Norman's Contesseration for January 7, 2010

I have noticed a creeping sense of delusion in the media--they believe they have various stories "sorted out" when, in fact, you can often catch them screwing the pooch. The media doesn't know what to do with angry environmentalists, Japanese whalers, and the environment. Who do you root for? You root for the whales, of course, and you hope everyone drowns. The backflips many liberals did when two prominent US Senators abandoned their efforts to get re-elected was fun to watch. Typically, when your President comes from your party, and you command big majorities and hold committee chairmanships, you tend to stick around. Not so in this case. Amateurs are defending us, and they need to get better, and fast.

Michael Steele should now be finished as the head of the RNC. If he's still in the job a week from now, I would be surprised. Everyone should read my blog--I was right about Obama when everyone was still cooing and thinking of new ways to carry water for him. If they want me to have Pandora radio, they're going to have to make it look better because I really don't care how it sounds. Oh, and it should probably work, too.

The Protestants in Northern Ireland claim to have disarmed, but how does anyone know? Some clown charged with protecting us stayed on vacation and now we're supposed to care. Sean McFate claims to have built an African Army, which is what the United States used to use the Green Berets for. On whose planet did Rudy Guiliani get a pass from the media when it came to his infidelities and adultery?

Over at Celebrity Disaster, I wrote about how Kathy Griffin's failure to help win an audience was the real reason for her ban, not her language. I'm a creepy old man, and I will post those pictures of Victoria Silvstedt if I so choose. The Salahis are going to Vegas, and they're getting paid for an appearance. Not good.

Over at Talking Smack About Sports, I talked about how Gilbert Arenas should be out for five years, minimum, and how Andre Dawson should be congratulated for making it to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Did you know Mizzou and Navy screwed up the order in which they would play their fight songs? I didn't watch the game, either. And Mike Smith of the Clippers' announcing booth is a real screwup.

Gentleman Bounty Hunter is where I talk about how I became a gentleman bounty hunter, and it all goes back to my childhood. Father loved command and control exercises, and I still don't know what Willy Peter is.

Gadjimatronics is my latest exercise in blog overkill, and I know I like it.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Never Cut a Vacation Short When You Cannot Be Fired

When you think back over the last few years, it strikes me as peculiar that anyone would be surprised at the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party. When they were out of power, every misstep by the Bush Administration was the end of the world. Now that we’ve seen them run things for nearly a year, every misstep is an easy-to-justify “blip” that “won’t happen again.”

In politics, hypocrisy is all in the eye of the beholder. If you’re a down-the-line Independent like myself, you can’t help but smile when they trot out their justifications for things. I’m speaking of both parties. I don’t find anything in either party to inspire me. I certainly don’t expect my government to keep me safe. I do expect them to pretend to care:

With today’s release of the Obama administration’s report on what went wrong to allow a Nigerian man to allegedly board a U.S.-bound flight with explosives, top government officials including [Michael] Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will face increased scrutiny.

According to the Web site of the National Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC has two core missions: “The first is to serve as the primary organization in the U.S. government for analysis and integration of all terrorism intelligence. In this role Mr. Leiter reports to Dennis C. Blair, the Director of National Intelligence. The second mission is to conduct strategic operational planning for counterterrorism activities integrating all elements of U.S. national power. In this role he reports to President Obama.”

The New York Daily News reports today that Leiter, who was originally appointed to his position by President George W. Bush, didn’t cut short his ski vacation after suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was taken into custody. “It is our policy to not make our director’s schedule available to the public,” center spokesman Carl Kropf said in an e-mail to the newspaper.

That’s what a man who believes that he cannot be fired does.

He shrugs, and keeps having fun. Your safety and security are none of his concern, even though he’s getting paid to make it his concern.

When you have a position like that, one of the trade-offs is, you have to be ready to show the flag and you have to end vacations and the like in order to give the appearance of caring. You might actually care, I don’t deny that. You might actually have more than a passing concern. But when you are hot shit that cannot be fired, you strut around and tell others to pound sand. When you cannot even make a token effort to pretend to represent yourself as a steward of public safety, that’s when you might as well start looking at private sector opportunities.

And this also speaks to another issue. When people defend President Obama, do they forget that he kept a significant number of Bush appointees? That he kept over 50 of the Bush-era Justice Department U.S. Attorneys in place (the rest of the 93 U.S. Attorneys simply resigned to go do other things) speaks volumes.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Will Pandora Radio Make It?

Livio Radio for Pandora

Last year, when I was dictating to my staff the details of my burgeoning Internet empire, I told them that I might want to have a food blog, but I definitely wanted a gadget blog. My food blog lasted about a week. Some dingbat complained that I stole her recipe, but, under basic fair use rules, I was solid. I deleted the food blog. I truck no complaints from dingbats.

I started gadjimatronics because I like to invent words. I came up with "widebody slapfaces" and "barfunked" and "skadiggety" and "bum scuffles" and a bunch of other brilliant words, but I think "gadjimatronics" is probably the best one of all. You're welcome.

When you have 20 or more blogs, and only spend about twenty minutes a day working on them, things tend to get a little loose. Don't expect too many posts over there for a while. I have naps to take, and pictures of hotties to give the thumb up or the thumb down to. Byron selects ALL of the hottie pictures, and I sit on the couch, watching Sportscenter. He patiently tabs through them, and I give him an up or down, and then he crops them and organizes them. The boy is masterful when it comes to Internet pornography, I have to admit.

Miranda drops in once in a while and changes the text below the title and then tells me what to write about. Some of this comes from her mother, my ex-wife, so I have to be careful.

Anyway, the point of this post was to yap about something called Pandora Radio:

Pandora Inc. has struck a deal with electronics maker Pioneer Corp. that promises to make it easier for drivers to listen to its personalized radio service in cars—bringing Internet radio one step closer to snagging a built-in spot on dashboards. The development represents a direct challenge to broadcasters of satellite and traditional radio, who have long dreaded the arrival of Internet radio in cars.

Starting in March, Pioneer will sell a navigation and entertainment device that allows Pandora users who stream the service on their AppleInc. iPhones to easily access Pandora in their cars. The $1,200 navigation system, announced today at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, will detect iPhones and iPod touches that have Pandora installed, and put the consumer's Pandora settings on the navigation screen. That will allow drivers to hear their favorite Pandora radio channels.

Neither side paid cash to work with the other, said Ted Cardenas, director of marketing for Pioneer, who says he saw it as an opportunity to reach many of Pandora's 42 million users. "This gives us the ability to talk to an entirely new group of consumers," he said in an interview.

At Pandora, executives hope the deal will help expand the way its fans think of the service. "Maybe a year ago people would have said Pandora is a computer thing," said co-founder Tim Westergren. Now, "they're beginning to realize that Internet radio is an anytime, anywhere thing."

Radio companies, long used to a relative monopoly on dashboards, have been nervously anticipating the era when they will lose their dominance in cars. They have been working hard on their own online radio services, which include streamed versions of their regular stations as well as Internet-only stations.

Sounds like a wonderful innovation, but, correct me if I'm wrong--isn't there supposed to be some way to interrupt regular radio programming for emergencies? How do you get breaking news of traffic and public safety information in a reliable way? Do you have to have subscriptions to local stations that would give you that? Do you have a way to shut down or interrupt streaming music? It would be rare that this would be an issue, but, in some areas of the country, the weather makes local radio indispensable. Some of these devices have been around since September, I see. Looks somewhat big and bulky, but I suspect that the device will shrink and change with innovation.

Third Generation (3G) networks are already overwhelmed, especially in New York City. If you mean to say that, by adding tens of thousands of users of Pandora to an existing network infrastructure, you'll be compensating for that by building up that infrastructure, all well and good. Where's the plan? Where's the money? And when will someone admit that the fees for Pandora would have to go up as network costs rise? What if the Internet slows or goes out altogether? Broadcast radio can be sent out from remote locations, powered by fueled generators, to devices run on batteries. Can the Internet radio do that? Or will the 3G networks collapse if the power is out for too long? I can tell you one thing--if the data networks don't start increasing their capacity, consumers are going to revolt and abandon these services BEFORE they can start making a lot of money.

