the year without a fitzmas revisted

so the times manages to get out the admission that the original leaker in the plamegate case was richard armitage without completely spitting and cursing and lashing out. armitage, an opponent of the iraq policy, described accurately after all by novak as not being a “partisan gunslinger” doesn’t fit with the story that’s been trumpeted for the last three years of a white house smear. don’t look for any admittals of that. ths will be another case of the inconvenient facts not getting in the way of a good story. the guard docs were fake? so what says, rather, it’s the story that matters. haditha not exactly the massacre that it was portrayed? don’t look for blood and guts murtha to be recisiting the subject. the stock wailing palestinian or lebanese woman who gets stood in front of a wall and photographed by 50 reporters and brought out again and again? no story here. reuters and cnn trumpeting propaganda straight from hezbollah and hamas and admitting to it? nothing to see, please move on.

we’ve reached a point, i dunno, maybe we were already there, where the facts don’t matter. the story’s the thing and anything outside the cone of the story is either ignored or marginalized by those who perpetuate the story. it’s cocooning of the worst kind. so we spent three years and millions on what? why didn’t dickie come out before? if this was such a partisan operation and the white house knew all along it wa armitage, why offer up scooter as a sacrificial lamb? if this white house has the kind of power and scope and vindictiveness that it’s been portrayed as having, why would it allow such a circus to go on when it could have pressed armitage, for all intents and purposes a political enemy, to come out and end things? maybe they knew that dick’s name wouldn’t have stopped anything. maybe this was slight of hand so that something else could be hidden or accomplished while the media’s attention was elsewhere. my money’s on the latter as we all know that karl rove is satan himself ans surely would not have allowed this to continue for no reason. in the end, a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, but the damage to the administration has already been done and no mea culpas are gonna change that, not that any are being prepped.

no fun today

the office email database is down today and may be irretrievably corrupted, so no blog today while i try to slavage something from the mess.

the folly of the rightroots

we are now 2 days shy of the 4th week of the right’s response to actblue and the results have to be disheartening to anyone who envisioned this as anything more than a sideshow. as of this writing the rightroots website has raised a stunning $46,183.06 ($60,183.06 when you add jack kingston’s matching donation) or roughly $74 dollars an hour since its inception. last week actblue raised $41k for its swingstate project in two days. what does it say about the ability of the right to use the internet to raise funds?

now sure, actblue’s been around longer and there’s a bit more fervor on the left side of the aisle, especially among the partisans who make up the blogosphere, but shouldn’t the right be able to manage better than this paltry response? it could be said that the majority of the money coming in on the right side of the political spectrum is coming from donors contributing directly to candidates and to the party and from larger donors, but still, $1776 a week? that’s all the right side of the blogosphere can rally from their supporters?

there’s a coupla sides to this that i think need looking at. one is whether this is good or bad for either the gop or the democrats. the gop still has a fundraising advantage, but its not as great as it once was and its still more targeted towards the party as opposed to individual candidates. look at the way the left’s netrots are targeting specific races and cranking up funds for those races. those are races that the dnc and the dscc and the dccc can breathe a little easier about. they’re still gonna rake in cash from their large donors, but they’ll be able to use that to help fuel howie’s plan to make the system more agile and more competetive in more places. the ability of the left to use the internet to help specific candidates and to raise larger amounts in a short time give the party more flexibility. on the other hand, the highly partisan nature of those contributors makes them fickle. kos’ record of picking candidates is a pretty poor one and he’s a driving force behind at least the swing state portion of this. so does that offset their gains? only if the candidates are true firebrands and actually mouth the ideas and feeling of the base and only if they are in places where those views are outside the mainstream.

another issue is, does the gop need the internet? karl and co. have built a pretty good system as evidenced by their stunning victories in 2002 and the gains in 2004. do they even need to be concerned about the relative inability of a grassroots right wing fundraising effort to gain traction on the internet? as a matter of perception, of course they do, but who is paying attention to the netroots besides the netroots? it’s easy to allow daily surfing to color one’s perception of the political perspective as a whole by the sheer domination of the left on the ‘net. are those web donations being offset by direct donations to candidates on the right from their base? maybe, maybe not. the answer to that’ll take more digging than i’m up for on a sunday afternoon’s posting while the wife is at church.

the other thing i wondered about is whether the right are savvy enough yet to use the internet in the same manner? is the relative failure of the rightroots website more a failure of the site as opposed to an indication of the right’s netroots? chris bowers turns a critical eye towards the rightroots campaign and points out several failures of the site. i agree with a lot of his points, but the failure as i see it is more of the fact that more right leaning blogs have not taken up this effort and made it a central point of their day’s events. only 17 blogs are listed as endorsing the effort and on those blogs you have to look to find the rightroots link. if they’re serious about actually making a go of this, they have to be more proactive, more inclusive and there has to be more local and individual control and interest. can they do so? maybe.

