Thursday, April 27, 2006

Meanwhile, those aspects of Bush’s performance that the White House was clearly anxious to call attention to were reported enthusiastically. It was obvious that Bush had been coached to dispense with two of his favorite public speaking tricks–his perma-smirk and his finger-waving cowboy one-liners. Bush’s somber new "war is hell" act was much commented upon, without irony, in the post-mortems.

Appearing on Hardball after the press conference, Newsweek’s Howard Fineman (one of the worst monsters of the business) gushed when asked if the Bush we’d just seen was really a "cowboy":

"If he’s a cowboy he’s the reluctant warrior, he’s Shane… because he has to, to protect his family."

Newsweek thinks Bush is Shane?

Journalism's most lyric poet of the Pecos is Howard Fineman, who yodels from the pages of Newsweek and on MSNBC, his smirk eerily mirroring Bush's. It's as if they share the same nasty secret of snotty self-esteem. Fineman has been foremost in fluffing Bush as a hero on horseback who casts a lean shadow. No sooner had the president's zombie press conference staggered to a close than Fineman could be heard caroling on Hardball, "If he's a cowboy he's the reluctant warrior, he's Shane...because he has to, to protect his family."

Not much of a poet, Fineman is an even poorer scholar of the sagebrush genre. Alan Ladd's reluctant and repentant gunslinger wasn't protecting his family; he was strapping on the holster to defend the family for whom he toiled as a hired hand. Shane also made it a point of honor to never be the first to draw. It was the bad guys and yella' bellies who went for their guns to get the jump on the decent folk.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, we suppose it was inevitable that the media would "rally 'round the president" to a certain degree. (Why, he's got the best qualities of Reagan, FDR, and Lincoln — with the rugged good looks of JFK to boot!) But in case you haven't yet been convinced that Bush/43 strides the globe like a proverbial giant, Howard Fineman has got conclusive proof — proof! — that you are not only an idiot, but also a shameless partisan who just needs to get over that whole 2000 election thing. The Newsweek/MSNBC "journalist" (and Whore of the Week at Media Whores Online) has given all of us one more reason to bow down before the altar that is Dubya: All of Al Gore's Top Advisors are "relieved" that our current president is George W. Bush, and not that other guy with the beard who lied all the time about inventing the Internet. Says not-so-Fineman: "with almost audible sighs of relief, some top people who worked for Al Gore privately tell me they are glad (relieved might be a better word) that George Bush — not Bill Clinton’s veep — is in the White House now." Never mind that he only quotes four people — all anonymous. (Editor's note: Remember how Gore ran that presidential campaign last year with only four people?) Fineman's real kicker is the reason that they are glad that Gore is not in charge: "The Republican Right would have been all over us." Did you catch that, folks? Gore would have done a bad job, because Republicans can't put aside their hate, even in a time of national crisis

Can George Bush win back the press?

For the first time in his political career, George W. Bush finds himself in an uncomfortable position: he has to deal with the press on its terms, not his. For such a proud, controlling –- and, some would say arrogant -– guy, meeting the media at least half way won’t be easy. But he has no choice if he wants the last third of his presidency to amount to much. Bush has the charm to succeed, but the effort may require more candor than he can afford, more humility than he has, and more changes in policy than he will allow.

[...]

For Bush and his handlers, the challenge was never to attract the media beast, but to guide and tame it. To do the latter, the Bush method was and is to see the media – as every other sphere of life – in black and white terms: there are friends and…everyone else. Access, such as it was, went to friends, to familiar people with whom Bush had dealt and for whom he had built up a modicum of trust.

In the 2000 campaign, he dealt with the media by turning his press plane into a fraternity/sorority house – BTB, Beta Theta Bush. Charming and self-deprecating when he wants to be, Bush understood the psychology of the plane, which was that, if you can be a decent enough fellow, most of the reporters who commit a year or more to covering your campaign eventually – whether they realize it or not – conclude that they want you to be president. Drawing on his Yale frat-president skills, he effectively anesthetized the plane.

As a result, Bush came to Washington with his press theory fixed: I don’t need the coverage, and to the extent I do, I can control it from the top down – from the forward cabin back. Of course, things don’t work that way in the White House. The world is too big, the press corps is too various, the issues come too fast and furious. It’s not black and white; you confront a world of suspicious gray.

The new president was on the verge of discovering that grim (but necessary) reality when 9/11 struck. That event put Bush back in firm control of press dynamics, and gave him the chance to assert new news-management power in the name of security. Suddenly, Bush was at the center of – and controlled access to – the biggest story of our time, the rise of Bin Ladenism and America’s military response to it. Bush suddenly had control of what everybody wanted: access (or at least information about) what was going on in busy, fateful Situation Rooms in Washington and battlefields across the planet.

Once again, it seemed, the press needed Bush more than Bush needed them. Deftly, shrewdly, his White House rationalized (and rationed) access to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and won praise from the media outlets favored with the new condition called “embedding.” It seemed like a triumph. And the “war presidency” remained in top-down, friends-versus-enemy media mode for a long time.

Put him back on the campaign plane, so to speak. The press corps is a global phenomenon – the whole planet is an unwieldy “plane.” And the reporters are unhappy. I got a sense of that recently by participating in an Aspen Institute panel at the State Department with top reporters from around the world. Their attitude toward America (and the American press corps) was nothing short of acidic. Bush has no choice but to try to create a shared sense of mission, in this case for the survival of freedom. And that means more contact with them than he has ever had as president – in circumstances where he can’t be in full control

posted by tbogg at 7:55 PM

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Almost Friday Random Ten

Waitress out dressed like nurses in bondage
Brought me the check, said I want you to sign this
Union boy standing next to the rastas
There's gonna be a strike and you ain't gonna stop us 

Super Sex - Morphine
Autumn Leaves - Rickie Lee Jones with Rob Wasserman
Deep Red Bells - Neko Case
Sugarcube - Yo La Tengo
California Babylon - The Transplants
Because I Could Not Stop For Death - Natalie Merchant
Green Onions - Booker T & The MG's
Let's Have A War - A Perfect Circle
The Moviegoer - Matt Pond pa
I Loves You, Porgy - Keith Jarrett

Bonus....Different Drum - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs

posted by tbogg at 6:04 PM

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Thursday Night Basset Blogging

Bassets at rest and at...well, rest. 

