I think I owned that car once.

From the Toronto Star:

     The prosecutor's case began to unravel when he turned his attack to the tea light-candle headlights.

     Up until that point, Daniel Lerner had argued that the car in question was unsafe because of its dangerous braking system. Granted, classifying the hollowed-out Buick a car is a bit of a stretch.

     It's actually a piece of art made to look like a car by Montreal artist Michel de Broin. More than anything, it's a four-seater bicycle, propelled entirely by pedalling. At top speed, the Buick can hit 15 km/h.

     It has no floor. No engine. No transmission. No signal lights. And as mentioned, tea lights sit in place of light bulbs at the front.

     The case was thrown out of court.

     See the whole story here: www.the star.com/News/gta/ARTICLE/410165   

So I guess it's too late to pick my brackets.

Kansas over Memphis 75-68 in a come-back, OT win for the NCAA college basketball crown.

I'll pay more attention next year.

Come writers and critics who prophesive with your pen.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tracy Letts has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his brutal yet darkly comic play, "August: Osage County" and Bob Dylan has been awarded a special music citation.

Junot Diaz won the prize for fiction Monday for "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao."

Daniel Walker Howe won for history for "What Hath God Wrought: the Transformation of America, 1815-1848."

John Matteson won for biography for "Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father."

Saul Friedlander won the general nonfiction award for "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945."

Two prizes were awarded for poetry: Robert Hass for "Time and Materials" and Philip Schultz for "Failure."

Dylan's citation noted his "profound impact on popular music and American culture." 

Keep him in his current Job-a

Yankee brass is faced with a dilemma: Should flame-throwing right-hander Joba Chamberlain stay in the bullpen, setting up closer Mariano Rivera? Should he be Rivera's heir apparent, and eventually assume Mo's role as closer? Or, should he be eased into the starting rotation?

High-class worries.

Excerpted from today's Joel Sherman column in the NY Post:

Thus we see the devilish long-term decision shadowing the Yankees with Chamberlain: Every fifth day vs. every eighth inning that matters. The Yanks keep insisting the 22-year-old right-hander is earmarked for the rotation. But with each dominating, momentum-changing, late-game outing, Chamberlain simply is making an already difficult decision even more so.

Interestingly, within the Yankees clubhouse, there seems little question on this subject. Veterans want to win now, and what they have seen in Chamberlain's 22 regular-season outings are a portal to victory. The Yanks are 20-2 in those games.

I agree with the vets. Joba's 100 MPH stuff and his shut-down attitude shine like gold at the end of games. Baseball itself is now so specialized that a starter goes 6, maybe 7 innings most nights. Complete games are becoming rarer than panties on a starlet. Games usually come down to the bullpen either holding on or blowing it. 

So with Joba, hold on.  

That's a helluva strategy from a chief strategist!

AKA: "The Continuing Saga of Pigs at the Trough".

From the L.A. Times:

     WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton shook up her campaign for the second time in as many months Sunday, demoting her chief strategist and renewing questions about the stability of her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

     Mark Penn, a divisive figure who has worked with Clinton and former President Clinton for more than a decade, is considered one of the architects of her campaign.

     He has been under increasing scrutiny since Sen. Clinton lost her once-commanding lead and found herself scrambling to stop Sen. Barack Obama's coronation as the party's nominee.

     Last week, Penn acknowledged that while advising the campaign, he was working on behalf of a proposed trade pact with Colombia that labor unions fiercely oppose. Clinton, who has been courting union members, especially ahead of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary, has said she will vote against the treaty in the Senate.

     Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams said in a statement Sunday that Penn had asked "to give up his role as chief strategist," but would "continue to provide polling and advice to the campaign."

Nobody's home.

Home (was) where the sub-prime mortgage (was).

Two Heads Are Dumber Than One.

   From ABC:

   ABCNews’ Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the vice presidential nomination, Republican strategist Dan Senor said.

   “Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

   According to Senor, Rice has been cozying up to the Republican elite.