will they ever make a serious run at actblue? i don’t think so. the folks on the left side of the netroots have been at it longer, draw more traffic and have a huge advantage in that they have an issue which draws folks, motivates them and infuriates them on a daily basis: george bush. on the right, there’s no similar motivation to get out. until there is, the left will continue to dominate this arena even as the gop still ekes out fundraising advantages overall.

you’re the one that we want

so it seems that grease will get another shot on broadway. but there is a twist: the male lead, danny zuko (so memorably portrayed by john travolta in the movie, before he got fat and swore allegiance to xenu) will be cast from a reality show. now this is a concept that can be huge or fall flat on its face. in theory, it’s a great idea. you take a show that’s got a proven box office record and add to it the idea that a national audience will get exposed to it via the reality show and you’re theoretically building a monster hit. of course, if the tv show flops then you’re fucked. but even if it flops, who loses the money? nbc, not your producers. plus it has the potential to make a tv star of our suitemate, kathleen marshall, which is just too cool for school.

unfortunately for all concerned, i have already found the greatest danny zuko ever and he’s right here!

osama bin laden! now with a blender!

from wonkette this morning comes the tortured tale of the ocean city, maryland police department’s brush with terror. that’s right. osama is actually a 26 year-old man from west virginia. it had to be west virginia didn’t it? i sit here counting my lucky stars that it was not ohio. i mean those of us who claim roots to the buckeye state have already had to deal with cooper-monday 1 and cooper-monday 2 this year alone (watch both…seriously). add that to the fact that the state gop is going down in flames over a brilliant plan to invest in rare coins and you can see why i am more than happy to throw in the mountaineers.

speaking of ohio, it’s coming round to fall. and fall in ohio means football. inkettering, ohio that means that 16 year-old holly mangold is in two-a-days with the archbishop alter high school varsity o-line. from deadspin comes another tale of the girl who could. this time it’s video of the feature nfl network did on young holly. more power to her.

oh, and eric, lsu still has a football program? really?

american voters are morons and other fun

the blogometer looks this morning at left-wing blogosphere reaction to an article in public opinion press by stephen earl bennett about how dumb american voters are. some key quotes:

“we simply cannot adequately govern ourselves if a large number of us are dumb as posts and vote for reasons that make no sense.”

“you reach clueless voters by leading, not pandering, because their cluelessness makes them somewhat difficult to pander to.”

“ignorance is, if not bliss, then at least widespread.”

“it’s so important to understand that we are not the audience we need to reach. We think that others know what we know.”

you can go see for yourself who said what. way to appeal to those undecideds. there was a school of thought going around back in ‘04 that it wasn’t the scream the did howlin’ howie in, it was the fact that his minions were so off-putting in their interactions with voters that they actually harmed his chances. one thing’s for sure, even if they are dumb as mud fences, kids, you can’t tell ‘em that of you want them to be on your side. nor can you let your opponent show you talking about how dumb they are. it’s just bad politics.

now this looks fun! check out #12. tsun and the shoe on saturday and steelers at the browns on sunday? oh yeah, baby.

si.com picks their top 20 and guess who’s #1? that’s right baby, the ohio state university. that’s 3 #1’s so far. ap, coaches poll and the aforementioned si.com. i should probably be getting worried about the expectations being placed on a young team. i will worry tomorrow. for now i will gloat!

impeach the motherfucker already

from itmfa.com

eric from confessions of a southern boy in yankee land brought up something in the comments of my gleeful, yet itty bitty teensy weensy post on impeachnet.net’s 9/1 plan. instead of commenting on my own post, i thought i’d just make a new one that spells out why i think it could be important and what the ramifications might be for the fall.

in and of itself, a buncha blogs replacing their front page with the word “impeach” for a day might be a meaningless exercise in political masturbation. the blogs themselves are for the most part preaching to the choir and are not going to change anyone’s mind or influence anybody to do or think things that they don’t already believe. people generall choose to read blogs that enforce their views rather than ones that argue against them. it’s human nature to want to hang around with folks who think like you. so a buncha folks on the left who already wear “itmfa” flags on their lapels and have “don’t blame me, i voted for kerry” bumper stickers on the priuses are not really looking to win hearts and minds nor do they have the potential to do much of that even if they did since not all that many americans read blogs anyway (i know, i know, it’s more now and the ones who read are likely voters, blah, blah, blah). they’re looking to make a statement: we’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore! great for getting out some aggression and having a litle netroots unity, but not much more than that.