I had better pictures of Beckham this week but I thought that
Satchmo deserved a little equal time...not that he would notice.

Labels: basset

posted by tbogg at 5:55 PM

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Timing is everything

On the day that Exxon Mobil Corp announces a profit of $8.4 billion (oh, lets use all of the zeroes: $8,400,000,000.00 ...that's better) for three months, Senatorial candidate Michael Steele releases this statement:

Washington must take swift action to come to the aid of families across America. The quickest way it can do so is to immediately suspend for 120 days the 18.4 cents-per-gallon tax. We know that gasoline prices generally increase during the summer months, and that is why it is absolutely critical that Congress and President Bush act now to immediately lower gasoline prices.

It's almost enough to make you toss your cookies....

posted by tbogg at 3:05 PM

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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

 

Oddly more cohesive than the usual Vent.
Same production values though.

Get Michelle Malkin's Hot Air ™ Vent now and avoid the rush. Click here.

(Link via Shakespeare's Sister.)

posted by tbogg at 11:22 PM

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There, but for the grace of God ----I'm sorry?
You want to do what?

Roy:

Though a mere layman, I surmised that cramming a camera up my cock with nothing but a little Campho-Phenique to dull the pain was something to be avoided at all costs..

Boy. If I had a dollar for everytime I said that out loud...

posted by tbogg at 11:06 PM

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The Crap In The Hat

Drunk on hubris 

It's been a long time since Roger Simon theManWhoCreatedMosesWine, has had a book out that made a bump in his career EKG. But one would think that, as theManWhoCreatedMosesWine, he would have a better idea how the publishing industry's sales numbers work. Roger writes:

Although it underscores what we already knew - that Glenn Reynolds (whose book is selling much better) has remarkable respect in the blogosphere for his integrity and intelligence - I must say I am surprised at the relatively pathetic sales figures for Markos Zuniga's book "Crashing the Gates." It could mean one of several things: 1. Kos' audience has heard it all already; 2. Kos' audience is not "bookish"; 3. Kos' audience is not as big as it's cracked up to be; 4. Kos doesn't write particularly well; 5. Kos doesn't have anything new to say. 6. People are tired of all this political blather anyway. (Hinderaker thinks the latter).

I suspect some combo of "all of the above" might be the proper answer. But this dismal response, coupled with a similar response to AirAmerica detailed in the above Drudge link, should give pause to those Dems rejoicing over Bush's numbers. When it comes to politics these days, the public is not just fed up with Bush. It's fed up with "all of the above."

I'll let Kos tackle Simon's point about Crashing The Gate:

Bookscan just surveys a sampling of big box retailers, so it's not a complete market analysis. Merely a snapshot of major retailers (and not even all of them). And it absolutely fails to capture online sales.

So let's see. The book has been out three weeks. It has sold 5,100 copies of the special edition and 3,630 according to Drudge (if he can be trusted) in a sampling of the big box bookstores.

That's 8,730 right there. Now throw in the indy bookstores (we've probably sold close to 1,000 just in the book signing events I've attended), and we're getting close to 10,000.

Then there's the online retailers. Currently, CTG is ranked #25 on Amazon.com, and is ranked #5 in the politics category. Through the links at the top of the this page alone I've sold 700 copies of CTG.

So to recap -- top ranking on Amazon, over 10,000 copies sold in three weeks the book has been out. Distributors have ordered 50,000 copies of the book, which has gone through three printings already (our small publisher can't afford to do large first printings). And we're just halfway through our book tour.

And this is somehow supposed to be a failure?

Now I know that the sales figures on Amazon are remarkably fluid. I wrote about The Wages of Fear sometime back and it went fom about #10,000 into the 400's by the next day and, although I'm a "somewhat popular blogger", I'm not that popular. However if one were to look at Amazon's bestseller list tonight you would see:

Glenn Greenwald's book at #1 (admittedly with a big blog push), Kevin Phillip's American Theocracy : The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21stCentury at #13, and Cobra II, which is no love letter to the administration, at #18. Add to that Tom Tomorrow's Hell In A Handbasket at #518.

Michelle Malkin? #1,172 Glenn Reynolds? #1049. Hugh Hewitt? #7,300.

It's almost enough to make a man go 'heh'.

And for the record, pointing out that John Hinderaker agrees with you on anything is a tacit admission of defeat.

posted by tbogg at 9:53 PM

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Defining dumbness down

Shorter John Stoessel:

By redefining one word I can make a nonsensical point seem less stupid.

posted by tbogg at 9:08 PM

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Milwaukee 4, Malkin 0

She swings, she misses.

Four of the five rapscallions (three of whom are criminally pigmented in Michelle's eyes) get jail time for slashing tires. One of her commenters writes:

I believe the imposition of jail time will make anyone, of any party, think twice before engaging in such behavior.

I truly believe that had this been a case of Republican operatives, including sons of two prominent GOP elected officials, slashing the tires of Democrat party voter shuttle vans, that the case would have been ratcheted up to the federal courts as a civil rights case.

As I pointed out before, Michelle doesn't seem to have any problem when Republicans play the election day game on a much larger scale:

A three-year-old political scandal in New Hampshire -- where Republican operatives conspired to jam Democratic get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002 -- has suddenly become a national headache for GOP leaders, who are being pressed to explain why one author of the scheme was repeatedly calling the White House.