“There's this ritual in Washington: The Americans for Tax Reform, which is headed by Grover Norquist, he holds a weekly meeting of conservative leaders -- about 100, 150 people, sort of inside, chattering, class types,” Senor said. “They all typically get briefings from political conservative leaders. Ten days ago, they had an interesting visit -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice -- the first time a secretary of state has visited the Wednesday meeting.”

   Senor explained that Rice’s history in public office would make her a prime candidate, especially in light of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain’s emphasis on experience throughout his campaign.

   The Secretary of State is meeting with Grover F******* Norquist? 

   Those wacky Stanford Provosts!

   So, Iraq? We're cool? And you have time to meet with Grover F****** Norquist?

   In a related development, John McCain was said to be feverishly phoning Bill O'Reilly, in an attempt to better understand African-American dining etiquette. 

   Earlier, Ms. Rice was reportedly home alone, perhaps rightfully haunted by the knowledge that she will forever be entwined with the Bush Administration's abject failures.

   She was heard cracking her knuckles before practicing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D.

   It's rumored that she, too, placed a call to O'Reilly in an attempt to also better understand African-American dining etiquette.   

   McCain thanked O'Reilly for his poison council, then met his old friend Don Imus for soul food, race-baiting tips, and cigars.

   Saddened by her solo concerto, Ms. Rice was reported to have been on the phone with Barbara Bush, listening to the bejeweled, mannish former First Lady explain to her "how lucky our L'il Condi" has turned out to be. Mrs. Bush suggested brunch at the Superdome; Ms. Rice then apparently placed a call to Mr. Norquist and Ben Bernanke, consulting on how to best expense Dom Perignon, Oil of Olay, and Mother of Pearl. 

   This is your country.

Pigs At The Trough

From the New York Times:

WASN’T 2008 supposed to be the year of shareholder victory on the executive compensation front?

Multimedia

Interactive Graphic

Executive Pay: The Bottom Line for Those at the Top

A searchable graphic depicts the compensation and accumulated wealth of 200 chief executives for large public companies.

After all, tighter disclosure rules kicked in last year, and — the theory went — once companies had to shine a spotlight on their compensation practices, they were bound to make them better. Politicians, never loath to acknowledge the national mood — particularly in an election year — held several hearings about excessive pay.

But signs of sweeping change remain few. Once again, many — perhaps most — companies filled their proxies with a blizzard of words and numbers that did more to obscure their processes than to illuminate them. And most irksome of all, true links between pay and performance remained scarce.

Get the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/04/05/business/20080405_EXECCOMP_GRAPHIC.html

Ladies Man.

     The Servo-Servent, as imagined by Popular Mechanics in 1961.

     I don't know what was on women's minds in 1961, or what happened to the whole Servo-Servent craze. But if these things were available in 2008, there'd be riots at your local Wal-Mart. 

     

Absolut B.S.

From the AP:

     MEXICO CITY -- The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.

     The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan "In an Absolut World," showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.

     But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, came as the United States builds up its border security amid an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor.

     More than a dozen calls to boycott Absolut were posted on michellemalkin.com, a Web site operated by conservative columnist Michelle Malkin. The ads sparked heated comment on a half-dozen other Internet sites and blogs.

     (What? No mention of JackRabbit Café?)

     

This is your country.

The reliably mindless Michelle Malkin's panties are ALWAYS in a bunch.

I mentioned the Absolut ad in an earlier post. It has the Lou Dobbsian sector in hyper-tizzy, as only fictitious imagery can with that crowd.

The Culture Cops have a tough time with fiction. Remember Dan Quayle, braying on about Murphy F****** Brown? 

Anyway...

Michelle Malkin is a bottom-feeding, eye-rolling, hyena-like fringe opportunist, and this Photoshopped stab at jingoistic humor was posted as a response to Absolut's ad on her whiny, self-righteous blog.

Malkin, of course, advocates a boycott. 

Hey, bartender: Absolut, straight up.

On second thought, make it a double.

         

What's the "mission" this week, and when will it be "accomplished" this time?

From the New York Times:

Data from the United States Army shows that 40 percent of current military service members have been deployed more than once, and one in eight have been deployed three or more times. A study by the Army Surgeon General's Mental Health Advisory team found a significant increase in mental health problems in male noncommissioned Army officers who had more deployments. Of those who were deployed once, 12 percent had depression, anxiety or acute stress. The figure increased to 27 percent for those who were deployed three or four times.