however, if enough of them do in fact join this movement, it will get national coverage. probably it won’t but maybe it will. now if it does get covered on a widescale, morning shows and nightly news on the networks, pundits discussing it on the cable screamfests, stewart and colbert poking fun, then it does have the potential to have a stronger effect. one that i contend will be the exact opposite of that which it’s creators intend.

there’s a reason why crazy eyes pelosi hasn’t been talking much about impeachment and has declared it off the table. there’s a reason why john conyers isn’t holding anymore meetings in the basement where he wields his gavel (and not just because folks were handing out anti-semitic literature at his last one). there’s a reason why the majority of democrats are not clamoring to have cindy sheehan at their rallies. there’s a reason why nobody was ready to sign onto russ’s censure. and yes, it’s all republicans fault.

americans are still weary from bubba’s long national nightmare. they got sick of it. they might not like bush, but they are not ready to sign on to a democrat plan of all investigations all the time while iran’s maybe enriching uranium, while gas prices are sky-high, while kids are dying in iraq, while islamists are preparing to blow up planes from london and while the israelis are getting rocketed with wild abandon. there’s too much else going on in the world to sign on for that. all it says to the american people is, “we don’t have a plan for what to do, but we hate dubya.” the democrats know it, and that’s why they are not singing about impeachment from the rooftops, wailing, “elect us and we’ll slap dubya in irons and get that evil cheney too!”

the other reason is that the democrats don’t want to give republicans who are pisspot tired of being taken for granted on immigration, social policy and fiscal responsibility any reason to come out and support those guys who they don’t really care for. if it becomes about stopping the democrats from impeaching bush, then you get a record turnout on the gop side for a mid-term election. now don’t tell me, but look at dubya’s approval ratings, he’s sooooooo unpopular. yep. he is. although, i tend to listen more to rasmussen’s numbers than those of the other pollsters with their weighted samples that don’t accurately reflect the voting public and he’s had him steady at around 42%. there’s a difference between not approving of bush and wanting to see him impeached.

if this event gets widespread coverage it ties impeachment to the democrats. it ties the democrats with what i consider to be their fringe elements. that’s why i want to see the cause taken up by every left-wing blog on the internet. i want to see matt talking to the founders of impeachnet.net. i want to see diane sawyer interviewing dan savage about the impeach the motherfucker already movement in this country. i want democrats pushed to embrace or denounce these values and i don’t particularly care which they do since just having to address them will be enough to tie them to it. politics is perception. so c’mon, netroots, don’t let me down.

faith, churches and buttfucking

i made this as a comment the other day on my buddy eric’s (an proudly inveterate cocksucking buttfucker and recovering evangelical, i say that with love and affection) blog, confessions of a southern boy in yankee land, in respone to his post about religion and his republican brother and thinking about it realized that it would make a good post here.

i always find it a difficult discussion when it comes to religion. i’m catholic and while i disagree with much of the church, there is something i do love about it: the feeling of reverence i get when i’m in a good church. i get that at saint agness on 43rd. it just feels holy. some of the epriests there are wildcards and give sermons that veer into that realm of, “you sinners!” but for the most part, i’ve found the priests (they have a lot, you need to when you offer 6 or more masses a day every day) use their sermons the way i imagine a sermon should be used: an exploration of that day’s scripture reading and how it can be applied to daily life. that’s all i really want from church, anyway, a place in which i can commune with god in a manner in which i find reverent and satisfying.

i have a problem with people who are defined by their church or who allow their church to define them. for me, religion has always been a personal thing.

as far as the politics of churches in communities, the deeper into the church you get, the more the politics become apparent. i don’t think that’s so much an indictment of religion as it is an indictment of human nature. a church is a microcosm of society and carries the strengths and weaknesses of whatever particular community it serves. when i was back in ohio, i had a dickens of a time finding a church that i liked because every one i went to seemed to be more about people being seen than about any form of worship. my wife on the other hand, found a presby church that she loved and a community within that church that was welcoming while much of the community as a whole was anything but to a korean woman in a white and black town.

for my money, take your church for what it can offer you or find one you like better. don’t allow one church to be an inddictment of an entire religion. just as not all muslims are terrorists, not all evangelicals are bigots and homophobes, nor all catholics anti-semites. there’s many reasons why people stick with a religion even when they disagree with many of its positions, just as there are many reasons people stick with a political party despite beign at odss with many of its positions. i’m always reticent to paint with a wide brush.

it’s the end of the world as we know it, and i feel fine

had to give a little rem love there on this eve (technically not eve anymore as it’s early morning in tehran) of august 22nd, the day when iran says it will respond to the u.n.