A Democratic activist group, combing through evidence from a trial last year in which the former New England regional director of the Republican National Committee was convicted, uncovered 22 calls from New Hampshire officials to the White House political office on Nov. 5-6, 2002. During the same time, according to prosecutors, state GOP officials started -- and then frantically sought to stop -- a plan to have a telemarketer bombard the phone banks of Democrats and a local firefighters association that was offering voters rides to the polls.

The nuisance calls were blamed for paralyzing part of the Democratic operation during the first hours of a close-fought Senate race that Republican John E. Sununu eventually won against then-Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D). With the revelation of the calls, a state-level scandal has become a national issue, and a top political hand to President Bush has been pressed for answers.

Ken Mehlman, former director of the White House political office and current chairman of the Republican National Committee is fighting Democratic efforts to force him to testify under oath in a civil suit about the New Hampshire scandal. Mehlman said the calls from James Tobin -- a consultant who in 2002 led the RNC's New England effort -- were for the White House to get the latest information about a close race, which would be unexceptional on election night. He said none of the calls to him or his staff involved the phone-jamming operation.

I'm sure that Brian and Michelle will be offering a call for a full investigation any moment now.

Hey look! A unicorn!

posted by tbogg at 7:58 PM

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You got a nice country. Be a shame if something happened to it...

With only two more years left to pillage the country, empty the treasury into their cronies pockets, and teach anyone who is not a rich white man their proper place in the world, George Bush is making it hard for the Bushies to get it done:

According to the poll, Bush’s approval rating fell by one point from last month to 36 percent, his lowest mark in the survey. But the troubling news for Bush doesn’t stop there: Hart explains that Bush has now spent nine consecutive months at 40 percent or below in the poll, a feat exceeded only by Richard Nixon (13 months) and Harry Truman (26 months).

McInturff adds that it will be difficult for the president to substantially improve his standing, barring an increase in stability in Iraq or some kind of “extraordinary” event taking place.

Trust me, the "extraordinary event" isn't going to be Jesus returning and teaching George Bush how to turn salt water into gasoline. It's more of the type of "extraordinary event" where Lame Duck George can step into a phone booth and re-emerge as Captain Codpiece.

Good for him. Bad for everyone else.

Story of his life.

posted by tbogg at 4:46 PM

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Equal Time

For those who want to wash the recent postings on The Anchoress and LaShawn Barber at of your hair, please go read authentic Christian, Sister Nancy Beth Eczema who explains it all for you.

The Left continues to tout the existence of the elusive female orgasm, despite all biological evidence to the contrary. As I have often said, if The Lord intended for us to have such things, He would have given us penises. But regardless of what the facts and common sense say, liberals continue to pursue their great white whale -- and I don't mean Michael Moore (Ha! That joke never gets old!)

.

posted by tbogg at 9:02 AM

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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

 

"When I make my 9/11 movie, Govindini will play Barbara Olson."

On the set of Jason Apuzzo's remake of Speed 

I was bored so I decided to check in on Burger King Scorsese to see what's shaking in Tinseltown. Apparently the studios are once again not listening to him:

United 93 Ending Altered

Let's stop right here and point out the ending of United 93 no longer has George W. Bush telling Andy Card, "Dammit, Andy! No goddamed evildoer is going to kill innocent Americans on my watch. Now prep and scramble a jet for me pronto. I've got democracy to save. Here, hold my goat book." Bush then flies above United 93, ejects, crashes through the windscreen, subdues the hijackers and lands the plane safely, welcomed by a crowd of flag-waving soldiers with "Baghdad or Bust" signs on their Hummers.

Focus groups felt it lacked "verisimilitude".

Sorry.

Back to Jason who puts up this picture with this exact caption:

"Actually, Universal says we can't mention the War on Terror during this flight "

Because, as we all know from the released 9/11 transcripts, one of the passengers was heard saying, "I sure hope George Bush wins the War on Terror by invading Iraq to avenge my senseless death." Oh, and another said, "Now I'm going to miss the Red Sox winning the series in 2004. Fuck!"

Jason again:

Reader ‘David’ notifies me about a Village Voice article in which it is reported that the concluding title card on Paul Greengrass’ United 93, which had apparently read during preview screenings:

“America’s war on terror had begun.”

… has been excised by Universal. According to The Village Voice:

As noted above, this review of United 93 was based on an unfinished print. Since then, Universal has excised the concluding title card, which read, “America’s war on terror had begun.” The final caption now reads: “Dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.”

Back on April 12th I wrote this about the original postscript to the film:

I don’t know about you, but “America’s war on terror had begun” strikes me as being an entirely neutral, dispassionate statement of fact … Personally I hope that little addendum to the film remains. I’m reminded of a similar addendum (I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it had to do with America’s unwillingness to respond to the Mogadishu debacle as being a catalyst for bin Laden’s subsequent attacks) from Ridley Scott’s BlackHawk Down that was pulled because certain parties felt it might’ve been too damning in what it implied about the Clinton Administration. Here’s hoping Universal and Greengrass stick to their guns, and don’t allow the Thought Police to cut the end text …

Well, apparently Universal did not stick to its guns, and we now know that there apparently is a ‘chill wind’ blowing on free speech in America, and that ‘chill wind’ is coming from Hollywood’s executive suites, where apparently some thoughts still aren’t allowed …

Of course, we will hear no cries of ‘censorship’ from liberals about all this, because the cultural Left wishes to de-couple the emotionally shocking events of 9/11 with the ongoing War on Terror. The Thought Police have won on this one, and it’s a shame.

Except, oopsie, the Thought Police were busy reponding to a call from David Horowitz who thought he saw Ward Churchill chatting up a coed at the Starbucks over on Market Street, which is just as well since...