What are the lobbyists doing to level this playing field? Major broadcasters ARE NOT going to stand by and do nothing. Laws and regulations are coming.

It sounds wonderful, but usually, things that go bust sound like the cat's pajamas. Satellite radio certainly sounded like that.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

The Pillars of Our Society Nearly Fell

When I found myself weeping uncontrollably this morning, I knew it had to be because something had gone terribly wrong during a Bowl Game that I did not bother to watch:

University of Missouri administrators have apologized to the U.S. Naval Academy for what it says was a misunderstanding by its band during the Texas Bowl game last week.

The band has been criticized on blogs and online news forums for playing the Missouri fight song after the Naval Academy began playing its theme song after the game.

The two bands had agreed before the game that the losing team's band would play first, followed by the winner. Navy defeated Missouri 35-13 in last Thursday's game. Missouri spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said Missouri's band didn't realize the Naval Academy had begun playing.

She says the school did not intend to to disrespect Navy tradition. The Naval Academy issued a statement saying it considered the issue a misunderstanding.

If I don't do any more blogging today, it's because I had to reach out and holla at my peeps, and let them know that I was okay.

Posted via web from TalkingSmackAboutSports

Why Wasn't Everyone Reading My Blog Months Ago?

Apparently, people are just now figuring out that there is no substance to the Obama Administration:

Just before Christmas, on December 20, 2009, Dr. Drew Westen posted a lengthy article at Huffington Post entitled Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator. Dr. Westen’s piece caused quite a stir in both the blogosphere and more traditional media, and rightfully so in light of the comprehensive discussion he gives on the Obama phenomenon, what it has brought and where it is leading the country and Democratic party.

Curiously, I may have been the only one who didn’t see Drew’s article when it originally hit. This is a shame because on January 1st I did a post, Obama’s Royal Scam and The Iron Fist Of Rahm, that would have been greatly enhanced had I possessed the benefit of Dr. Westen’s piece when writing. Because of the parallel nature of our subject matters, I was asked to host Dr. Westen today for a chat on his hard hitting and important Huffington Post article. Today’s discussion will be of great interest to most everybody at Firedoglake irrespective of your relative view.

Dr. Westen’s whole piece is a must read in its entirety, but here is a sample:

As the president’s job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it’s time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those “pesky leftists” — those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn’t hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president’s leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress’s penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What’s costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn’t a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center.

Drew gives an incredibly broad and fair discussion of President Obama’s record of leadership to date from the feckless to the fantastic.

I was sounding the alarm bells here, here, here, here and here. But, as usual, no one was reading my blog except for my mother, my new assistant Mr. Peej, and some fellows looking for a picture or two of Rachel Ray's Magnificent Ass.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

High Seas Showdown

Ady Gil, from deck of Shonan Maru No. 2

The confrontation between environmental activists and Japanese whaling vessels just took a turn in a new direction:

A conservation group’s boat had its bow sheared off and was taking on water Wednesday after it collided with a Japanese whaling ship in the frigid waters of Antarctica, the group said. The boat’s six crew members were safely rescued.

The clash was the most serious in the past several years, during which the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has sent vessels into far-southern waters to try to harass the Japanese fleet into ceasing its annual whale hunt.

Clashes using hand-thrown stink bombs, ropes meant to tangle propellers and high-tech sound equipment have been common in recent years, and collisions between ships have sometimes occurred.

The society said its vessel Ady Gil — a high-tech speedboat that resembles a stealth bomber — was hit by the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru near Commonwealth Bay and had about 10 feet (three meters) of its bow knocked off.

Losing three meters of your bow is one way to go about things. Back in Japan, there is elation. The fishing vessel, Shonan Maru No. 2, is now the most popular thing afloat.

Ady Gil

Over at the Japan Times, there are these details:

 

 

Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, told Kyodo News the Shonan Maru No. 2, a vessel sent by Japan to ensure the security of its whaling fleet, deliberately rammed his group’s A$2 million (US$1.8 million) vessel Ady Gil and “sheared the bow right off.”

 

 

“It ripped 8 feet (2.5 meters) of the front of the vessel off,” Watson said. “At this point it does not look salvageable. It’s taking on water.”

According to his account, both vessels has been stationary in the water when the Shonan Maru No. 2 started up and then steered deliberately into the Ady Gil, which had been harassing the fleet, at around 3:50 p.m. Australian time.

One of the Ady Gil’s six crew members sustained several cracked ribs in the incident, he said, adding that five crew members were evacuated, but its captain remained onboard “trying to see what he can do to salvage the vessel … or at least some of the equipment.”

Watson, speaking from aboard the ship Steve Irwin, also said Sea Shepherd put out a mayday distress signal “but the Japanese fleet refused to acknowledge that and just kept going. It was a hit and run.”

The Japanese Fisheries Agency blamed the collision on Sea Shepherd, saying the Shonan Maru No. 2 crew had tried to ward off the approaching Ady Gil with water cannon but the antiwhaling vessel employed maneuvers such as suddenly reducing speed, which resulted in the collision.

Glenn Inwood, the spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, said that according to his report the Ady Gil was idling in the water and then went “full steam ahead” to cut off Shonan Maru No.2. He said the Ady Gil skipper miscalculated and the “fault lies” with Sea Shepherd vessel for the collision.

According to Watson, the Shonan Maru No. 2 has been “particularly aggressive” this year after it earlier tried to damage the activists’ helicopter. “I think their order this year is to try and cause material damage to the ships.”

Bias? Hard to say. Either way you look at it, that was quite the bum scuffle on the high seas. Here is a previous story on the organization in question, and all I can say is, the United States needs to stay out of this conflict. No good can come out of getting between whale meat and the conservationists who oppose the hunt.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Tim Tebow Should Give Up Now and Forget About an NFL Career?

Always shoot for mediocre, don't try hard, and always expect to fail. Giving up before you try is what winners do. Hey, you know that, because these other guys failed, you're gonna fail too, right? Right?

Tim Tebow has been a great story, but I'm concerned about how this story ends. It's not the Florida fan in me, or the Tim Tebow fan in me, because neither fan exists. But the writer in me? The writer in me exists, and the writer in me is concerned. Writers love a good story, and we especially love a good ending. And Florida quarterback Tim Tebow's story should have ended Friday night in the Sugar Bowl. Not his story overall. I'm not asking for the young man to die. I'm asking for him to retire from football. Wouldn't that be perfect? Seriously -- I cannot imagine a better ending, a more fitting ending, for this once-in-a-lifetime football player than his immaculate Sugar Bowl performance, when he threw for 482 yards and ran for 51 and produced as many touchdowns (four) as incomplete passes. We should all be so lucky as to go out like that -- knowing our limitations, knowing we have reached the apex of our career, and leaving on our own terms. That would be like me winning a Pulitzer Prize and then smashing my laptop to pieces after accepting the award. (I'm never winning a Pulitzer; I know this. It's an analogy, people.) That would be like Bobby Bowden passing Bear Bryant with 324 career victories at the declining age of 72 and then stepping down (OK, another bad example). It would be like Jim Brown winning the NFL rushing title in 1965 and then, at age 29, retiring from football. It would be like Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax going 27-9 in 1966, the best season of his superstar career, and then retiring at age 30. It would be like Rocky Marciano knocking out three fighters in 12 months and then, in 1955, retiring at age 32.

No, it would most emphatically NOT be like any of those incidents. This is where the hubris of the sports commentator or writer interferes with reality. Mr. Doyel wants shining glory and perfect endings and familiar absolutes. The real world has none of these things when a person really strives to achieve something and has something left in the tank. You can compare two great quarterbacks--Joe Montana and John Elway. Montana felt he had more football in him, so he toughed it out and tried to add to his considerable legacy. Elway retired after winning a Superbowl. I would suspect that Elway's decision was different because he didn't feel that he had it in him to win a third Superbowl. That's his right, God bless him. His legacy takes no tarnish, nor, in my mind, does Montana's. Even Dan Marino continued on, having one of the most horrendous games of his career. Should that have finished him? It all comes down to the quality of his play and his determination to come back. It has nothing to do with making it easy for some jackass with a pen and paper to tie up loose ends. Competitors will always come out and play if they have it in them. Each pro athlete makes a tortured decision to retire. To say that a young man who is absolutely unformed and without one single snap in the NFL should give up before even trying is the height of absurdity. Let Mr. Tebow do whatever he wants.

