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Archives: 'Politcally Incoherent'
4 November 2008 | 11:52 PM
“The time is always right to do what is right. “ – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It sure is nice to see our country actually live up to the document and ideas it was founded upon.
(And yes, I am finding unending glee in the fact that Drudge had to publish that headline. Ques que sais, Matt: no flashing lights? For more visions of right-wingers displaying bitter beer faces, check out The Malkin, Urban Conservative and the psychotic Ms. Geller.)
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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29 October 2008 | 3:40 PM
I have to admit that during this election cycle more than any other, I avoided watching the debates as if they were the plague. The fact is these things can’t be considered debates, any more than Splenda™ can be considered sugar: they are pre-packaged stump-speeches with moderators and timing lights, and that’s it. Heck, much as I’m disgusted by Sarah Palin, at least she announced that she wouldn’t be answering questions during the vice presidential debate up front. Instead, the presidential debates are, more or less, exercises in jingoism, false empathy and character assassination, telling us very little about the candidates except how well they shake hands or shuffle note cards. To wit, I direct you to this very enlightening bit of synchronized video:
Uncanny, no? And if it wasn’t supposed to be our most substantive way of getting to know who our next leader might be, it’d be rather humorous.
[Tip o' the hat to 23/6]
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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22 October 2008 | 4:39 PM
When I first heard that Larry Flynt was producing a Sarah Palin-themed porn film called Who’s Nailin’ Paylin, I thought it was a bit of a yawner of a story. After all, art-imitates-life flesh flicks are hardly novel anymore, and besides, I vastly prefer the art-imitates-art titles such as Edward Penishands or Buffy The Vampire Layer. That said, I have to say this (yes, it’s safe-for-work) short clip from the movie piques my interest a bit:
Nobody told me that the legendary Nina Hartley would play a role in Caribou Barbie’s administration. Come to think of it, nobody told me that cartoonishly-large breasts would, either.
I might have to rethink my vote.
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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20 October 2008 | 1:26 PM
As pretty much everyone knows by now, vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin went on NBC’s Saturday Night Live this weekend to be lampooned by its cast of elite liberal evildoers. She played the straight-man well (I suppose the evangelical voters wouldn’t have it any other way), I guess, and did a reasonably good job of being good sport. However, two things about her appearance(s) struck me as a bit, well, funny (and not funny “ha-ha” but rather funny “hmm”).
First off, just like her pressers (and debates, too!), she had surprisingly few lines. I wonder if this is a function of a lack of rehearsal time or perhaps it reflects her inability to stay on-message long enough to utter a sentence that doesn’t have the word “maverick” in it. I dunno what I was expecting from her, but despite her utter inadequacy as a leader, the one thing she’s good at is hamming it up for cameras: I guess I thought we’d see more mugging.
And then there was the brief, fleeting moment when the inimitable Tina Fey (in full Palin regalia) and the governor had to walk past eachother: it’s pure conjecture on my part, but the bedwetting, Fey-fantasizing liberal in me believes that Fey refused to do anything on the screen with That Woman. Anyway, the skits were fairly well done. See for yourself:
Here’s the intro piece:
And here’s her “Weekend Update” segment:
UPDATED
So, apparently, the winking bandit wasn’t the only one who stopped by for a sketch on SNL this weekend. Witness the confrontation we all knew was coming, and the mad acting skills of one Marky Mark Wahlberg:
Wow, he sure showed Andy Samberg, didn’t he? Dude is more wooden while playing himself than Samberg’s wooden impression of him is. That fellow is a fucking thespian, I tell you.
(Wait, “thespian” means “terrible actor”, right?)
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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9 October 2008 | 10:38 PM
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry which linked to footage of Governor Sarah Palin’s performance in the swimsuit portion of the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant. In that post, I opined that – even when accounting for the grainy footage and the fact that this was, after all, Alaska – she was decidedly not terribly pageant-worthy, given how she rocked her suit in comparison to the beauty queens of the era.
Well, see, here’s the thing: while I certainly stand by my opinion that The Wasilla Winker doesn’t exactly spur on my dogsled team (if you catch my drift), in retrospect she probably was right on the mark. Witness one Heather Locklear, most assuredly one of the epoch’s beauty queens, shaking her shit in this clip from TJ Hooker (which, for some odd reason, is dubbed into French):
And so, please accept my apology Frau Palin. While the fact that you’re a terrifying nut-job definitely undermines your fitness to lead, your bunchy swimsuit, graceless gate and redneck-prostitute posture aren’t an issue anymore.
[Thanks, Snarky Malarkey]
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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3 October 2008 | 11:01 PM
OK, yes it is.