[Update: We now learn that it was apparently Paul Greengrass himself who is responsible for removing the original postscript to the film. Here is Greengrass’ explanation, from over at Hollywood Elsewhere:

Journalist Rob Scheer spoke to United 93 director Paul Greengrass yesterday about that closing-credits line — “America’s war on terror had begun” — that has been removed “It was absolutely my inclusion, and my exclusion,” Greengrass said. “I wouldn’t read too much into it. What was seen [by critics] was a very early version of it…it wasn’t finished. The thinking was, I wanted the story to feel like it was relevant to today. But when I saw that particular card at the end, I thought ‘that’s not right’ because that’s going to divide people. People are going to think, ‘Oh does that mean he’s for the war on terror or is he against?’ and in the end, that’s irrelevant. So in the end, I replaced it with the dedication to the victims of September 11th, because I think that the film speaks for itself. I didn’t want a card to divide the audience.”

I’ll simply note how bizarre I find this remark, which comes from a man who has just directed a film about Muslim terrorists hijacking a plane with the intent of ramming it into the Capitol building: “People are going to think, ‘Oh does that mean he’s for the war on terror or is he against?’ and in the end, that’s irrelevant.” Irrelevant?

Amazing. I understand Greengrass’ desire to avoid making a ‘political’ statement, but the original postscript to his film simply states a fact: America’s war on terror had, indeed, begun with the passengers of Flight 93 fighting back! It’s not as if the postscript read: Vote for Giuliani in ‘08.’

So instead of dedicating the film to the brave people portrayed in the film, Jason wanted the movie to be a rallying cry for America to invade Iraq Iran.

Besides all of those people are dead now anyway...

posted by tbogg at 9:45 PM

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Are You There God? It's Me, LaShawn.

Sounds to me like the bitch had it coming...

LaShawn Barber, Christian Blogger nonpareil, on the Duke rape case:

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong may not be able sit on his laurels, so to speak, until the job-saving May 2 election, as planned. (And he may end up in serious legal trouble, too.)

Accused rapist Reade Seligmann’s lawyer Kirk Osborn is calling Nifong’s bluff. Osborn wants to know what he’s got. The Smoking Gun has posted a copy of the motion.

Gentle readers, if you thought things were rough before, wait until you see a zealous lawyer in action. Although it’s sometimes distasteful, it is often…dare I put it this way…a thing of beauty. From an article:

The attorney for one of two Duke lacrosse players charged with raping a stripper demanded on Monday that prosecutors turn over the accuser’s medical, legal and education records for use in attacking her credibility.

Kirk Osborn, who represents player Reade Seligmann, said the material will provide “rich sources of information for impeaching the complaining witnesses.”

Osborn also asked a judge to hold a pretrial hearing to “determine if the complaining witness is even credible enough to provide reliable testimony.” (Source)

(By the way, the second set of DNA tests won’t be completed until May 15.)

Even if they never touched the stripper, Seligmann’s and Collin Finnerty’s reputations at Duke University are shot. She could go on national TV tonight and confess she made it up, fall on her knees begging forgiveness and imploring the media and black “leaders” to back off. Wouldn’t make much difference.

The defense is about to dig so deeply into the accuser’s life…mere words can’t express it.

Oh yeah, LaShawn, get out the popcorn. Nothing quite says "Christian kindness" like cheerleading an attorney about to savage a woman's life. Was there a rape that night? I don't know and neither does LaShawn. But from what I can remember from my Catholic school days, gleefully salivating at the thought of humiliating a woman over her past isn't exactly an example of being touched by the better angels of our nature. And since I lack those better angels (we atheists have all the fun) I'm going to point out that I would expect someone with LaShawn's history to know better.

While I was still drinking, I lived by my own morals. Now, I wanted to live by God's. I realized a "perfect" life isn't necessary; a surrendered life is. I never went out with Greg. I now believe God allowed him to come into my life to help me realize my need for a moral compass—and, more importantly, for a Savior.

Several months later, on December 23, 1999, I told God I knew sobriety and abstinence weren't enough to save me. I dedicated my life to him. I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sins, to release me from the burdens of bitterness and fear, and to fill my heart with trust. I surrendered my will to the Lord that night, finding comfort in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

As I read the Bible, the Lord continues to open my spiritual eyes. Jesus didn't come to make bad people good; he came to make dead people alive! He says: "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14).

Well that it explains it. Jesus didn't come to make "bad people good" and if He came to fill LaShawn with goodness and mercy, He forgot to top her off.

posted by tbogg at 7:48 PM

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New York, Paris, London, Munich
Everyone's talking about pop music Hot Air

I'm anticipating fun for the whole family with the start-up of Michelle Malkin's Hot Air which is sort of like Pajamaline Media for people with anger management issues, but in the meantime I think that we have to appreciate her foresight in placing "affiliates" in the media hotbeds of the world:

• Hot Air Affiliates
• Age of Hooper- D.C.
• ¡No Pasarán! - Paris
• Brian Maloney- Boston
• David Lunde - Wisconsin

Thank jeebus we won't be deprived of the late breaking news from Wisconsin that the MSM ignores because they hate America. And cheese.

posted by tbogg at 12:11 PM

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Monday, April 24, 2006

 

Pinnipedantic

I am not the walrus. Koo koo ka choo 

I'm not sure which is worse: straining for an analogy that is so awkward you have to explain it, or blowing the explanation.

Take it away Jacque Goldstein:

...His health permitting, I hope Snow takes the job; not only is he articulate and likeable, but he is quite comfortable in front of the camera—a change from poor Scott McClellan, who, while I’m sure he is a decent guy, more often than not looked like the last oyster at a party hosted by drunk and hungry walruses. Which is to say, McClellan always appeared on the defensive, in constant fear of being cracked open on a rock and swallowed whole by David Gregory—

Um, that would be the otter who cracks bivalves with rocks, not walruses who lack the appendages with which to grasp the oyster and beat it on a rock in much the same way that you beat your head on the keyboard in an effort to crack wise, although I am sympathetic since "a party hosted by drunk and hungry walruses otters" lacks the comicality that you were so desperately reaching for.