Posted via web from TalkingSmackAboutSports

Norman's Contesseration for January 5, 2010

When I do my contesseration, I try to make it worthwhile. I haven't been writing as much as I would like, owing to a lack of inspiration. Why deal with a new year with a burst of activity? I'm slow and steady, but I achieve my goals without a fuss. Nothing changes just because the calendar goes one tick forward to a new number.

So far, January is off to a great start. I won't bore you with everything, I'll just try to get the good stuff. The biggest post I've had in ages was one from New Year's Day about the vulnerability of Iranian riot control vehicles. Foreign blogs picked it up and ran with it. Thousands of views, inquiries, comments, tweets and howling from my enemies. Corrupt Congressman Peter Hoekstra is trying to raise money from terrorism fears--what a whore.

China has a state-registered environmental movement. Sounds weird, but it looks like it is on the up and up to me. President Obama made his New Year's Day greeting video on December 22. Can you say "overtaken by events?" Many of the people who work for the President are in a hole, and they keep digging it deeper. Some hack started off his essay about the "Hitler Youth" affiliation of the Pope, and that is something that should not just be ignored.

A surprising number of people do not know that this nation was founded on the principles of limited government and the rule of law, not religion. In order to protect this country, they're hand-jamming names on to the terror watch list in order to cover their ass. Gatecrashed number three, you're about to have an uncomfortable fifteen minutes of infamy. Crime is caused by criminals, and if we lock up criminals or just send them to Florida, we'll continue to see a nationwide drop in crime rates. Anyone can be a Father, few can be a daddy, and no one can top this as an example of bad parenting. Finally, President Obama isn't like Nixon; he's more like Jimmy Carter.

Over at Celebrity Disaster, I have taken great pains to note that no one hires Kathy Griffin for her broadcasting judgement. I also think every hottie in America should date me, and I do note that pathos is hardly ever fabulous.

When I talk smack about sports, rarely do I get the desired result. Gilbert Arenas is a gun-waving clown, Tim Tebow should never give up and he should go to the NFL and prove everyone wrong, and Jim Zorn is a more decent man than the franchise he used to work for.

The Safe For Work hotties are numerous, and they are Faye Reagan, Krista Ayne, Catalina Cruz, Harmony Paxson, Amber Evans, Sydney Moon, Kayden Kross, and Louise Glover.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

How Do We Know She Didn't Slip?

A SCANTILY-clad girl lies sprawled semi-conscious in the snow early yesterday as the UK celebrated New Year with yet another night of drunken shame.

 

Experts reckon Brits got through a staggering £100million of booze as revellers drank pubs and clubs across the country dry - resulting in thousands being violently ill.

Pictures never tell the whole story. What if she just slipped? What if she hadn't been drinking? What if she was posed for this photo by a sexist media that cannot do anything truthful?

Or not.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

President Obama Really is a Bit of a Nixonian President

When someone gets lazy with their argument, you can be rest assured I might do something about it.

Here, Mark Schmidt starts off with a look at President Obama, his accomplishments, and something called "the progressive infrastructure" and then he goes completely off the rails with his adulation of the President:

No doubt the president is one of the most compelling figures in American political history, perhaps more interesting as a person than any occupant of the White House since his moral opposite, Richard Nixon. His combination of political skill, intellect, discipline, confidence, and command of language is unprecedented, and his theory of politics, which brought with it the first actual Democratic electoral majority since 1976, may have changed the parameters of political possibility. It's hard to take your eyes off that phenomenon.

Even Andrew Sullivan would have trouble genuflecting before the greatness of his idol with that paragraph.

I like the President and his family. Nothing about him annoys me, except his apparent lack of substantive humility. The President is entitled to talk about himself and his experiences, and he's entitled to the perks of the office. I have quibbled with the choices that he has made and the extravagance of his socializing. He's entitled to playing golf. He's not entitled to privacy because, hello, you don't run for President of the United States with the expectation that you will have your privacy, ever again. I thought the incident with the Salahis cheapened the Presidency, and he should have fired whoever let them into his home, which is, nominally, the home provided by the American people. I think that the whole "White House" arrangement needs to change. The mansion is not big enough, and it is too centrally located in Washington D.C. The President should live elsewhere, and should spend time in other states. His communication staff travels with him; being in Hawaii is no big deal. In fact, it's a great thing. It allows him to see how Americans live. That's what a President needs.

There's nothing really compelling about him. He's smart, and he's managed to get elected President. Compared to Ronald Reagan, he's no where near as compelling as a figure because he does not possess the gravitas or ideology of change and believing in the idea of small government--which is where my bias does lay. A Republican is always going to be more compelling to me; but I will try to proceed honestly. In terms of accomplishments, he's Jack Kennedy without the war record; slight accomplishments, lots of charisma, a fabulous wife, beautiful children, probably far more moral in his personal life, and probably more intelligent than Kennedy ever was. On ethics, though, Kennedy was a monster, and his brother Bobby was worse. They would destroy Rose Kennedy if she stood in their way; sad, but true.

President Obama's speeches do nothing for me. I wish to see action combined with words. I wish to see results. I see few results. I have watched the pundit media go apeshit for his speeches. No one bothers to point out that we have escalated the war in Afghanistan, abandoned the middle class, failed to reform Health Care, and can't figure out where tens of billions of dollars in bailout money went. His accomplishments are thin and his legislative track record thinner still. His base has all but abandoned him. His ability to raise money after he gives a speech is legendary; the end result of this is that he will go to the well one too many times and fall flat. You can't talk your way through history unless you're actually doing a talk show. Being a President is a little different. There's not much difference between this guy and the last guy, at least to my way of thinking.

To say, though, that Obama is the "moral opposite" of Richard Nixon bothers me the most. Really? Because Rahm Emmanuel is exactly the kind of person Richard Nixon would hire, complete with the ability to hold a grudge and stick it to previous enemies. The emphasis on "no drama Obama" is classic Nixon in that his advisers are on his message and not on their own. No one in the lobbying world is sweating the hardassed attention to ethical details of the Obama administration, brother. There is no "team of rivals." It's a team of yes men and yes women. Embarrass this President, or go after one of his cronies, and you're gone. Screw up your job and you get to keep yours. Loyalty above all else, it seems. Early on, even the New York Times noted the mixed signals of the Obama Administration. Where is he on the rule of law, exactly? Because if he was anywhere near consistent, none of the charges made so far would stick, would they?

We don't know what Obama's ethical situation really is. He's somewhat unformed in the public mind on that. I won't make the cheap charge of "Chicago politics." Chicago is run like every other city in America. Corruption reigns. Ask the convicted mayor of Baltimore how things are done and get back to me. President Obama is not tainted so far. Only after his presidency could you declare that and walk away from the discussion. If you listen to the loony left, no, he's no where near the Boy Scout of Hope and Change Incorporated. He is, to put it mildly, Nixonian in the way that he fucks over his supporters. Nixon was a profane and insecure man; he fucked many people in public life. So far, President Obama hasn't been entirely moral in this area. There is no great clamor to go work for the man.

I mean, there will never be another Richard Nixon. But don't assume that you can get to be President without being Nixonian in your ethics when it comes to beating back a desperate challenge or dealing with the way your opposition attacks you (see President Dukakis and President Kerry for more on that front). We are too vast and too complicated of a people to think that Jimmy Stewart is the ideal.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Kathy Griffin Classes Up CNN

  Kathy Griffin makes some new friends on a plane

CNN probably likes the pairing of Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin. I can't tell which one is which, when I'm not focused on the screen. In point of fact, on the kitchen television, they merge into one ridiculous talking head. I say this with irony when I point out that you can look for a whole lot of phony outrage about this:

For the second straight year, comedian Kathy Griffin ushered in the new year by saying something vulgar on CNN.