Or, as Dick Cheney would say: "So?"

Hannity's America

From the AP:

WASHINGTON — In an unusual move, the Justice Department sued Fox Broadcasting Co. and another broadcaster Friday to collect $56,000 in fines for the broadcast of a raunchy reality show in 2003 that included scenes from bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Fox's "Married by America" included the "thrusting of a male stripper's crotch into a woman's face" in one show in addition to other scenes the agency found objectionable, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

A FOX spokesman is rumored to have denied that FOX News gasbag Sean Hannity was the male stripper, or that crack whore look-alike Ann Coulter was the female in question.

However, the same spokesman is said to have refused to deny whether the reverse may have also been the case.

...but I thought there was honor among thieves?

From Jim Hightower:

We've learned the hard way over the past seven years that George W lives in his own fantasy world – a place in which reality is whatever he wants it to be, and facts are not allowed to intrude.

We should have known this from the start of his White House tenure, for he practically painted a picture of it for us. More accurately, he showed his predilection for delusion by hanging his favorite painting in the Oval Office. It's a 1916 cowboy scene by W.H.D. Koerner titled "A Charge to Keep," and, in Bush's own words, it depicts "a horseman determinedly charging up what appears to be a steep and rough trail."

In Bush's head, that rider epitomizes George's own courageous political journey, dashing ahead against steep odds and naysayers (who are embodied in the art work by two other horsemen following the daring hero). Indeed, many visitors who've been shown the painting by Bush have commented that the hard-charging character bears a remarkable resemblance to George himself.

Over the years, Bush has added a Christian morality tale to the painting, declaring that the artist based it on a Methodist hymn, and that the indomitable horseman really is a circuit-riding minister rushing passionately ahead to spread the religion of Methodism (which happens to be George's own chosen faith).

It's all very inspiring, except for one small detail: It's not true. It turns out that W.H.D. Koerner painted the work to illustrate a Saturday Evening Post short story entitled: "The Slipper Tongue." The story is about a slick-tongued horse thief, and Koerner's painting – far from illustrating bold moral leadership – depicts the horse thief frantically fleeing a lynch mob.

So when Bush says that he sees himself in the painting, he might inadvertently be revealing the truth. Let's see – George W... Horse thief. Works for me.

According to a congressional insider, the Democrats have, indeed, been actively chasing the thief. However, all their horses are reportedly diseased and lame.

  

Jeopardy: Campaign 2008 Edition!

Tonight on Jeopardy!

Senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama!

Dum-dee-dum-da-da-da-da-dum-dee-dum... 

ALL: "'The Sad Reality of Presidential Politics' for $10,000,000.00, Alex!"

ALEX: "Answer: Selling out to Goldman-Sachs":

ALL: "What is, 'How I am financing my fall campaign and positioning myself for a two-term Administration'?" 

(After the taping, McCain did say that he wasn't "sure" about his "positioning" much past 2012, other than joking he hoped it was "upright". Obama, meanwhile, asked Hillary if she wanted his advance endorsement for her third Senate run. For some reason, she kept ducking. Alex seemed flustered, muttering something about, "Art Fleming" and how "Merv didn't dig this kind of thing, man.")

He then obsessively yanked on his powdered mustache and yelled at his P.A..   

Cut & paste: 

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-launch.html?project=MCFUND0804&w=980&h=530

Do I know her?

(Don't) Come Fly With Me (Anymore)

Two other ones bite the dust.

(...glad I'm not in the airfreight business anymore.)

Was that Lou Dobbs's head I just heard exploding?

The nativists seem to be quite restless over this Absolut ad.

(Imagery: really entrances them, doesn't it?)

Fuzzy Math

"Politician got on his jogging shoes, he must be running for office, got no time to lose"*

     As a congressman in 1983, John McCain thought the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was inappropriate, and that it "cost too much money, that other presidents were not recognized." 

     He eventually came around. In 1990.

     It is the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. McCain was quoted today as admitting he was "wrong", adding, "We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing." 