As I'm sure they used to say at Towson State: Next time, show work.

For more serious dumbassitude go here.

posted by tbogg at 11:53 PM

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Actually, this land is their land

After a two-year period of little activity in Chicano Park, Barrio Logan residents once again banded together to better their community. Their goal was to have the neighborhood rezoned to remove the forty-eight Anglo-owned auto junkyards. At one point, "a stack of crushed cars" had fallen over into the backyard of one of the residents.

Varrio Si, Yonkes No! (Fig. 48) was based upon a flyer for a community meeting to discuss the problem of the junkyards. A community team designed and painted the mural, supervised by Victor Ochoa, "then employed at the Chicano Federation building in the park as a recreation counselor for cultural events." Varrio is a variation of barrio, neighborhood; and yonkes refers to junkyards. Thus, Neighborhood Yes, Junkyards No! Imagery within the mural depicts the Coronado Bay Bridge and National Steel. In the foreground, residents protest with their placards, Mas Casas, Menos Yonkes, More Houses, Less Junkyards, and La Unidrad Es La Fuerza, Unity is Strength. "Barrio Logan was rezoned. Junkyards began to move away."


A freeper goes to Chicano Park, which has existed in San Diego since I was in high school, to take pictures and portray the people there as a "San Diego Reconquista Gathering" while failing to note that the people of Barrio Logan have been celebrating Chicano Park Day since 1971.

Anyone who has grown up in San Diego like I have is aware that the people of Barrio Logan meekly watched their community being sliced and diced for years until they finally said "enough", and then it took four years of fighting broken promises from the city and the state to get a simple 2 acre park for their community in return.

Barrio Logan, in southeast San Diego, is referred to as el ombligo or navel, the center of the world. In the late 1800s the area had been known as East End; the name had been changed to Logan Heights in 1905. Mexican-Americans had settled in the area as early as the 1890s with migrations increasing from 1910 to 1920 as a result of a poor economy in Mexico and the Mexican Revolution. Within the mixed ethnic community, the number of Mexican Americans within Logan Heights reached 15 percent of the city's Mexican-American population by 1940.

At one point in its history, Logan Heights had contained the "second largest Chicano Barrio community on the west coast, with a population of almost twenty thousand." The barrio had originally extended to the waterfront, where there had been a local beach and a community pier that had been constructed as a WPN project in the 1930s. When the U.S. Navy and defense industries moved in along the shores of San Diego Bay. Barrio Logan lost access to the waterfront, as well as housing and local businesses. The barrio recovered from these losses as U.S. citizens went to war and Mexicans obtained the jobs that had been created by the navel shipyards and defense industries. The neighborhood began to blossom with a sense of community pride among the residents.

After WWII, the barrio began to change physically. In the 1950s, the zoning laws had been changed by the city of San Diego, from residential to industrial, allowing the influx of Anglo-owned auto junkyards. In 1963, Interstate 5 bisected the Barrio. In '1969 the Coronado Bay Bridge opened with its on-ramps and support pylons piercing the heart of the barrio. Because of the dislocation of families and business closures during these two major construction programs, by 1979 the population of the barrio had declined to approximately five thousand residents. City, state, and federal governments had dictated the policies of change in Barrio Logan. Residents had not realized they could petition City Council and express their opinions; there had been no local discussions regarding community and neighborhood planning. Many of the residents accepted the negative changes in their community as the way things had to be. In 1967, feelings of resignation and hopelessness began to change to those of empowerment, as community leaders began to demand a neighborhood park under the bridge pylons.

You can read the rest here.

For those of you brave enough to follow the link to Free Republic you will notice that the shutterbug freeper was very selective about which murals were photographed. You can see more and read about them here.

Michelle Malkin, sensing red meat for her racist readers, jumps in and calls it a "Aztlan/Reconquista celebration" in San Diego, Mexico.

As usual Malkin is full of shit, but I think everyone is aware of that by now...

posted by tbogg at 9:49 PM

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Soft Balls

Go and read this post by Digby just for the giddy joy of reading the word "BoehnerLand"

No. It's not where Log Cabin Republicans go when they die.

Oh, they wish....

posted by tbogg at 6:49 PM

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No trees were destroyed to create this post

Blogger is slower than George Bush on Jeopardy right now, so I'll make this quick:

If the supposedly dying print media is interested in saving a few bucks, they might want to consider not wasting space on bloviating third-string radio hosts who teach at fourth-rate colleges.

The world will be none the poorer.

posted by tbogg at 11:19 AM

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Sunday, April 23, 2006

 

"Look. If we're invaded by cacodemons, sabaoths,
or archviles, you'll be the first one we call. I promise,"

Look out! Jihadi at two o'clock!
And me still without armor from the Pentagon

Doghouse Riley (link via LG&M) introduces us to the greatest military mind on the internets since Steven den Beste took an early retirement to work in an anime think tank. Meet Dafydd ab Hugh:

Noted historian Dafydd ab Hugh, military advisor to the Powerline Boys, whose personal records in that regard are, oh, somewhat lacking? No, I hadn't heard of him either, I'm proud to say. But somebody Wikied him:

Hugh is most noted for writing fiction in media franchise, including several novels for the Star Trek franchise. He also wrote four novels associated with the game Doom . However he also did some short fiction . His most noted story, "The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk", received Hugo Award and Nebula Award nominations. It concerns sentient animals and inter-species sex.

He and his wife Sachi currently run a right-leaning blog, Big Lizards

What comes after insanity? And why aren't any of these fucks in uniform (other than those spiffy Star Fleet Academy jobs)?