During the network's live New Year's Eve broadcast from Times Square, Griffin was joking with co-host Anderson Cooper about how to pronounce the first name of "balloon boy" Falcon Heene when she mumbled something that sounded a little like "Falcon" and a lot like the F-word.

Cooper hung his head, shook it and said "You're terrible," before resuming his banter.

The network said in a statement Friday that it "regrets that profanity was used during our New Year's Eve coverage."

During the same show a year ago, Griffin gleefully shouted at a heckler in the crowd and made a joke implying that the man performed gay sex acts for a living.

In a statement released by her publicist Friday, Griffin made light of the "balloon boy" joke: "Like every other serious reporter covering the now infamous balloon boy hoax, I struggled to pronounce his name 'Falcon' correctly and have gotten a kick out of how many ways I've heard it pronounced by other serious reporters. Just add me to that list and happy new year!"

Now, if there's an outcry over this, I'll be shocked. You mean to say, there are still people who watch CNN? Enough to make a difference to the management of the network? Kathy Griffin makes an off-color remark with profanity attached and this shocks you? What were you thinking when you hired Kathy Griffin? That she would comport herself with ladylike dignity and maintain a high standard of broadcast excellence? She says and does things for attention. She's Teresa Giudice without the career prospects and a savvier version of Snooki without the dignity.

Do you get the impression that the producers and managers who hire people like Griffin are counting on controversy in order to compensate for the fact that there's hardly anyone worth watching these days?

Posted via web from Celebrity Disaster

The Crackdown in Iran Escalates

Tehran, Iran

Could the regime be close to collapse?

Iranian authorities sent police officers into the streets to deter protests on Friday as Mir Hussein Moussavi, the principal opposition leader, said in a statement that he did not fear giving his life as “a martyr.”

The continuing show of force in the capital and Mr. Moussavi’s declaration, in which he said that even killing him would not end the unrest, were part of a day of charges, countercharges and warnings from both sides, illustrating the deep divisions that have emerged since Iran’s political crisis began six months ago.

The government and its hard-line supporters continued to rely on force, and the threat of force, to quell protests and demand loyalty, while the opposition refused to back down. There was no indication that compromise was on the agenda.

During Friday Prayer services in the capital, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a fundamentalist cleric who leads the powerful Guardian Council, called protesters “flagrant examples of the corrupt on Earth” and effectively urged that they be executed as “in the early days of the revolution.”

Mr. Moussavi issued a statement on his Web site, kaleme.org, that took a broad swipe at the government for its use of force against civilian protesters. It also criticized the government’s handling of the economy and foreign policy and its failure to address institutional corruption.

Mr. Moussavi offered a prescription for the government to restore its lost legitimacy, calling for the release of political prisoners and the repair of electoral laws, as well as freedom of expression, assembly and the press.

Things seem to be getting worse in the repression business. This is no small uprising by a disaffected minority. The sentiments of the people seem to be with a new revolution, even though there are always going to be indifferent fence sitters.

This is what I did with my afternoon yesterday in response to this:

Iran analysts said they were bracing for the next potential showdown on Feb. 11, the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution.

On Friday, New Year’s Day, residents of Tehran woke to a police presence in central Tehran, with officers stationed at several major intersections and squares. The authorities also deployed civilian members of the Basij militia equipped with batons, riot helmets and shields.

Forces were concentrated at Vali Asr Square, Seventh Tir Square and Revolution Square. Motorcycle-mounted police and plainclothes forces were seen patrolling the stretch of road between Revolution Square and Freedom Square.

Photographs and reports were circulating on the Internet about new heavily armored police vehicles that were delivered to Tehran over the last few days. The reports said they were Chinese-made vehicles with twin water cannons capable of delivering powerful jets of hot and cold water, as well as chemical irritants.

The show of force came in tandem with threats of prosecution for the many opposition supporters who had been arrested, and those leaders who had not.

No government can last if it is resorting to this kind of repression. I have never had much faith in Mr. Moussavi, due to his previous status as a very vocal anti-American, anti-democracy politician. It does seem that he has adopted the Western rhetoric of the political martyr, even going so far as to actually embrace being killed, as opposed to simply talking about it in order to raise money.

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Joan Severance Looks Amazing

Joan Severance

Here are some wonderful photos of Joan Severance, and she looks amazing.

Joan Severance

Miss Severance is filming a movie called "The Lost Gold of Khan," and it sounds like a winner.

Joan Severance

Posted via web from Celebrity Disaster

Catalina Cruz is Remarkably Safe For Work in Glasses

Catalina Cruz

Catalina Cruz

Catalina Cruz is so amazing, there has to be a unique category for her. I came up with "Cruz-errific!" but I don't think it will catch on.

Catalina Cruz

Catalina Cruz

Catalina Cruz

 

Catalina Cruz has a sprawling and gargantuan gallery here...

Posted via web from Safe For Work Hotties

Disabling Iranian Police Riot Control Vehicles

Riot Control Vehicles

Being an expert on riot control vehicle technology, and the use of riot control vehicles, and the development and distribution of riot control vehicles, I can assure you of one thing--the Iranian regime just screwed the pooch by using the Chinese vehicles you see pictured above.

First, a little background:

The armoured anti-riot vehicles have a capacity of 10,000 liters to shoot cold and hot water, and three 100 liter tanks to shoot burning chemical liquids. The water is mixed with paint or tear gas that cannot be washed away. Each vehicle has two guns for shooting liquid up to a distance of 70 meters- it is controlled from inside the cabin. The price tag for each unit is 650,000 dollars. Also, a lot of extra burning liquid, paint, and tear gas was purchased.

It took four months for the delivery of the armoured vehicles, and since the Iranian regime was in a hurry, they had them delivered from China’s army organization- this is rare!  China’s government was in as much of a hurry to get these to Iran.

We pray that this regime will not last to get to use these violent equipments. But even if they do get to use them on the streets, it is nothing to worry about. Iranians are so creative that we will find the cheapest way to destroy them. The tyrannical and blood thirsty government of China should realize that this inhumane action against the people of Iran will turn out to be a big punishment. We will cut off their hands from our country and we will try our best to get rid of their products in our region. Also, China should wait for our full support of the people of Tibet against their barbaric crimes and the Muslim people of Sien Kiang, and we will punch their dirty mouths.

This clear interference of China in Iran’s internal affairs and their cooperation in putting down the Iranian people must be condemned by all nations of the world. We also feel sorry for the “Supreme Leader” who is willing to kiss the bottoms of the Chinese who do not even believe in God, but is not willing to listen to the people of Iran.

Now, some analysis.

 

 

Those are my initial thoughts. I would need to get inside of the vehicle and see what else I could identify as being an operational vulnerability. Ten or fifteen of these vehicles operated in perfect concert, line abreast or staggered, would reduce their vulnerability. One or two of these vehicles, isolated or driven by frightened, confused operators could be disabled in rapid succession by a dedicated populace.

This should answer any quick questions as to why the word "POLICE" is stamped on the vehicle:

Post-election protests continued in Tehran for the fifth day on Wednesday. In many photos, riot police wear uniforms with the English word police on them. Ambulances, too, bear the word ambulance in English. Why not use Persian words instead of their English equivalents?

Because everyone knows English. Like many capital cities, Tehran has its emergency personnel wear markings that are internationally recognizable. Street signs, too, are translated into English, and police cars are generally inscribed in both English and Persian. That makes the city more tourist-friendly without sacrificing clarity for locals. After all, the Persian word for police is the same: polise. (Persian, or Farsi, is an Indo-European language that uses an Arabic script, but people will often use Latin lettering, also known as Penglish or Fingilish, especially when typing or texting.) It's also the same word in French (police), German (polizei), Italian (polizia), Czech (policie), and many other languages. Iranian students are required to take English classes in high school. So using the English word for police actually maximizes the number of people who will understand it.

My expertise, such as it is, will NOT guarantee success for the dedicated protester. Nothing will. You're, essentially, free to improvise.

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The Baby-Sitters Club is Making a Comeback

The Baby-Sitters Club Book Number 8 (a classic)

I just got off the phone with Miranda, and she seems nonplussed by this news. Too bad. I am ecstatic:

Ann. M. Martin (New York Times)Taking a page from Broadway and George Lucas, Scholastic Inc., the children’s book publisher, is trying for a revival — with a prequel attached.

