters has tended to take on an ‘Us and Them’ character with ‘Us’ being seen as the calm and reasonable children of the Enlightenment and ‘Them’ as fanatics and barbarians, be they Christians, Muslims or Jews. This is not to say that there is not a small hard core of extremists amongst these ‘fundamentalists’. Rather it is to point out that the use of a term such as ‘fundamentalism’ obscures rather than illuminates when it is used to encompass the beliefs of millions, even billions, of people.

So interesting. And, contrary to my unimaginative title, not at all proselytizing.
Via Arts & Letters Daily.

Racist wedding crashing

I thought there would be hoopla over the portrayal of a gay character in 'Wedding Crashers' (aka the best movie of the summer), as well as anti-gay comments made by another character. But I haven't heard anything about that and instead it seems it's the lack of black people in the film that's getting the attention.

That's hot

From Page Six:

A GUN hangs in Billy Bob Thornton's doorway. Attached is the sign, "We don't dial 911."

Quote of the Day

I never realized until this morning that I'm actually taller than a lot of people. When I was getting on the subway, some panel above the door was unhinged and it was hanging down. I didn't see it and duly smacked my head. I'm fine, thanks for asking, but then I watched as we pulled into every station since then. With the exception of one other guy, everyone else was able to walk under it with ease. It's like a city of midgets!

-Very tall Peter in a private email probably not intended for publication.

I heart Vince Vaughn

He steals every scene he's in, including opposite Brad Pitt, his favorite book is by Ayn Rand and he's got the kooky idea that actors should stick to acting and not discuss politics. I love me some Vince Vaughn.

Via the always happening Daily Lunch.

Comic in Afghanistan

A comic from Brooklyn went over to Afghanistan to entertain the troops. His story is on his blog including the reactions of random people after telling them he just got back from Afghanistan. A great read.

Hat tip: Charles Star.

I still haven't seen any anti-Muslim signs... (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)

More here.

UPDATE: Welcome Michelle Malkin readers. If you live in NYC and want to find others like you visit Rightevents.com, a compilation of right-leaning events around NYC.

SFU

Anyone that tells me anything about last night's 'Six Feet Under' will be punished, and I don't mean that in a fun way.

I just saw on Ann Althouse's blog that Claire said 'What are you, some redneck blogger pig?' to Ted when he defended the Iraq war. But that was my fault. I saw the words 'Six Feet Under' and couldn't look away.

I don't want to know anything else though I know something big happened because I'm getting a bunch of hits for the show. I don't know how you people who are catching up through DVDs, and are several seasons behind, do it.