[via MetaFilter] Thomas Schaller’s essay on Bush, Believe: Why I Believe in Our President, is considerably sharper than the essay from which it borrows its form, Michael Kelly’s I Believe (written about Clinton). Schaller has an unfair advantage, though — he’s got better material to work with.
BBC Radio’s legendary DJ, John Peel,
has passed away. Without his work, we may never have heard of the Sex
Pistols, The Clash, The Undertones, The Fall, The Smiths, Joy Division,
New Order, The Pixies, Pulp, The White Stripes, The Strokes and many other wonderful bands who exist off the Top 40 radar.
(His taste was as eclectic as it was good: he even played Kylie Minogue!)
So long and thanks for all the musical discoveries, John.
From Express India: Arnold snubbed by wife for praising Bush.
ABC News: Bush Has Hurt My Sex Life
Philippine Inquirer: Schwarzenegger sex life suffers over Bush support
Cape Times: No more Bush, Democrat wife tells Schwarzenegger
…is most likely a natural phenomenon in clothing. Take a look at
these photos of random people in Manhattan. They have the bukge too.
Click the picture to see the photo at full size:
Third from the left, top row: the dreaded Volvo ass!
The Hill has a story featuring the president’s tailor showing how suit naturally get a bulge when its wearer crosses his arms and leans forward:
Okay, buddy. Now explain your hair.
Finally, there’s the matter of receiving devices. If Bush were wired and getting cues from Karl Rove or some other coach:
have used a smaller device. We’re in the age of teeny cellphones; “spy
tech” stores in major cities sell much tinier walkie-talkies.
Of course, without this flap, we wouldn’t have gotten fun “remixes” like this one:
I concur with these lines atrributed to Einstein: “Science without
religion is lame; religion without science is blind”. I also think that
if you were to replace “science” with “reason” and “religion” with
“faith”, the aphorism would still be applicable. With that in mind,
consider this excerpt from the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s article, Without a Doubt:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that
the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications
director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush.
He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me
something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend — but which I now
believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ”in what we call the
reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe
that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible
reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment
principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ”That’s not the way the
world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that
reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other
new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort
out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do.”
The arrogance (“We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do.” — smacks of Denzel’s “King Kong ain’t got nuthin’ on me!” from Training Day, doesn’t it?) and the sheer insanity (“Reality-based
community?”) sounds more like satirical dialogue written by a
first-year Political Science student trying to be funny in the school
paper than something a grown mental-problem-free adult would say.
If you’ve read 1984,
the “we create reality” line will sound familiar. In a scene
which takes place after it is revelead that O’Brien is actually working
for the Party, not agaist it, O’Brien brags about how reality is
whatever the party declares it is.
Let me state for the record that I am a proud member of the reality-based community. Maybe a web button is called for…
From the American Spectator:
Whine whine whine Jon Stewart whine whine whine.
Whine whine whine Atkins Diet whine whine whine.
The Guardian
turns into Slashdot for politics! Uhm, guys, it’s called “trolling”. Or, prior to the internet, “baiting”.And finally, for your listening pleasure, the George W. Bush version of Liam Lynch’s United States of Whatever [1.3 MB MP3]
“Whatever!”
[via Eldon Brown] Daniel Handler (whom most of us know by his nom de plume, Lemony Snicket, author of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books) has used an accordion as a prop during his reading to comment on America’s actions abroad:
“I think if you’re writing books on an evil, shadowy conspiracy
surrounding innocent people, sooner or later you get to talking about
politics,” he quips.
At a reading the next evening on the Upper West Side packed with
hundreds of screaming kids and their parents, Handler’s politics will
flare obliquely again when he straps on an accordion and says
instructively, “The accordion has been around for hundreds of years,
and hated by thousands of people. Why do we hate things? Sometimes
because of a cruel and inhuman foreign policy.”
made of sliced Kobe beef, melted Taleggio cheese, shaved truffles,
sauteed foie gras, caramelized onions and heirloom shaved tomatoes on a
homemade brioche roll brushed with truffle butter and squirted with
homemade mustard.
Sounds tasty, but US$100 probably buys three weeks’ worth of brown-bag
lunch material (usually a meat/poultry/fish entree and salad).