A fleeting grasp of civil, well reasoned discourse.
This blog will comment on topics of interest like politics, business, taxation, the War with Islam / Islamofascists, road cycling, football, and others.

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Opinion of The Angry Cyclist:

"Irrelevant...macho ravings"-
Marc Herold,
Grand Seigneur, University of New Hampshire

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Good News

It's a bad time to be a member of Hezbollah.

posted by Roger at 11:32 PM

 
Spot The Error

I was cruising around and found a discussion of taxation of poor people in California, in part by Kevin Drum. The column is partially a justification of usurious confiscatory tax rates for the top wage earners.

Have you spotted the error yet? If not, here it is - How on fucking Earth can someone making $12,000 a year afford property and thus incur a property tax liability? Remove that tax from the calculation and the fictitious taxpayer's percentage of tax drops to 12.5%.

Isn't it about time that the Wall Street Journal hired a fact checker for its editorial page?

Et tu, Kevin?

UPDATE - If this person (god forbid) has children, he's eligible for the FULLY REFUNDABLE Earned Income Tax Credit of $2,353 for one child and $3,888 for two or more children. For a person without children, this credit's eliminated at $10,350 of earned income.

ANOTHER UPDATE - Kevin informs me that the property tax number is arrived at by imputing rental payments by tenants as partially allocable to property tax payments. Kevin's just reporting it, so it's not on him.

Oh, yeah, and the tenant is building up equity on the portion of rent payments allocable to the building's purchase price. This is dishonest Marc Herold counting - (cough) bullshit! (cough).

posted by Roger at 5:58 PM

 
A Little Clarity

...is in order with respect to my previous critique of the EU. Gregg Easterbrook writes a column for ESPN called the Tuesday Morning Quarterback, which I simply can't read anymore. Dan Drezner notes that Easterbrook does an excellent job boiling down the essence of the great, vaunted European Union:

"The European Union is a kind of quasi-official meta-government that seeks out the cost, bureaucracy and ineffectiveness of each member nation's worst ministry, then tries to impose it on all of Europe."

This, from a senior editor of New Republic and a Brookings Institution fellow. Ouch!

posted by Roger at 5:28 PM

 
The Sports Guy

Bill Simmons misses Beantown already.

I'll miss you too, Bill.

posted by Roger at 4:58 PM

 
It's Circus Time!

Like you couldn't see this coming from ten miles away.

Why don't we just send these guys instead?

posted by Roger at 4:30 PM

 
Hate Crime, Anyone?

Norm Coleman's billboard is defaced by bitter Democrats and / or Neo-Nazis. Take your pick (link via Instapundit).

posted by Roger at 4:19 PM

 
Martha Burkitis - It's Spreading

It's on its way to merry old Ireland now.

I guess that means that all female clubs will go the way of the dodo bird, too, right?

Right?

posted by Roger at 4:13 PM

 
Independent In Name Only

Senator Benedict Arnold Jim Jeffords (Idiot - VT) has been tapped to deliver the DemocRATS' radio address tomorrow afternoon. Is it me, or does it seem like every DemocRATic move is not to advance an agenda, but rather to embarrass President Bush at every turn? It's no wonder they got their asses kicked three weeks ago.

"He's the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee," the spokesman said.

Not for long, asswipe.

posted by Roger at 3:58 PM

 
Who Let The Bitch Out?

Personally, I'd let spoiled brat Lizzie Grubman serve the whole 60 days, but we know she has some good counsel.

posted by Roger at 3:50 PM

 
Quincy Dominatrix Update

That should get the hit count up, so to speak!

Barbara Asher pleaded innocent to slicing & dicing manslaughter charges involving her handling of a cadaver who was also a client.