In April the company plans to reissue repackaged and slightly revised versions of the first two volumes in one of its most successful series, “The Baby-Sitters Club,” in the hopes of igniting enthusiasm in a new generation of readers. And just as Mr. Lucas brought “Star Wars” back with a whole new arc of stories that began before the original series, Scholastic is publishing a newly written prequel, “The Summer Before,” by Ann M. Martin, the original author of “The Baby-Sitters Club” books.

The move follows Scholastic’s 2008 resuscitation of “Goosebumps,” another of its most popular series. For now Scholastic and Ms. Martin only have plans for the one prequel, although the publisher will release three more reissues of the original series later next year.

“The Baby-Sitters Club,” which ran from 1986 through 2000, garnered an ardent following among preteenage girls throughout its run of 213 titles, with the publisher ultimately printing 176 million copies. The series, which followed the baby-sitting adventures and friendships of four 12-to-13-year-old girls — Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia and Stacey (the cast expanded to eight main characters later in the series) — spawned several spinoffs, including a mystery series and a collection of books about Kristy’s little sister. All of the books are now out of print.

David Levithan, the editorial director at Scholastic and an editor of “The Baby-Sitters Club,” said the publisher decided to bring back the old series because of requests from fans who wanted a comeback.

“This whole generation of girls who had grown up reading ‘The Baby-Sitters Club’ were now teachers, librarians or mothers,” Mr. Levithan said. “And at any opportunity they had, they let us know they wanted them back. We couldn’t go to a convention without having women come up to us and say, ‘You’ve got to bring these books back.’ ”

Hear, hear.

I read these books to Miranda when she was just a pup, and I tend to internalize what I read. I am not a snob. I appreciate a good story, and, brother, if you think the Baby-Sitters Club didn't have heartache, suspense, longing, and character development in spades, you don't know what you're talking about. Being a voracious reader, I have this period locked into what I call my reading memory. We would pick these books up at the B. Dalton store at the mall--I do miss B. Dalton. It was the perfect little store. Books by the shelf, not the acre, and no bag ladies sleeping in the aisles.

If you think this wasn't a series with inherent tension and drama, think again:

Mary Anne was the first club member to have a steady boyfriend, Logan Bruno, who becomes an associate member of the club. They break up for a while in book #41, Mary Anne versus Logan but get back together later in the series. She gets in trouble over him in book #79, Mary Anne Breaks the Rules, when she invites Logan over during a sitting job and is caught. She and Logan break up permanently in Mary Anne's Big Breakup due to incompatible differences and Logan's possessiveness. Mary Anne is heartbroken.

I thought "Goosebumps" was a lame series, and Miranda agreed. Kids don't do horror. Kids are the horror. And you can quote me on that.

We read these Baby-Sitters Club books until she was about nineteen or so. I read them to her over the phone when she was at U-Mass. She put me on speaker phone and I would read the books to her entire floor when she was in the Freshman dorms. Those ladies were polite, and the nostalgia, for them, made more than a few break down in tears.

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Rolling Stone Has a Sentimental Hack

  Weasels typically trade sentimentalism for indifference

I know that I should be fair to poor David Wild, but I'm in a foul mood. I'm 65 years old, and fathering a child is nothing I would want to have thrust upon me. I skipped past the recent stories about how Irish singer Van Morrison "allegedly" became a new father. David Wild lost his mind and went all sentimental on the execrable Huffington Post:

When I was last interviewed Van Morrison for Rolling Stone in 2008 -- something I've been privileged to do a number of times over the years -- I asked him why he was performing his classic album Astral Weeks in concert so many years later, Van noted quite correctly that "the songs are timeless." Apparently, Van's songs are not the only things that are timeless. At age 64, Van the Man became a father again today with a baby boy named George Ivan Morrison III -- also known as Little Van -- and I say congratulations to this very much living musical legend and the baby's mother Gigi Lee, who's been managing Van's career of late and doing a pretty great job of it, too.

As a mere fortysomething dad myself, my very best wishes are with Van and his newly extended soul clan tonight. I've had the pleasure of hearing Van sing with his lovely daughter Shana, who's 39, and here's hoping we all get to hear the two Vans sing together one day. Since his dad's music has gotten me through many days and nights in my life, here's a special birthday playlist for Little Van to help him into his father's sublime music and some of the enduring influences who help make Van the Man in the first place.

"The Way Young Lovers Do" by Van Morrison
"Bright Side Of The Road" by Van Morrison
"Sweet Thing" by Van Morrison
"Steal My Heart Away" by Van Morrison
"Celtic New Year" by Van Morrison
"Heavy Connection" by Van Morrison
"Warm Love" by Van Morrison
"Mystic Eyes" by Them
"In The Garden" by Van Morrison
"Hungry For Your Love" by Van Morrison
"I Forgot That Love Existed" by Van Morrison
"Crazy Love" by Van Morrison
"Brand New Day" by Van Morrison
"Real Real Gone" by Van Morrison
"Hallelujah, I Love Her So" by Ray Charles
"Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Ray Charles and Betty Carter
"Little Boy Blue" by Bobby "Blue" Bland
"Turn On Your Lovelight" by Bobby "Blue" Bland
"Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" by Solomon Burke
"Cry To Me" by Solomon Burke
"I Found A Love - Part 1" by Wilson Pickett
"I'm In Love" - Wilson Pickett
"Baby Stop Crying" by Bob Dylan
"Forever Young" by Bob Dylan

Okay, kids, what songs would you play Little Van, or Big Van for that matter?

Do they have a song for a sentimental jackass who ends up looking like the biggest rube on the planet? The man didn't father a child--his website was hacked:

Van Morrison told an Irish radio station that his official Web site was hacked and that a statement posted on the site reporting that he had fathered a child with his manager was “utterly without foundation.”

In a statement to RTÉ's News at One on Thursday, Morrison, 64, said he has asked his management team to conduct an “immediate investigation” into the most recent attack, which occurred on Tuesday.

The bogus statement claimed that Morrison had fathered the child with his American manager, Gigii Lee. The statement said the baby, named George Ivan Morrison III, was “the spitting image of his daddy.”

I can't stop laughing. I don't know what's funnier--the hack itself or the fact that all of these people went goo goo gaga over something that could have been cleared up if Van Morrison wasn't so averse to dealing with his fans.

Mr. Wild wasn't the only one who claimed to have known Morrison and who went all teary-eyed and Beatle-nostalgic, but he's the one who purports to be some sort of music industry genius. Suck eggs, Mr. Rolling Stone writer. Your magazine is trash, your sentimentality is boring, and your world is a prank you don't understand. Wasn't Rolling Stone supposed to be an "in the know" and hip magazine? Wild went on to comment that Morrison should cover "When I'm 64" by the Beatles. Excuse me, but I really don't think Van Morrison wallows in the same shallow pool of lameness and gushing sentimentality.

Here's Mr. Wild's hipster, snark-tastic biography:

David Wild is an Emmy-nominated television writer, a best-selling author and a Contributing Editor for Rolling Stone. But what he really wants to do is write for free on Huffington Post.

Wild is producer of The Chris Isaak Hour on the Bio Channel. You can now follow David at twitter.com/wildaboutmusic

David also wants you to read his brand new book He Is . . . I Say: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Neil Diamond because it's very meaningful and he gets paid for that.

Aw, he wears his lameness on his shirtsleeve. How refreshing. Another Baby Boomer watches the culture leave him behind. Stay hip, bro.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Where Do We Find These Morons?

  If you mess with a bear, it will kick your ass. Therefore, do all that you can to NOT mess with the bear. But if the bear comes after you, kill the son of a bitch and make a rug out of him. That’s the American way.

This just shocks the heck out of me:

What happens if the next failed terrorist is from, say, Germany?

President Obama, acting just minutes after a Yemeni group affiliated with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the airplane bombing attempt over Detroit on Christmas, declared Monday that the United States would continue to press its accelerated offensive against terror cells in Yemen and elsewhere in the world.