     Yeah. You mean like you and Iraq, huh, Senator McCain?

(*From Summer Days, by Bob Dylan.)

Amsterdam Homeboy

My mother went to school with Kirk Douglas in Amsterdam, NY.

Looks like Betty's schoolmate went places (although he probably knew her as "Maida"...) 

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-cause4apr04,0,1020077.story

What's in a name?

     The girl who was attacked by that hawk at Boston's Fenway Park on Thursday even has a name that conjures up Yankee-Red Sox bloodlust: 

     Alexa Rodriguez.

     No joke. That's really her name.

     She was touring Fenway with a school group.

     Millions of people cram into that ball park every year, and a wayward hawk dove at a little, female A-Rod.

     Huh.

     The first series of the season between the over century-long rivals is next weekend in Boston. 

     Will there be blood?

Proof that 4 hours of the "Today Show" are 2 too many:

Seems like a nice girl.

From the U.K.'s always-understated Sun: 

     CRAZED Naomi Campbell flew into a rage over ONE lost bag — after 20,000 pieces of luggage went missing at Heathrow’s trouble-hit Terminal 5.

     The model, 37, allegedly SPAT at a cop who was called to calm her down — then laid into him with her FISTS.

     She was arrested on the spot for assaulting an officer, then restrained after a struggle and hauled kicking and screaming off the plane in handcuffs.

     Naomi lost it after British Airways staff told her one of her three bags had been caught up in chaos at the new terminal.

     She'd make a helluva hand-carry courier!

Redondo Beach Anti-Warrior

From the Easy Reader:

     One day a week since the Iraq war began on March 19, 2003, John Fortier has come to the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Knob Hill Avenue.

     He usually has a chair, a crossword puzzle, a radio and a bottle of water. He always has a cardboard sign that reads, “War Is Not the Answer.” Affixed to the sign are a variety of medals he was awarded for his military service five decades ago, when he served as an aerial gunner aboard B-29 and B-26 bombers at the end of the Korean War. 

    Fortier, 75, downplays most of the medals, which he said were “not for valor but more for showing up as scheduled, sober and properly dressed The exception is the aerial gunner wings. Those I earned, first in 29s, then in 26s. “Having them on the sign…was inspired by a few pedestrians questioning what right I had to do what I was doing,” he added. “I figured the military 'bling' would be useful for establishing my 'service creds' and it seems to work.” 

    His goal is simple: “Just to get people to think about it.”

    Fortier said only about five drivers out of every hundred respond, most positively, with a honk or a thumbs up (about “99 percent” are on cell phones, he noted). Earlier in the war, people tended to be more abusive toward him, but as his protest has persisted he has seen the tide turn against the war. It still bothers him how little people really pay attention to what is occurring in Iraq.

     One day, Fortier was joined on the corner by a special visitor. A station wagon pulled up and a man in a wheelchair emerged from the vehicle. 

     “What are you doing?” he asked.

     "I’m protesting this war,” Fortier said. “I been to one, and I didn’t like it.”

     “Good for you, man,” the man replied. “Did you happen to see that movie, ‘Born on the Fourth of July’?” 

     “I did,” Fortier said. “Seemed like a good man.”

     “That’s me,” the man said. “I’m Ron Kovic.”

     They chatted for a few minutes, and Kovic eventually wheeled across the street and came back and gave Fortier a “Penguin” frozen yogurt from the store on the other side of PCH. 

     (I met Kovic in the early '90's at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach. He was animated, outgoing, and his story brought my friend Margaret to tears.) 

     Fortier has no plans to end his protest.

     “We’ve reduced their whole standard of living in Iraq to bare subsistence,” he said. “We’ve done a lot more harm than good. Why aren’t the people in the streets protesting?”  

"Progress"

No second fiddle for Edwards

From Reuters:

LAS VEGAS - Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said on Thursday he would not accept the nomination for U.S. vice president as he did four years ago.

Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, dropped out of the 2008 race that is still being contested by the two remaining Democrats, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, to see who represents the party in the November 4 general election.

Edwards is in his mid-fifties, so future campaigns aren't out of the question. He also declined to endorse either Dem today.