drat fink

subterranean homeland blues

"The most intriguing story in Washington these days is a subterranean conflict that reporters cannot cover because some of them are involved. A potent guerrilla insurgency has formed in and around the Bush presidency--a revolt of old pros in government who strike from the shadows with devastating effect. They tell the truth. They explode big lies. They provide documentary evidence that undermines popular confidence in the Commander in Chief. They prod the media and the political community to ask penetrating questions of the Bush regime. Doubtless, these anonymous sources act from a mixture of motives--some noble, some self-interested--but in present circumstances one might think of them as "embedded patriots.""

your headline here

"Politicians often rewrite history to their own purposes, but, as Bush's remarks suggested, there was more than passing significance to his revisionist account of the Spanish-American War. It reflected not just a distorted view of a critical episode in U.S. foreign policy but the rejection of important, negative lessons that Americans later drew from their brief experiment in creating an overseas empire. The United States' decision to invade and occupy Iraq wasn't, of course, a direct result of this misreading of the past. If Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney or Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz (the administration's leading neoconservative) had remembered the brutal war the United States fought in the Philippines or similar misadventures in Mexico, or the blighted history of Western imperialism in the Middle East, they still might have invaded Iraq. But they also might have had second, third, or even fourth thoughts about what Bush, unconsciously echoing the imperialists of a century ago, called a “historic opportunity to change the world.”"

still carb free!

breakdown of the supremes on padilla et al.

boston harbors

dnc convention blog

showcasing democracy

"BOSTON, June 8 -- The head of Boston's mass transit police said Tuesday that officers will begin random baggage checks in the first program of its kind instituted by a major American city to help guard against explosives being detonated in stations or on trains."

rrjr

"Whom would Jesus torture?"

the tennis gods (and their sponsors) are smiling

near future grand slam champion

illinoise

if you are going to have a sex scandal and ruin a flagging candidacy for senate, this is the way to do it.

hit the cutoff, man

little bit of a bummer on the tivo front. taped the lakers-pistons game 5 while i was away. unfortunately it only records the time that has been blocked out for the event. and, of course, sporting events often dont conform to their preconfigured time slots. so with x number of minutes left, the recording stopped. not what i call user friendly. in fact, a user could get pretty unfriendly if that problem lingers.

kingdom come

my vacation reading -- Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer

plus an interview with baer in the atlantic monthly.

breakup of the family

"Phil Jackson will not return as coach of the Los Angeles Lakers next year, his agent Todd Musberger reports. Also Friday, Kobe Bryant opts out of his contract and, bothered by trade talk, Shaquille O'Neal cancels his exit interview."

the closer i get to you

half empty

psor card

pressing concern

its not good

yes, thats the problem with the knicks, marv albert is far too critical. and he hasnt earned the right after broadcasting the team for 35 years. cant we find someone who will only say nice things about our team? someone who reflects a friendly guileless post 9-11 new york? and can we stop broadcasting fouls called on the knicks? im pretty sure new yorkers do not foul. that would be like saying that the us government advocates torture. and please, can you cut all the knicks missed shots from the broadcast. i only want to see happy shots that go in.

hay there

recessive dreams

pliant

line dancing

burrberry

the big o

gated community

better?

fence din

death to poochie

travel day for me. made it to my destination but not without incident. somehow somebody fell under our train at the stop previous to the last. it was unclear when or how it happened or how serious it was. considering the general lack of alarm, it didnt seem life threatening. and instead of waiting like a good little poochie for an indeterminate amount of time (we were already a half hour behind schedule), i scuttled off in search of alternate transportation. however i misunderestimated the cost of a cab to my eventual location on top of which my cab driver got lost. if i could have strangled myself at that moment i might have but no such luck (for some).

anywho, ive made it to the farm (a farm if you count hay and taxes as cash crops). youll all be happy to know that the baseball glove is satisfactory. but for sure if i had bought a more expensive one id be playing in the pros right now.

lots of toys around here. im wireless on one of those mini sony vaios and theres some slick super slim panasonic digital camera just itching to be hotlinked. alas, ive proven too hideous at such close range to project but maybe in daylight ill find a worthy crevice to illuminate.

still, too much consternation. why do people make it so hard sometimes?

welfare kings

"Ralph Nader recently accepted Pat Buchanan’s invitation to sit down with us and explain why his third-party presidential bid ought to appeal to conservatives disaffected with George W. Bush. We think readers will be interested in the reflections of a man who has been a major figure in American public life for 40 years—and who now finds himself that rarest of birds, a conviction politician."