it’s also the day when iran’s president mahmoud “i’m crazier than mel gibson, michael moore and cynthia mckinney rolled into one” ahmadinejad is promising the world by august 22 “the light in the sky over the aqsa mosque that took place the night before” muhammed ride around on a horse with a human head. it’s all very complicated stuff involving the the hidden imam and world domination and august 22nd being the day on the islamic calendar when “allah will know his own.” but the light in the sky refers to jerusalem. is ol’ mahmoud gonna nuke israel? is he playing chicken trying to get the israelis to attack?

if the world goes boom, don’t say i didn’t warn ya.

secretary of defense lieberman

so i’m not sure if this would work or not (not being an expert on ct state politics), but i have an idea for how things work to the gop’s advantage in connecticut.

joltin’ joe wins the general election. mid-spring, bush and rove convince hi to acept the position of secretary of defense. he resigns from the senate to do so and gop gov jodi rell appoints an actual republican to replace him.

would bush do it? would joe accept it? is my understanding of ct politics wildy off base? only you can help me decide, dear readers. both of you!

impeach

goodness i hope that that every progressive netroots site heeds this call to arms.

spider bite update

it seems that my darling dearest patootie will not fall victim to necrotizing lesions that look like this:

i am relieved.

i was thinking this morning about laziness. i’ve accepted that i’m pretty lazy have very little ambition and would be more than content to have enough money to live off for the rest of my life and raise a baby of i could do it without working or accomplishing anything other than raising a child. sure, i want to write a screenplay, if for no other reason than to get this doggone story out of my mind so i can daydream about something else, but other than that, it’s pretty limited.

when i was in ohio i got cast as marley in a local theatre production of “a christmas carol” but i begged out as i thought we were not gonna be there for the full run. we in fact ended up actually being there and the guy who replaced me was god-awful. but it was time. the time commitment of doing something else. i haven’t had that kinda commitment in so long i don’t know if now i could do it. i think it’s why i need to take a class or something, just to keep me more active than the gym in the morning and home to the tv and movies and cheap paperbacks.

any suggestions on what class to take? oh, yeah, taking solicitations for the direction of my life sorta defeats the purpose.

will i still love my wife if her ass gets infected and falls off?

so my darling wife has some bites. she was assaulted on the beach two weeks ago by an army of biting insects who for some reason had a taste for korean flesh as i was lying on the same sheet and was not bitten once. now this was a bit of a victory for me as it’s usually me who attracts the biting insects. until i was about 13 i had not gone a single siummer without at last two bee stings. put me outside on a summer night under the stars with a nice bonfire and a cold beer and everyone else will be safe from the mosquitos as i seem to have a neon sign somewhere on my body reading “all you can drink” that’s visible only to mosquitos. so while i was concerned for my darling’s plight, a small part of me was doing the happy dance that i’d somehow skated by this attack.

well, that was then. last night, she showed me the fact that three of the bites had grown into gigundo size welts. quarter sized red spots with dime sized lighter, blisterish looking things in the center. one on her arm, one on her abdomen and one on her left buttcheek. of course, the buttcheek seems to be the worst of the three with an evident feeling of something awful going on. a trip around the internet suggested that the only bits i saw that looked similar were brown recluse bites. not good news, but since i was unafflicted and she didn’t recall being bitten other than at the beach it would seem to rule out the spider. she’s not exhibited any of the other symptoms common to the spider bites, either, so it’s a bit of a mystery as of yet. i worry that the next time we look that it will have burst open and turned into the kind of ulcerated nasty wound that i saw on the internet. i’ve already informed her that if we see no improvement she’s going to the doctor.

i haven’t written much. about a half a page. but i did go to both the gym and church yesterday and would have gone to church today had i not discovered all too late that i needed to move the car to abide by the devilishly evil alternate side parking rules. a lame-o attempt at some pushups and situps will suffice for exercise today. maybe some badmitten tonight.

the plan

so i’m sick of being out of shape, listless and lazy.

i’ve set a series of goals for myself and hope that anyone who reads this blog will nag the shit out of me for the next nine weeks about it.

basically i’ve given myself 60 days to write a screenplay. 2 pages a day, on average 14 pages a week (12 this week and 10 the last week). it’ll be rough and ugly and probably not too good, but i’m going to write 120 fucking pages if it kills me.

to help with this goal, i’m setting another goal for some working out. 3 times a week for the next two weeks than up to 4 times a week for the next 3 weeks than up to 5 times a week for the last 3 weeks. by that time if i’m not down to 180, i’ll at least look better carrying the extra weight.

i’m also going back to church. at least 3 times a week. it may end up being more. i like the st. agnes weekday mass, so i may end up going a few times a week, but i’m going to do sunday at queen of angels. i need to do this for me. i need to finish something for goodness sakes.

fun for the whole family

so i found this on the corner this morning and have been dive bombing fenway for hours! next up, we take out carson for good this time, baby, then it’s on to baltimore…