I think Bobby Brown had a similar experience:

She made a little speech then,
Aw, she tried to make me say when
She had my balls in a vice, but she left the dick
I guess it's still hooked on, but now it shoots too quick

Oh God I am the American dream
But now I smell like Vaseline
An' I'm a miserable sonofabitch
Am I a boy or a lady . . . I don't know which
(I wonder wonder, wonder wonder)

posted by Roger at 3:43 PM

 
Howie Carr On Bill Bulger

I knew something was up when I saw this yesterday. Today, Howie Carr provides a great recap on precisely how much shit he's going to be in.

That's one guy I don't want to be in the next few (Kevin) Weeks. Maybe now we can figure out who ordered the hit on my buddy's brother, John McIntyre, who they dug up a mile from my place two years ago. The general theory: John rats to the FBI; Connolly informs Whitey Bulger; the hit's put out and conducted at light speed by Weeks.

It's time for redemption, Kevin.

posted by Roger at 3:25 PM

 
There's No Place Like Home

... to hide Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

A huge freakin' charade is what the inspection efforts is...

posted by Roger at 2:44 PM

 
Indurain on Armstrong & Ullrich

Not exactly fighting words, but Miguel Indurain thinks Jan Ullrich's a more complete rider than Lance Armstrong:

Asked about which riders had particularly impressed him in recent years, Indurain stated: "Ullrich has been the one from my era who has most impressed me. He’s won the Tour de France, been second four times, and he’s also won the Vuelta and the Olympic road race."

While affirming that he has always got on well with Armstrong, Indurain said the American "focuses very firmly on the Tour de France each year and he wins it. He only makes one major effort a season instead of two," said Indurain, who won the Giro-Tour double twice.

Indurain knows this, but doesn't admit it, and Greg LeMond will agree - you're remembered for winning Le Tour. That's why Lance's efforts are geared (no pun intended) towards that race.

posted by Roger at 12:37 PM

 
Circus Time In Iraq

You can't make this stuff up, folks. Check out this guy's qualifications. Are we looking for reactor cores or bullwhips?

Tell me the Bush Administration did this on purpose, please!

posted by Roger at 12:22 PM

 
Globe Idiocy Watch

It's not one of the Usual Suspects this time around, but from William Pfaff, whose ability to blend stuffy and banal is unparalleled, well, still remains that way with this object d' Art. When it comes to stupidity, their team is deeper than the 1986 Boston Celtics.

The problem at the root of US-European discord

... is the EU and France.

By William Pfaff, 11/29/2002

PARIS - THE ATTITUDE of the George W. Bush administration and of the neoconservative policy community that supplies its ideas is condescending at best to those who question its actions.

Donald Rumsfeld does not suffer fools gladly...

The members of the administration and their backers claim a moral realism that their critics, specifically their European critics, allegedly lack. The Washingtonians are ''grown-ups'' (in one particularly unfortunate recent formulation). Their ''realism'' consists in believing that there are evil leaders and governments in the world. They are under the impression that their critics are moral relativists, who do not recognize this.

I don't know, Bill. Some people might interpret this as aiding and abetting Palestinian terrorism.

They interpret a reluctance to go to war against Iraq, and potentially Iran and North Korea, and an unwillingness to follow the United States in making radical government reorganizations and restricting civil liberties in an ill-defined and thus far conspicuously unsuccessful war against terrorism as evidence of this moral relativism.

This bunch of fucking idiots are the ones who would rather wait until these known belligerents have 100 kiloton nuclear bombs and delivery systems.

Oh, and Osama Bin Laden? Still dead!

One might think it evidence of good sense or an informed prudence, but the Bush people believe themselves more farsighted than others. This is a recurrent fallacy in Washington. It was Madeleine Albright, secretary of state in the Clinton administration, who provided this belief's most complacent statement when she said that the United States ''sees farther'' because it ''stands taller,'' being more virtuous than other countries.

Pfaff must be about as tall as Robert Reich, then.