crash davis

bought me a new piece of leather. couldnt justify the big bucks and failed to conjure a momentary lapse of reason, so i settled on one that was more than adequate although not particularly comfortable. im a little worried that the finger holes arent large enough but im hoping theyll stretch out. wouldnt be such an issue except that my some of my fingernails are brittle and especially tender from the psoriasis. also, the old guy working the baseball area at paragon was an effective salesmen. i hope his judgement is as good as his pitch.

and as long as im in the sports zone (ouch), i should mention game two of the nba finals. how bout that accused rapist (talk about your momentary laspe of reason) kobe bryant? ok, done.

port in a swarm

it aint done by none longshot but if yall ever done wonder what all them letters mean this heres an expanded list. someday ill learn em to stand up straight so them is more legibitable too.

alexander who?

cant get the dime, how about a 10-spot for the dearly merely departed?

reel to reel

i didnt think it possible but the ceiling in my bathroom actually looked better with a hole than it does fixed. way to spackle, lupe. i guess exposed tape is all the rage these days.

pencils down

i guess this is a form of googlewhacking. i like to check with google to see if what ive just thought up has been used before, and thats a "before" in the very limited context of whats been indexed by google.

so usually i am being unoriginal as with todays construction -- does god grade on a curve? i guess i was trying to imagine how difficult the entrance exam was to heaven, and whether or not it was standardized? word is there may be some institutional biases built into the whole system that prevert the results.

times up

fell asleep during the second half of the nba finals opener. at least from what i saw, detroit looked like it might have more of a chance than many believed. of course when noone scores more than 5 points outside of your two stars than it can be a long night. detroit played with more energy and more of a concept. it seemed like larry brown had outcoached phil jackson. but when your shots go in, it has a way of making your decisions look better.

i was marginally pro-laker as i rooted for them against the hated celtics back in the 80s but thanks in part to ever-so-tepid neoliberal kevin drum and his la triumphalism, im leaning toward detroit.

but really, i prefer chris rock to kid rock, so detroit better rock harder or theyll lose me again. not that anyone (including myself) cares. im just killing a minute between 7:49 and 7:50. and now a few words from our sponsors.

blog tent

"The DNC, in what its officials believe is a first in the world of politics, is granting convention credentials to a carefully selected group of bloggers. They will join thousands of conventional journalists covering the festivities July 26-29 at Boston's FleetCenter."

juicy juice

gillian welch and iron and wine
live concert mp3s

gillian welch - (time) the revelator

tenets balls

just world news speculates about tenets motivations.

ad monishment

"A similar dynamic has shaped political advertising. Last year William Benoit, a professor of communications at the University of Missouri, published a paper in the journal Advertising & Society in which he traced the emergence of the major themes in political advertising. After enduring some 2,027 presidential-campaign spots dating back to their earliest use, in the 1952 race, Benoit established that most of the formats used by today's campaigns originated in the 1950s. Even the snide tone that is now de rigueur dates back decades. A 1968 Hubert Humphrey ad titled "Weathervane" is a fine example. "Ever noticed what happens to Nixon when the political winds blow?" asks the narrator, as a weathervane in Nixon's image (with elongated nose) spins wildly in the breeze. "Which way will he blow next?" Switch "Nixon" to "Kerry" and the ad could easily feature in the current campaign."

ad out

fucking espn. i was going to give them props the other day for all the live coverage of the french open but in the last couple of days they dropped the ball. yesterday they held a serena williams - jennifer capriati match back until three o'clock while the match had been finished by eleven am. venus williams match was broadcast live and ran concurrent with serenas match so there were mitigating factors, except espn has at least three stations on which to broadcast. had espn wanted to, they could have broadcast it live and then rebroadcast it in the afternoon. as it turned out, i found the results on the net and was less inclined to watch when it was on. plus its shameful that a sports network has to pretend that something hasnt happened. all afternoon the matched was hyped as if it hadnt yet been played. ive come to expect that kind of crap from nbc with the olympics but i thought espn would have higher standards. obviously i was wrong.

so today i checked the scores online. seemingly exciting match being played at the moment with arguably the best story attached - three time champ battles back from serious injury - and its preempted by another match which has already been completed and was a boring straight set victory.

boggles the mind.

less filling

"Miller is a star, a diva. She wrote big stories, won big prizes. Long before her WMD articles ran, Miller had become a newsroom legend—and for reasons that had little to do with the stories that appeared beneath her byline. With her seemingly bottomless ambition—a pair of big feet that would stomp on colleagues in her way and even crunch a few bystanders—she cut a larger-than-life figure that lent itself to Paul Bunyan–esque retellings. Most of these stories aren’t kind. Of course, nobody said journalism was a country club. And her personality was immaterial while she was succeeding, winning a Pulitzer, warning the world about terrorism, bio-weapons, and Iraq’s war machine. But now, who she is, and why she prospered, makes for a revealing cautionary tale about the culture of American journalism."