Having spent countless hours (okay, six or seven minutes, tops) searching for any mention of Dafydd ab Hugh in the myriad writings of Victor Davis Captain Picard Was A Pussy Hanson, I finally dug up evidence of Dafydd's wartime experiences and, quite frankly, he's got the Full Metal Jacket and Pants to talk the talk. Check this out:

Kefiristan is about as close as you can come to hell on Earth.

I say that with authority: I've spent the last eighteen months doing months a tour here, trying to keep the Kefiri People's Liberation Army, who call themselves the "Scythe of Glory," from the throats of the rightist Khorastisti, who have the backing of Azeri transplants from the south (who want to keep their enclaves), who are fighting a "dirty war" against the Communist Cuban and Peruvian mercs... Jeez, you get the picture. It's a snarled skein of a million bloody threads up here on the top of the world, in the northern extension of the Karakoram range, between Afghanistan and Samarkand, Uzbeksistan.

We'd just punched through the craggy pass pleasantly known as the "torn hymen" in the local tongue and come across the small, Muslim city of pik Nizganij, perched on a mountain peak of 2200 meters.

I stared in horror. Even eighteen months of picking up after the Scythe of Glory and their Shining Path buddies didn't prepare me for what was left of pik Nizganij.

It was a Bosch canvas, severed limbs and hollowed-out trunks - eaten out by animals, I prayed - planted through the fields like stalks of corn, blood painting doors and walls like the first Passover ...except it was human blood, not lambs blood.

My. Gawd. The sheer hell that this nerd has been through. The sheer bloody hell.

Would it would be too much to expect Dafydd to go back to that hell-hole in the Middle East? Well, in a time of war, during a clash of civilizations, when our very existence is at stake from the Jihadislamobyterians (who call themselves the "Weedwhacker of Sublimity") it can't hurt to ask.

Do it for generations of future nerds unborn.

posted by tbogg at 7:20 PM

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Your Doug Giles moment of snerk

Doug:

BTW . . . have you ever seen a feminist around a womanly woman and not one of her butch buddies who's sporting a Tim Allen haircut? (Question: If feminists and lesbians hate men like they do, why do they try to look like us?)

I dunno. Maybe sometimes they want to feel pretty, pouty, and plucked.

posted by tbogg at 6:36 PM

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Why do the CIA, the Armed Forces, and
the Clinton's hate America and Curt Weldon?

You can't spell 'paranoid' without the PA 

Curt "Sun Myung Son" Weldon sees a(nother) grand conspiracy wherein his opponent, who was awarded "the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit with Gold Star, Meritorious Service Medal with a Gold Star, Joint Service Commendation medal, Navy Commendation medal with two Gold Stars and the Navy Achievement Medal" in his twenty-plus year military career, joins forces with evil pre-9/11ers to destroy this great country of ours:

The senior intelligence analyst who was fired Thursday by the CIA is a supporter of Democratic congressional candidate Joseph Sestak, which U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon’s campaign charged is further evidence that the former Navy admiral cannot be trusted on national security issues.

Mary McCarthy was dismissed for leaking classified information about the CIA’s secret overseas prisons to The Washington Post, several media organizations reported Saturday.

Sestak, who served as director for defense policy on Bill Clinton’s National Security Council, received two donations from McCarthy last month totaling $350. McCarthy also contributed $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Weldon’s campaign reiterated that Sestak accepted contributions from former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger and former CIA Director John Deutch -- both of whom have admitted to mishandling classified information.

"‘Where will this end?" asked Weldon campaign spokesman Michael Puppio. "Sestak and the Clinton people are attempting to infect Delaware County with these scandals."

Pupio later kicked himself for not mentioning the children of Delaware County who might also become infected. Puppies are also susceptible.

Poor lil innocent puppies...

posted by tbogg at 6:00 PM

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K-Lo Groinal Humidity Meter shows slight weekend increase with chance of "ogodism!"

"I THINK HE'S GOING TO BE A TOUGH CONTENDER" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Ted Kennedy gave Romney a little polite homestate love on Meet the Press this morning.

Posted at 10:52 AM

K-lo was this close to needing a cigarette...

posted by tbogg at 5:37 PM

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Arts and Crafts Week at Panty Camp

Cooler than the Renaissance Faire Nerd Camp Olympics 

Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog finds young men having their once-a-month Red Dawn day.

The survival training gets them to drill down past superficialities to what's really essential:

The men down in Amherst were ... posing for a few last pictures as they rolled up the camouflage ponchos they had been using as shelters. "Wait, my camo's all smudged," Mr. Hightower said. "I look like a goober!" He fixed his makeup and Mr. Brush clicked a few shots before Mr. Bennett came to give them their final instructions.

Isn't that just the cutest thing!

(Headline from here)

posted by tbogg at 11:59 AM

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Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy Slavery!

Black Bush Whiskey: It's how they get girls to sleep with them 

Remember when all the warbloggers were on the "Democracy. Whiskey. Sexy!" bandwagon?

Here is Skippy the Vodkapundit:

So to hell with the protestors. Let'em carp and cry and crow. We were right, they were wrong. As much magnanimity as we show Iraq is the measure of scorn we should show the idiots who opposed the war. Not out of payback or revenge or mean-spiritedness, but because they still scorn us, the Coalition armies, and the leadership which brought us to this place. This better place.

Come to think of it, I'm feeling better than I was just 600 words ago. Lots better. Let freedom ring, and let's party.

"Democracy, whiskey, sexy," baby.