But only in as much as it contains links to silly stuff about America’s favorite winker. The fact is, irrespective of her qualifications (or, truth be told, lack thereof) for the job, her presence in the race has made the veepstakes more interesting to the general public than perhaps they ever have been. Trust me, nobody got this worked up over Fritz Mondale or Dan Quayle (even after Quayle proved he hadn’t mastered English, no less). Now, don’t get me wrong – I think people are right to get freaked out that this intellectual dullard could well be a dwindling John McCain heartbeat (let’s face it, there aren’t too many of those left, are there?) away from the presidency. Heck, we’ve had eight long years of an administration that abhors thinking and favors governing from the gut (read, hip) rather than from the brain, so I think we deserve a chance to thoroughly kick the snow treads on this candidate if it can help us avoid a repeat of that mess. That said, I’ve got no interest in devoting any blog time to a dissection of her abilities and views, since I’ve already made up my mind that they are sub-rate, sub-literate and in some cases even sub-human. No, instead I’d rather cast my net around the social phenomenon that is Sarah Palin: she can’t govern worth a damn but she is good grist for the mill. Exhibits A through G, if you please:
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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27 September 2008 | 11:35 PM
Irrespective of your political stripes, my guess is the phrase “Sarah Palin in a swimsuit” probably gives you at least a second or two of pause. Let’s face it, while I hate her politics and don’t find her terribly attractive (which is compounded by the rage which wells up within me when I hear people say that she closely resembles Tina Fey), even a bed-wetting, tree-hugging, intern-schtupping liberal like me has to admit that she’s a lot easier on the eyes than Dick Cheney. Or Joe Biden, for that matter. The fact is Governor Palin is certainly the nation’s VPILF -the “F” in this case stands either for “Fuck” or “Forget”, depending on your party affiliation – and there’s no denying it.
However, upon seeing this found footage of her portion of the swimsuit competition in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant, I have to admit I’m now underwhelmed about much more than merely her stance on charging victims for their rape kits or the fact that she wouldn’t know the “Bush Doctrine” if it took her out for a snowmobile ride, grilled her a slab of moose-meat and then gave her a fresh litter of children. I mean, I realize that this was 1984, and Alaska for god’s sake, and that the footage is grainy and all: even so, there was a well-established standard of swimsuit beauty for the era (see here and here) and, lemme tell you, the future Mrs.-Thanks-But-No-Thanks simply did not measure up to it. Perhaps that’s why she lost? Eh, I still think it was her question-answering skills.
In any case, this certainly moves her down the ladder quite a bit in my historically hot list of American politicians. Right now, I’ve pushed her back to 578th, just above Mary Todd Lincoln and just below Grover Cleveland.
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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25 September 2008 | 11:07 AM
While I’ve always been a big fan of David Letterman, his esteem has grown in my eyes steadily for the past few years as he’s increasingly been more willing to express his exasperation with the conservative talking heads and politicos who appear on his show. I mean, who could forget his awesome dissection of Bill O’Reilly a few years ago, right? Anyway, last night Dave was due to have Senator John McCain as a guest, when McCain abruptly cancelled because he had “suspended” his campaign in an attempt to weasel he and his VEEP candidate out of the upcoming debates so he could rush back to Washington and save the economy. Letterman gave him the benefit of the doubt, but then began to grouse that Frau Palin wasn’t sent in as a replacement, seeing as how that’s kind of what a potential Vice President does: you know, fill in for the potential President when he/she is otherwise indisposed. Dave’s baseline irritability is humorous enough, but things escalate even further when, while chatting with fill-in guest Keith Olbermann (by the way, how’s that for a prescient replacement?), he glances up at the CBS live feed and sees McCain sitting down with Katie Couric at the CBS news anchor desk. Letterman found this a bit odd, since the Senator had personally telephoned him to say he was canceling his appearance on The Late Show because he was literally getting on a plane and flying to D.C. that very minute. Suffice it to say, awesomeness ensues:
Hell (or at least late night television) hath no fury like a Letterman scorned.
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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24 September 2008 | 11:38 AM
As someone who routinely spends 20% more than he makes, I am hardly in any position to be criticizing anyone about their financial choices, let alone The Man. So when The Decider’s minions announced late last week that they intend to buy back all of the bad debt from America’s largest lending houses and insurers, I mostly just shrugged and thought, “OK, well if those puppies collapse we’re going to be in even more dire straits, so lets just rip off the band-aid, get this over with and get back to blowing money on the things that really matter in life.”
But then I heard that the $700 billion price tag is a completely arbitrary figure, seeing as how the banks get to make up whatever value they want for the assets they’ve lost, and nobody actually knows what they’re worth. And then came the news that the FBI is investigating most of the likely buyout recipients for fraud. Add that to the ludicrous compensation packages many executives of these institutions are walking away with, and I’m starting to get a sick feeling about this. Sure, Chris Dodd’s got a plan that will force many of these lenders to negotiate with strapped homeowners so they can stay in their homes, but that seems like it’d be small solace given the bailout we’d be providing in return.
In any case, the bailout might very well still need to happen – I’m not in any position to argue with it. I will say, though, that what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. To wit, let me direct your attention to BuyMyShitPile.com, a site which gently encourages Treasury Secretary Paulson to let the rest of us in on this fire sale while the cash is flowing like Cristal at a strip club when Pacman Jones is in the place.
Needless to say, I’ll be going through all of my unpacked boxes, looking for stuff I can use to pad my kids’ college funds. Make it rain, Hank: make it fucking rain.
Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent |
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