“This was a serious reminder of the dangers we face and of the nature of those who threaten our homeland,” Obama said of the Dec. 25 incident aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam. “We do not yet have all the answers about this latest attempt, but those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the United States will do more than simply strengthen our defenses.

There is no defense capable of stopping everyone willing to trade his life for yours.

There are plenty of ways to defend against some, but not all, of the individuals who want to attack the United States. A good rule of thumb is, if the CIA knew about this man, and didn’t tell anyone, what you then want to do is start firing people for incompetence. How hard is that? It might not have stopped everyone, but it would have stopped this guy, and that’s a good place to start. Passive aggressive whining will get you a titty baby trophy, and you can certainly be proud to get your very own for yourself, but try to understand—this is not earning you cool points.

The first line of defense is common sense. Do you let the man holding the boombox that doesn’t play music onto the plane? Not unless you inspect the boombox. The second line of defense would be a fluid system of screening and searching passengers. Do you let lonely, sweaty Nigerians onto the plane if they won’t consent to being searched? No, no you do not. The third line of defense is YOU. If you are on the plane, and someone starts acting weird, you have a free pass to beat their ass and help the stewardesses put plastic handcuffs on the clown. It may be a case where it’s just a businessman with a sugar deficiency, trying to defecate on a cart full of drinks. It may be nothing more than a redneck on a fancy plane without his wubby. It could be a celebrity on drugs. I see no sense of urgency to deal with these problems. I see finger pointing and blame shifting and an unwillingness to fire incompetent people.

If you take common sense steps, use adaptive tactics to try and make certain that you are closing any security gaps, and if you tell people, in plain language, that we all own our own fate, then you might catch someone willing to trade their life for yours. The President of the United States is not going to save your ass. When are liberals, who seem to relish the pantload they’re strutting around with, going to wake up and realize that they cannot blame Bush for everything. Obama, Bush, Clinton—give it a rest. They’re not responsible for anything other than ensuring that the right people are on the job, not screwing up. They’re not responsible for your personal safety. You are. The important point is to stress that there’s no goddamned way someone is going to kill me before I do everything I can do to kill you first, you son of a bitch from no where.

Never, ever give up. Never, ever stop fighting. Never stop trying to get better. That’s my mantra. I live it every day.

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The Best of An American Lion 2009

  I'm a Rockefeller Republican, Sir

Here are some of my best posts, and this covers the early part of the year when I used a lot more filler and didn't care as much and then it covers the busy part of the year, when I worked really, really hard and came up with some stuff that made me uncomfortable.

January

I was also the inspiration for this song

When you live in New York City, as I did for many years, and work in the business world, you tend to overlap into what some might call "the entertainment industry" and what others might call "the playground of whores." I was never a man-whore, but I came awfully close on occasion. I won't bore you with the details. There are prudes out there, of course. Let me just say that I practically invented the practice of running around naked on the roof of a building in which I did not live.

February

Being Pathetic is What is Recession-Proof

I applaud a good Ponzi scheme. It shows a willingness to win at all costs. I say "boo! boo!" in the catcall vernacular to those who get taken by Ponzi schemes. It shows laziness and an inability to pay attention. That's why I'm able to turn my back on these people. Goodness, you can't be spotted talking to a Wal-Mart greeter or a liquor store warehouse employee. You simply cannot be seen talking to a man who now sells insurance on commission for a shady outfit like AFLAC. That duck annoys me to no end. And I like comical ducks. I like them a great deal, sir.

March

Helping my old friend Candy Spelling sell her home

And, much like the Spellings, I have a chunky daughter who is a major, major disappointment. It's a wonder I even let her into the house. Miranda is such a disappointment to me, on many levels. Yes, she can pilot a boat and straighten out administrative problems, but no, she can't attract a decent husband anymore. No Ivy League man would ever taste her soiled goodies. The bloom is off the rose, Miranda, and without a man, you might as well give yourself a one way ticket to spinsterhood and stop off at the Big Ass mall and stock up on supplies.

April

Pointing out the obvious is what I do best

Let me just state the obvious--this is why you don't tip the pizza boy or pay him a lot of money. True, once he realizes that the money he's making won't fix his Grandmother's Plymouth after he burns out the motor making one too many runs to the fat kids in the husky boy pants in the trailer park who subsist off Mountain Dew and Meat Lover's Pizzas, you're likely going to have to recruit another one to take his place, but I digress. We have had a recent spate of shootings in this country. Now, nearly 100% of the blame for those shootings goes to mental illness. Some goes to liberalism, the rest goes to the fact that the raising of the minimum wage has allowed people to go out and purchase more guns and more ammunition. Think I'm wrong? I probably am wrong, and I really should point out that this is not what I really think. I'm just trying to make the day go by faster.

BONUS coverage, because April was a weird month for me:

The Slutty E-surance girl is back to torment me

My God, have you ever seen anything that perky? Those things make perky look like someone's idea of being rode hard and put away wet.

May

I Have Never Worn Jeans or Sneakers

When I was 15, I got lost in the downtown Groton sewer system for about two months. I fancied myself living underground and becoming a kind of mole-rat person with super-sensitive eyesight and the ability to digest stolen food from a pizza restaurant that had a loose manhole cover behind it. I should write about my time as the Frisky Mole Boy of Groton. Technically, I wasn't a mole--I was a mole rat. I didn't do any digging. I subsisted off stolen or discarded food which I took down into tunnels someone else had installed. But I solved a few bank robberies, fell in love, and invented a curved stick that allowed me to run through sewer pipes while carrying pizza without falling. It was ingenious. Oh, and I had sex with forty women, caught eleven fugitives, and blew up a furniture store that was being used as an illegal gambling parlor.

June

Spraying Your Own People With Horrible Chemicals

Ah, the nostalgia of reading about sialorrhoea on a beautiful summer morning. Do all of the blogs you read talk extensively about how sialorrhoea can help restore democracy and freedom? Do most of them? Well, good for you.

July

Rachel Ray Has a Magnificent Ass

I am who I am because I love Rachel Ray's Magnificent Ass. It moves me to tears, it does. It's a ripe apple hanging from a tree in the garden of Earthly delights, and I cannot have it. I can see it, I can appreciate it, I can tell you how grand and special it is. But it is not mine. It is hers. She shares it with us, like a secret.

Thank you, Rachel. This old, crying man with a happy face and a smile only for you...I break down trying to finish this. I do.

August

Damn You, Marxist Pants

Why go around in ripped pants, dawg? That's what I said today, in good fun and camaraderie, to my homies when my son and I went to Sam's Club so that we could ghost ride the whip in the parking lot. Today, it was absolutely beautiful weather, and when I wasn't coming unglued and blogging like a maniac, we were out with Toby and Darryl and Demetrius from my son's role-playing club. I felt loose enough to get on the roof and dance, and I didn't fall off this time, which is a huge plus because the Suburban is, what? Seven and a half feet off of the ground?

BONUS:

Capitalism Beats the Hippies, Once and For All

Filthy hippies, I hope all of you are washed into the gutter and flushed into a blackened, oily sea full of horrid birds and starving fish. Your time is over. I sneer at you because I won. The counterculture lost. Capitalism, money, and properly cut hair won. Letting it all hang out and letting you freak flag fly lost.

September

No One Who Rates Prostitutes Online Actually Uses Them

If I was chief of police, the first thing I would do is fire everyone, and bring in all new detectives. Then, I would say, you cut a deal with anyone, I will hang you. Now, go round up the guys who run things, and break them. Bust up their homes, tear down their businesses, and burn their favorite place to the ground. And then, tomorrow, we'll do it all over again until people get the message. Do you think that would have an impact on crime? Perhaps. But, I can guarantee you one thing, there would be judges, politicians and clergymen clamoring to have me shot in the head before sunset. C'est la vie.

October

Grow Your Own, Dr. Greenthumb

This old conservative must step down from the soap box and clearly admit that our war on drugs has failed. Using weed hasn't hurt Willie Nelson at all, now has it? Look at Willie--he is 76 years old and he has transferred at least twelve metric tons of marijuana through his system. If ever there was a poster child for legalizing weed, it's Willie.