It looks like their dream has come true:

The man on the phone with the 14-year-old Iraqi girl called himself Sa'ad. He was calling long distance from Dubai and telling her wonderful things about the place. He was also about to buy her. Safah, the teenager, was well aware of the impending transaction. In the weeks after she was kidnapped and imprisoned in a dark house in Baghdad's middle-class Karada district, Safah heard her captors haggling with Sa'ad over her price. It was finally settled at $10,000. Staring at a floor strewn with empty whiskey bottles, the orphan listened as Sa'ad described the life awaiting her: a beautiful home, expensive clothes, parties with pop stars. Why, she'd be joining two other very happy teenage Iraqi girls living with Sa'ad in his harem. Safah knew that she was running out of time. A fake passport with her photo and assumed name had already been forged for her. But even if she escaped, she had no family who would take her in. She was even likely to end up in prison. What was she to do? Safah is part of a seldom-discussed aspect of the epidemic of kidnappings in Iraq: sex trafficking. No one knows how many young women have been kidnapped and sold since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

I hope that Safah has the decency to write Skippy a thank you note.

posted by tbogg at 11:17 AM

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The New McCarthyism

Looking for treason in all the wrong places 

Are you now or have you ever been a friend of Mary McCarthy?:

Well, as of this morning (Saturday) most of the big media don't care. They're fixated with the weather and gas prices — and anything else that will divert the public's attention from the stunning revelation that a Sandy Berger crony has apparently been leaking top-secret information from her high post at the CIA. The media will continue to downplay this story as they cover-up their own role in exposing our nation's secrets, including the supposed existence of CIA prisons in Europe. She'll be called a "whistleblower" and praised as some kind of patriot (a patriot, in the eyes of the media, is anybody who undermines this administration and the war effort by leaking national security secrets to them). They will downplay that McCarthy was a Clintonoid who somehow managed to land a top post at the CIA, ultimately winding up in the CIA's Inspector General's Office, from where she could monitor CIA internal investigations of, well, leaks, among other things.

[...]

I must say, however, that the media's sickening hypocrisy knows no bounds. They came to the defense of Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, who worked behind-the-scenes to get her husband that “fact-finding” trip to Niger. They demanded an investigation into who “leaked” Plame’s identity to Bob Novak — which ensnared their own reporters. They hoped they would critically wound the president, and they failed. Clearly Plame was not undercover and the revelation of her identity was not a crime. Lewis Libby now stands accused of lying about a crime that never occurred and the media think that’s a good thing.

Now comes Mary McCarthy, who apparently leaked real classified national-security secrets and the media largely dismiss it or defend it. They have no curiosity about McCarthy, the extent of her leaks, to whom she leaked (beyond Priest, did she leak to other reporters, members of Congress, other governments?), how she secured top security posts, and her ties to the Clinton administration. Surely there is every reason the government should pursue this investigation at least as vigorously as the Plame matter has been pursued. Dana Priest, among others, should have her day before a grand jury.

And watch the congressional Democrats follow the media’s lead. Long ago they put party and power above victory in this war. McCarthy’s ties to Clinton threaten to take attention from their unrelenting attack on the Bush administration and their claims of incompetence in the management of the war, which they see as their ticket to majority status in 2006.

Putting that aside, the discovery of McCarthy does make you wonder how many more of her ilk have squirreled themselves into the bureaucracy, from where they seek to undermine the country.

How clever of the Clenis to have left sleeper cells throughout the governmental apparatus in an attempt to rule from his exile in Elba. Or Harlem. Whichever. His next step is to get his wife, the Manchurian Hillary, elected president so that he can again take hold of the reins of power and return our country to a state of chaotic eternal peace, prosperity and blow-jobs from young willing interns between the ages of 22 and 28.

Where do I sign up?

posted by tbogg at 10:48 AM

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Saturday, April 22, 2006

 

Saturday Morning Cartoons

The story continues... 

Idiots, explosions, and falling anvils.

posted by tbogg at 8:38 AM

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Friday, April 21, 2006

 

Coming soon to a democracy near you

Rare photo of General George Washington torturing a Tory 

This weekends harrumphing and pontificating by the right-wing bloggers over a CIA agent fired for leaking information about secret US prisons.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the right will come down on the side of secret prisons as an important part of our democratic traditions.

At least in a post-9/11 world...

posted by tbogg at 6:34 PM

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Sitting on a sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
Going to the candidate's debate.

Benjamin, I need to talk to you... 

Katherine Harris: Seducing Florida's Voters,
One College Student At A Time

(From Atrios)

posted by tbogg at 10:32 AM

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Thursday, April 20, 2006

 

Welcome to our world

Kills everything that he touches

When I last used the above graphic, George Bush had just been re-elected (or finally won without an assist depending upon your frame of reference) and things looked awful bleak for the reality-based community which would be the people who expect a minimum of competence and truth out of their elected officials. I don't usually reprint old posts, but at the time I wrote:

Four more years of American soldiers being used as cannon fodder.

Four more years of scientific decisions being made by people who believe in a ghost in the clouds.

Four more years of debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay off.

Four more years of racists and lunatics for judicial appointments

Four more years of looting the treasury and squandering it on corporate cronies.

Four more years of making enemies faster than we can kill them.

Four more years of fear and darkness and racism and hatred and stupidity and guns and bad country music.

I look at the big map and all of the red in flyover country and I feel like I've been locked in a room with the slow learners. We have become the country that pulls a dry cleaning bag over its head to play astronaut.

Pretty grim, eh?

Well it looks like the happy campers of The Corner are waking up and they have a terrific hangover and their mouth tastes like they spent the night licking the bathroom floor. It's doom time:

DOOM [Ramesh Ponnuru]

I spoke to a very influential Republican strategist earlier this week, and asked him what he thought the party should do to fix the mess it's in. His answer: "I don't think it's fixable." Republicans are only now as alarmed as they should have been six months ago, when they might have been able to put together an agenda to improve their standing. Now there are too few legislative days left before the election to do that--and it makes more sense for congressmen to spend time campaigning in their districts than for them to increase the number of days in session.