George Ball, an immensely respected US diplomat of the postwar period by the Left, argued in the 1960s that the United States is ''unique in world history'' because its foreign policy is disinterested. Europeans, he added, ''have little experience in the exercise of responsibility divorced from ... narrow and specific national interests.'' He said this in explaining why the United States would win the war in Vietnam.

Just look at some of George Ball's fellating luminaries. He also avoids the discussion of France decolonizing Indochina and leaving a massive power vacuum in the region, setting the table for Sino-Soviet expansion and thus, the Vietnam war.

Naturally, this attitude does not always go down very well in other countries and has become a particular irritant in American relations today with Europe.

Right. We don't want to offend anyone, do we?

The serious formulation of the neo-conservatives' argument says that while the United States acts on moral realism, the West Europeans have adopted an idealistic view of international affairs that may be appropriate in the concerns of the European community but is irresponsible as an approach to an international order threatened by rogue states and anarchic failed states.

It contends as well that the European view reflects a lack of courage and a selfish willingness to allow the United States to defend the international order while Europeans appease rogue rulers and seize shady commercial advantages that the United States high-mindedly scorns.

Well, when you let shit like this happen in your backyard and do little about it, let's face it: you're asking for more of the same. And you're a fucking idiot to boot.

In the past year, France and Germany have also been accused of displaying anti-Semitic sentiments, expediently concealed since Nazi and Vichy times but now rampant, ignored by a European leadership which in this respect is no better than that of the 1930s.

Cheap rhetorical trick here, folks. Note the use of the word 'accused', as though there has been no recent incidents in tolerant France or tolerant Germany.

In part, all this reflects old cultural attitudes tied to the complicated relationship of Americans of European descent to the countries their ancestors left in the 18th and 19th centuries, and in the case of the neo-conservatives, many of them Jewish, in the attitudes of children and grandchildren of the Nazis' victims.

Yes, the situation is too complex, too nuanced for the simplisme cowboy Americans to grasp.

It also presents, in an intense form, the same disagreement that has separated American governments from their European allies on a number of previous occasions. This, by analogy at least, is a theological disagreement.

That's complete bullshit. The Founding Fathers did not want to live under the boot of King George III and told him to piss off. We've had our constitutional government for 215 years. France has, what, at least five constitutions since then? How about Italy? Europeans, to this day, seem enamored of collectivist / Marxist societies and have done so again by the creation of the European Union, an unelected body of bureaucrats whose purpose is to impose a superstate over existing nations. Like I've mentioned before, this is Europe's biggest mistake since the French invented the Maginot Line.

The rest of Pfaff's article is pretentious claptrap. Read at your own risk.

Dualism has always been a powerful tendency in religion, the unmistakable good - light - confronting darkness and evil. Both Calvinism and the 17th-century Catholic heresy of Jansenism were affected by theological dualism, preaching predestination and the corrupting force of material goods and pleasures.

Both had great influence on the American consciousness, the first through the 17th-century Puritanism that shaped American Congregationalism in the 18th century and the evangelical Protestantism of the 19th and 20th centuries.

They preached that the world was replete with Satan's snares, and they took an activist approach (remember not only Prohibition but Carrie Nation and her hatchet). The Jansenist influence reached the United States via Irish Catholicism, deeply Puritan in outlook.

Manicheism has become a generalized term (usually of abuse), but the religion itself originated (not far from Baghdad) early in the second century of the Christian era and was a synthesis of Zoroastrianism and Christianity, with several other Asian religious influences.

Its dualism was of eternal war between God and Satan, light and darkness. It held that evil was physical, not a moral thing. Believers fell into two classes: the elect, or perfect, bearers of light, and their followers, who could hope to merit rebirth as elect. All others were sinners, destined to hell.

Manicheism had largely disappeared in Europe by the 6th century, although it influenced the medieval heresies of the Cathars, Albigenses, and the Bogomils. Its dualism is an interpretation of existence that has proven persistent and seductive. In the United States its religious expression has weakened, but its influence on the American mind, as it addresses foreign affairs, is stronger than ever.