November

I Shall Attempt to Win the British Bad Sex in Fiction Prize

Sex with her was a process of figuring out why I was chasing around a moving mouse. That’s what it felt like to me, her thing. It felt like a white, pink mouse that was trying to escape from an anaconda that was too inexperienced to hunt properly. An anaconda that needed glasses no optometrist was skillful enough to make. This mouse was dampened by her excitement, a bottle with French writing she took out of her purse, and a rolling mist through the sewer. That made it difficult for me on my bare knees to find any kind of traction. Everything about her was freshly scrubbed and smelling of old soap, soap applied without any passion. If she had worn perfume, it was drowned out by the riot of smells that I had learned to ignore. I fumbled, figured out the sticky problems, put right the gravity and the friction, and I learned to chase the brillo pad textures I felt with my thigh like a horseman on the hunt for a fox that had been running around without any common sense.

December

Don't Criticize What We Wore in the 1970s

It’s true—I had a husky boy phase, but I outgrew it. I played football and lost twenty pounds in two weeks. I toughened up. I cowboy’ed up. I got angry. I stared at myself in the mirror with nothing but disgust on my face and I clenched my fists and made myself slim enough to wear jumpsuits and mesh T-shirts. I was always frisky, and with that added energy, and some pills, I was fine. Nervous and jumpy sometimes, but I always worked with our family doctor to get the amphetamines to work with me, not against me.

Men could wear whatever they wanted to wear, so they went with tight pants, plaids, open collars, nylon and polyester. It was what we did. We wore whatever they were selling in the stores, you see. There wasn’t a Gap (right? Gap came about because kids needed part-time work in malls, correct?). There was Montgomery Wards. You went there, bought seven or eight shirts, some suit coats that fit, pants that didn’t split when you bent over, three belts, a few pairs of shoes, some socks, and I always went commando. I learned to go commando because they don’t sell underwear in India for husky boys.

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Carlos Irwin Estevez Has Been Living in That High Society, You See...

Way to go, Carlos Irwin Estevez:

Authorities haven't identified the accuser, but the woman on the 911 call says her name is Brooke and that her husband is Charlie Sheen. Sheen is married to Brooke Mueller Sheen.

The woman can be heard weeping and sometimes her words are inaudible. At one point she says, "My husband had me (inaudible) with um, with a knife, and (inaudible) he threatened me." Later, she says, "I thought I was gonna die for one hour."

The woman says her family is also in the house and that her husband was in another room when she called 911.

The 44-year-old Sheen denied threatening his wife with a knife or choking her, and told officers they had slapped each other on the arms and that he had snapped two pairs of her eyeglasses in front of her, according to the affidavit. An ambulance was sent to their house in Aspen, Colorado, but police say no one was taken to the hospital.

TMZ says sources tell it authorities "gave both Charlie and Brooke blood alcohol tests. Brooke registered a .13 while Charlie registered a .04. ... We're also told Brooke recanted her story to a female officer just before the bail hearing, telling the cop she was drunk when she made the 911 call. Nevertheless, law enforcement sources say police will still pursue the case -- at least for now."

And so continues the saga. If you check out WeSmirch, it's huge over there. They've even dug up a Christmas card.

This crazy young couple must be in love. Neither are sober, both are violent and screwed up, and craziness abounds. If you can't get through Christmas with the ones you love, then everyday life must be a riot. That must be one hell of a house to live in. She's pinging off the walls, he's walking around with a 4 inch lock blade, and neither one of them care if there are kids in the house or not. Take it from an Irishman--drinking alcohol only makes it far more likely that your current problems will be dwarfed by the ones you will face when you have sobered up. It must be high living on all of that CBS sitcom money. Do you think, somewhere, there's a showrunner lining up his resume and hoping things don't run afoul of the rather strange ethical standards of Les Moonves?

Creative types usually get weird, and that's fine by me. This kind of weird isn't from creativity. It's from the hooch, you see. Young Estevez was smart. He married a crazy drunk with no credibility. This is how it is done.

Posted via web from Celebrity Disaster

Put Bert Blyleven in the Hall of Fame

I heartily agree with Mr. Bert Blyleven's own case as expressed here:

Wins are a tough statistic to consider in baseball. But for a few timely runs, and a little bit better run support, Blyleven would easily have over 320 wins and would have been in the Hall of Fame years ago. This is not a case where he, as a pitcher, didn't start enough games. It's more a case of having to have played on some teams that had anemic hitting. Just the fact that he pitched 242 complete games is enough by me. That's an amazing feat, one that you won't see in the future. Mr. Blyleven deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. Period. End of story.

When talk of my Hall of Fame candidacy comes up, usually people like to point at my career win total of 287 as a reason I shouldn’t be elected to Cooperstown. The so-called magic number of wins for automatic induction is said to be 300, and obviously I come up short in that department.

But in my opinion, wins are one of the hardest things to come by, and a pitcher can only do so much to control whether he wins a game. You can control your walks, you can control your strikeouts and your innings pitched. You can control whether you go nine innings by the way you approach a game. But one thing you often can’t control is wins and losses. It’s very difficult.

When I first came up in 1970 at age 19, I won my first game 2-1. My second game I lost 2-1. So after two starts, I had allowed three runs in 14 innings (1.93 ERA), but was just 1-1. That just shows you how hard it is, and it made me work harder. Maybe that’s why I was able to pitch 22 seasons in the majors, because I was so stubborn.

If you allow one run, but your team doesn’t score any runs, then you can’t earn the win. If your bullpen gives up a lead after you leave the game, then you can’t earn a win. Wins are a product of your team as a whole, and while the starting pitcher plays a significant role in who wins the game, he is not the only factor. The starter can only control so much.

Case in point: I lost 99 quality starts (at least six innings pitched while allowing no more than three runs) in my career, more than all but four pitchers since 1954. And I had 79 other quality starts in which I had no-decisions. That’s 178 quality starts in which I did not earn a win, yet people knock me for coming up 13 wins shy of 300.

Clearly, wins is a flawed stat, and I think observers of baseball are beginning to realize that. After all, this year’s Cy Young winners were Zack Greinke (16 wins) and Tim Lincecum (15). Both are great pitchers and deserving of the award, but neither led their league in wins.

One thing a pitcher can control is how far he lasts in each start. The better you pitch, the longer you last. This saves wear and tear on your bullpen, which in turn helps the starters who follow you in the rotation. Every time you pitch a complete game, your team benefits. That’s why I think complete games and shutouts are better stats to look at than wins.

I made 685 starts in my 22 seasons, and threw 242 complete games, so I went the distance in 35.3 percent of my starts. Compare that to Hall of Fame pitchers from my era and I stack up well. Phil Niekro completed 34 percent of his starts, Nolan Ryan 29 percent, Tom Seaver 35.7 percent and Steve Carlton 35.8 percent. Ferguson Jenkins (45 percent) and Gaylord Perry (44 percent) were the most impressive from my era in that department.

Posted via web from TalkingSmackAboutSports

Norman's Contesseration for December 29, 2009

  This is my all-time favorite blog post photo, by the way…

It's tough getting to the end of the year, isn't it?

At some point, I'll do a "best of" for the American Lion blog. I want to find 12 posts that will give people a good sampling of what we're about around there. It'll probably be a little bit naughty, and a whole lot deranged. That's how we ghost ride this whip, y'all.

There's a fellow who gets to blog on the Huffington Post, which is mindless nonsense, and he's a real sob sister about terrorism and who should do what to make sure he doesn't soil himself. Did you know that the embarrassingly unfunny and painfully obvious Dave Barry is still alive? Me neither. Newspapers, I care nothing for your inability to start charging for content.

The whistleblower who revealed that comfy UBS tax dodge scheme wants to delay being sent to prison so he can tell the authorities more about what he knows. No one really knows what to do about Iran, but bombing Iran is insane. You're a badass if you steal a plane, by the way. Not so much if you actually know how to fly.

One thing proven by the recent airliner bomb attempt scare is this: Dick Cheney looks more and more correct all of the time. The Obama Administration really needs to get on the ball and start doing something, and the Congress needs to get out of the way. The Cat Genie is one of the worst gadgets ever invented, and Mr. Toobers can attest to that.