He blames both the White House ("They’ve known since last September that they needed to put together an agenda and they have failed to do so. Their State of the Union gave us nothing to work on in an election year.") and the Congress ("People believe that all politics is local and you can look at it race by race [and see a good outcome]. That’s all horse----."). "So I'm not Mr. Happy, you can say."

Posted at 04:46 PM

GLOOM [Jonah Goldberg]

I had lunch with another prominent Republican. I asked him if he could remember a time when Republicans were more dispirited. He shrugged and said, "It really is pretty bleak, isn't it." Or words to that effect.

Posted at 04:53 PM

GLOOM [Ramesh Ponnuru]

And I spoke to another one today. He thinks that the public is not going to change its mind about the Iraq war until after it's over. "They might support it retrospectively once it’s won. But they’re not going to support it while it’s going on." One of Bush's wartime responsibilities was "to keep the country rallied," and he didn't.

They aren't going to change their minds about the economy, either. People have not yet adjusted their mental picture of the economy to fit today's dynamism. "The average person sees high gas prices and bankrupt airlines and GM layoffs and it doesn’t fit in their minds that this can be going on during a good economy. There are some ways in which it’s analogous to . . . say, 1880 to 1930. . . . The reality was you were creating unprecedented amounts of wealth and moving people out of agrarian poverty into what we started to call the working class. But the commentary was almost uniformly negative. People just didn’t understand it. Nobody was saying, Gosh, this is great, people are moving off the crummy farms and into cities."

This strategist thinks Republicans should have done lobbying reform in February and earmark reform in March, and should have presented John Boehner's accession to the House leadership as a fresh start. Instead, "we've lost three months."

Posted at 04:55 PM

RE: WHAT BUSH NEEDS [Jonah Goldberg]

A reader named Joe writes:

Jonah, what YOU need is a big yank back into reality. His low numbers, to a very large degree, are caused by the press. Negative story after negative story. How can you say all he needs is a little time away from the public? Like the press is gonna forget they despise him? Come on, Jonah, you are a better man than that.

Me:I think Joe's right. Though I'm not sure it contradicts what I said. It's certainly true that Clinton's comeback benefited greatly from the fact the press wanted him to make a comeback. I can't imagine the press would do anything but pounce on Bush like a wounded fawn if he tried to act on my advice. Perhaps Rove can figure out a way to go over the Washington media's head as he did in the '04 campaign, but I doubt that's possible now.

Posted at 04:56 PM

PERSPECTIVE, GENTLEMEN [JPod]

Good Lord, it's gloomy in here today! Reminds me of some dark Corner days back in...2004...

Posted at 05:03 PM

RE: GLOOM [Ramesh Ponnuru]

For that matter, JPod, Republicans in D.C. were pretty gloomy in August 2002, too, and things turned out well that fall.

Posted at 05:19 PM

CAPTAIN SUNSHINE, REPORTING FOR DUTY [JPod]

Believe me, I'm not denying that bad news is bad news. But it's an occupational hazard of politics junkies to forget that things happen and things change. For example, on Saturday, it appears the Iraqi political standoff will finally come to a head and move toward a positive resolution. That's not going to set off a positive chain of events immediately, but who knows what it will mean in the longer term? We don't yet know how the immigration issue is going to shake out, except that nobody here yet grasps how the Democratic embrace of the protestors may turn into a very exploitable issue for Republican candidates. But the fate of the GOP isn't the major issue on my mind when I complain about the gloom. Gloom is a soul-killer. Stop killin' my soul!

Posted at 05:38 PM

I don't even want to get into the whole theological debate regarding the possibility that there is a soul lurking in the house that Midge and Norm built. That's a topic that would have made Reinhold Niebuhr become an atheist if not blow his brains out with a shotgun. So lets move on...

Now each of the Corner Kids has their own personal reason for being disappointed with the direction the Republican Party has taken following in lockstep behind its putative leader. In Jonah and the Pod's case the failure of George Bush might call attention to the fact that having famous parents doesn't necessarily qualify you for a job and their wingnut welfare might dry up like Kate O'Beirne's hoo-hah. Ramesh has a book coming out and a dispirited conservative is going to be in no mood to read about baby-killing liberals when they could just as easily buy a Kate Hudson DVD to cheer themselves up (although Kate Hudson might again remind people about that famous parent thing above, so the DVD purchase, which is bad for Ramesh, is worse for Jonah/JPod) In K-Lo's case, George Bush isn't Mitt Romney and George is just ruining it for Mitt who is all dreamy and stuff and could be the Republican JFK except he's not Catholic but could be converted by the love of a good woman...possibly one of his wives. Maybe even K-Lo.

Meanwhile, while they are worrying about the elephant party, the rest of us are worying about the other elephant in the room: our upcoming nuclear confrontation with Iran. Since all that George and Dick and Rummy know is war and arrogance and power and they have been spectacularly wrong about everything that they have ever done or touched or thought about, are these the people that we want with their finger on the button?

I gotcher gloom and doom right here...

posted by tbogg at 10:20 PM

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Pre-Friday Random Ten

Just two lonely kids in school
right before geometry
my friend Jimmy lost his cool
and he pulled a gun on me

Born Into A Mess - The (International) Noise Conspiracy
Cinema Paradiso(Main Theme) - Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny
Man In The Moon - Nils Lofgren
You're A Sweetheart - Terence Blanchard
O Green World - Gorillaz
Life On A Chain - Pete Yorn (Live from New Jersey)
Baroque - Apples In Stereo
Sunshine Superman - Rickie Lee Jones
Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head - They Might Be Giants
Blue Light Till Dawn - Cassandra Wilson

Well that was...random.

I guess that's the point.

posted by tbogg at 9:48 PM

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Thursday Night Basset Blogging -Twofer Edition

Celebrating Noticing Surviving two years of Beckham


Beckham when we brought him home two years ago 


... exactly two years later 

Labels: basset

posted by tbogg at 5:44 PM

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