Peter Hoekstra is a money grubbing whore. Mr. Lars Ulrich has a hearing problem. And, that ridiculous airliner bomber with the exploding defective underwear is a real lonelyhearts.

Over on Celebrity Disaster, I talked about Carlos (Charlie) Sheen (Estevez) here and here.  Ivana Trump is not here to wrangle your yardapes.  And, what do you do about Pete Townshend and the U.S. Sex Offender Registry laws?

There was a lot going on in sports, but I didn't get to much of it. I do note that this is a great interview with Joe Paterno.

The Safe For Work Hotties were Teagan Presley, Jessica Fiorentino, Cristal Houston, Hanna Hilton, and Monique Hajkova.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Taking Incompetence to New Lows

Mount Vernon

There are two competing themes running through the media right now. The first draws attention to the Obama Administration's failure to look competent in the face of terror attacks. The second tries to advance the idea that the Obama Administration is doing a pretty good job. The first is reality and the second is what the media wants you to believe. If George Washington is the model for Presidential leadership, look how far we have fallen.

Never mind that the response to the attempted bombing of the Detroit-bound airliner has been bungled, and badly. Never mind that we have been lied to as a people. The government told the American people that if it acquiesced to having privacy rights thrown to the breeze, this country would be kept safe. The reality is, Major Nidal Hasan and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab could both have been caught if the intelligence gathering and dissemination apparatus worked properly. Hasan could have been thrown out of the Army and Abdulmutallab could have been turned away at the airport and sent back to his estranged family. There's no opportunity here to blame George W. Bush, either. There's no getting around the incompetence of the Obama Administration.

Have you seen anyone lose their job over any of this? Has the Director of the FBI been fired because they bungled the Hasan investigation? Has the Secretary of Homeland Security been sacked over her ridiculous comments? Of course not. In the Obama Administration, you only get fired if you make a photo op turn ugly.

You wouldn't even know what country you're living in to read this:

Despite some memorable slip-ups, Barack Obama's Cabinet has dodged controversy in 2009, continuing the president's campaign theme of "no drama Obama."

Political analysts and administration officials say Obama's Cabinet has avoided the public squabbling and missteps of prior administrations because Obama picked the right people for the job, beginning with Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden, officials say, has been largely instrumental in helping ease tensions between Cabinet members, serving as an intermediary between the secretaries on both the foreign policy and domestic fronts.

The vice president can "serve the president as a useful go-between, settling disputes or channeling information," one administration official said.

Obama hit some snags as he tried to assemble his team, with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) and Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) withdrawing their nominations.

But analysts say Obama's much-hyped "team of rivals," including appointing bitter campaign rival and former Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to be secretary of State, has not stirred tension in the administration.

"The whole 'team of rivals' business was oversold from the beginning," said Ross Baker, a professor at Rutgers University and an expert on the presidency.

Baker said Obama's Cabinet officials have not been ideologically divided, and they were suited for the jobs with which they were tasked.

"There are no political hacks in this group," Baker said. "That often happens with Cabinets, that people are put in there specifically because they are people who are strong political connections.

How could you be more wrong?

Soon after Arne Duncan left his job as schools chief here to become one of the most powerful U.S. education secretaries ever, his former students sat for federal achievement tests. This month, the mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities in performance and progress made over six years.

Miami, Houston and New York had higher scores than Chicago on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Boston, San Diego and Atlanta had bigger gains. Even fourth-graders in the much-maligned D.C. schools improved nearly twice as much since 2003.

The federal readout is just one measure of Duncan's record as chief executive of the nation's third-largest system. Others show advances on various fronts. But the new math scores signal that Chicago is nowhere near the head of the pack in urban school improvement, even though Duncan often cites the successes of his tenure as he crusades to fix public education.

And:

Last week, the Obama DOJ announced that it would deny trials to several Guantanamo detainees and instead send them to military commissions.  In May, 2008, Carter condemned military commissions in general as "fundamentally and fatally flawed" and argued that "the rule of law will prevail only if they are perpetually blocked."  He cited a trial in a "civilian court" (his emphasis) of accused terrorists that had just been held by France -- "using a combination of open and sealed (i.e., classified) evidence to prove the defendants' guilt in a six-day trial" -- and argued the U.S. should copy that model:  exactly the "civilian court" model the Obama administration has decisively rejected for many, perhaps most, detainees.  

More notably, in a separate post from April, Carter harshly condemned the Bush administration's decision to use a military commission to try Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, accused of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania.  Carter suggested that trying detainees for "war crimes" for pre-2001 acts violates the Constitution's ban on ex post facto punishments (since the U.S. was not at war at that time), and independently, he objected to "the deliberate decision to take this case away from federal prosecutors," arguing that "our default choice for the prosecution of suspected terrorists should be federal court" because "the substantive and procedural due process granted by federal courts has strategic value -- it confers legitimacy on the outcome."  While the Obama administration commendably sent Ghailani to New York to be tried in a civilian court, it just announced two weeks ago that Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, whose case originated as a criminal investigation with the FBI, would now be turned over to a military commission for prosecution in connection with the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole -- raising all of the serious objections Carter voiced to the Ghailani case.

Carter had also voiced serious concerns over the Bush DOJ's use of the "state secrets" privilege as a means of evading vital constitutional and other legal questions -- only to watch the Obama DOJ do the same thing.  He insisted upon a distinction between conventional wars of the past and the "War on Terror" when claiming presidential power -- pointing out that conventional wars have limits and come to an end and the "War on Terror" doesn't -- only to watch the Obama administration discard that distinction and instead adopt exactly the Bush/Cheney "war" theory as a means to detain people with no charges.  During the campaign, he expressed excitement over what appeared to be Obama's stated willingness to prosecute Bush officials for war crimes, only to watch Obama, once elected, quickly insist that we should Look Forward, not Backward.   Relatedly, Carter advocated real consequences for DOJ torture-approving lawyers such as John Yoo (specifically, his firing from Berkeley), only to watch the Obama administration take multiple steps to protects such officials from any legal consequences.  He applauded the Bush Pentagon's cancellation of a key appointment of Gen. Jay Hood to Pakistan on the ground that Hood had presided over Guantanamo and was thus "tainted by torture," only to watch Obama appoint the highly tainted Gen. McChyrstal as his commander in Afghanistan.

Never mind the people who have resigned or been forced out. There has been a failure to find the right people to carry out the right policies. There has been a failure to do these things with any sense of urgency. I don't think you can entirely blame the Obama Administration, however. Congress has an important role to play in confirming appointees and making certain there is adequate oversight. An entire year has been wasted, trying to ram through Health Care reform that isn't real reform. Hence, other areas have suffered.  The Obama Administration cannot even find people to take care of the travel agencies:

Two federal agencies charged with keeping potential terrorists off airplanes and out of the United States have been without their top leaders for nearly a year.

It took the Obama administration more than eight months to nominate anyone to lead the Transportation Security Administration and the Customs and Border Protection agency.

The attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner has prompted a review of U.S. security policies. The acting heads of those agencies - both created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks - will be at the forefront of these discussions.

Bogged down with health care reform, the Senate has yet to set a date to hold hearings for the Customs position. And Republican Sen. Jim DeMint has placed a hold on the president's choice to head the TSA over the senator's concern that the new leader would let TSA screeners join a labor union. This has some Democrats blaming politics for the vacancy.

Former U.S. attorney Alan Bersin is nominated to run CBP, and former FBI agent and police detective Erroll Southers is the president's pick for TSA.

The Obama Administration should have been pushing harder to get these people confirmed, and the Senate should realize that President Bush was able to build the cabinet he wanted to build, with rare exceptions. The time to start moving, and to start getting things done has passed, and everyone needs to start moving with some sense of urgency.

Posted via web from An American Lion is on Posterous

Teagan Presley is Remarkably Safe For Work

Teagan Presley

Just being able to post photos of Teagan Presley is an amazing accomplishment.

Teagan Presley

Teagan Presley

Teagan Presley

Teagan Presley

Teagan Presley

Teagan Presley has a gallery here...

Posted via web from Safe For Work Hotties