William Pfaff is a syndicated columnist.

This story ran on page A31 of the Boston Globe on 11/29/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

posted by Roger at 11:55 AM

 
Cold, Mean And Heartless

Quiz time! That would be:

A) Republicans,

B) Big Business,

C) Big Oil, or

D) The city of San Francisco.

posted by Roger at 10:36 AM

 
Cut Off Your Nose

...to spite your face.

What a bunch of stupid, greedy cocksuckers. Airlines were in a ton of trouble well before 9/11/2001. Let the market work United die already.

posted by Roger at 10:30 AM

 
F. Lee Bailey Spotting

One of the O.J. Simpson lawyers is seeking to have his law license reinstated here in Massachusetts after his Florida license was revoked for attempting to steal mishandling a client's assets.

posted by Roger at 10:25 AM

 
Gettin' Ready For The Slammer

That would be Vincent 'Buddy' Cianci, former mayor of Providence, RI, who's going on a sixty-four month vacation to Fort Lee, New Jersey.

posted by Roger at 10:17 AM

 
Idiot Watch

From Eugene, Oregon, home of some hard-core pacifists.

I had a roommate that was re-educated here. This roommate relationship lasted about 6 months, complete with lesbian / feminist art of her creation. Christ, I'll remember her name in a few days, won't I?

She mentioned knowing all the 'ism's'; 'sexism, racism, imperialism...'

I deadpanned - 'Hot jism?'

Hey, she laughed.

posted by Roger at 9:34 PM

 
Whoa!

According to Drudge, the latest Bin Laden tape is now judged to be a fake.

Do you think our (CIA) believing it was real was, well, disinformation?

posted by Roger at 9:20 PM

 
Why Airlines Are In Trouble

Inflexible union demands being one of the major reasons.

posted by Roger at 12:18 PM

 
Search Buttons

These have been added to my Blogger template, and they work, too, for the most part.

Tip of the hat to the Cracker Barrel Philosopher, whose code I shamelessly hacked. Thanks!

UPDATE - This doesn't seem to look through my archives, which is what I was shooting for, only to links to this site from Google using the keyword (s). That looks like the next mini-project.

posted by Roger at 11:32 AM

 
Neighbor?

It might explain the handcuffs...

I had to think about this for a minute. What's disturbing about this story is that I thought the body was buried on the Quincy side of the Neponset River bridge, about a quarter mile from my place. They dug it up about a year and a half ago. That means there's two of these psychos in Quincy. Great.

posted by Roger at 11:13 AM

 
The Daily Jihad

I believe it would be a trivial matter to link to one of these every day:

Militia says it will avenge death of two leaders, but backs off claim Israel was involved

Charles Johnson shows it, he does it every single day.

For Christ's sake, if you look at one of these nitwits the wrong way, the entire Arab Street becomes enraged.

posted by Roger at 10:51 AM

 
Bulger Sighting

No, not Whitey 'On the Lam' Bulger, but his brother Bill, the current University of Massachusetts president and former Massachusetts Senate president . A US congressional inquiry is requesting Bill's presence so they can ask him a few questions.

Yeah, real tough call here - Bill won't tell them a damn useful thing. I mean, look how it's starting out:

Asked whether his client would appear next week, Kiley said, ''Don't hold your breath.'' A UMass spokesman referred all inquiries to Kiley.

Can't... hold... breath... much... longer...

posted by Roger at 10:41 AM

 
Howie Carr On John Kerry

On so many levels:

Remember the Eliot Lounge in the Back Bay? One Friday night, Liveshot decides to take a pass on the Eurotrash scene at Biba's and instead heads over to the Eliot to scout out the local talent. He waves to bartender Tommy Leonard and begins chatting up two unattached babes at the bar.

After awhile, it becomes clear that the two cupcakes do not comprehend just how privileged they are this evening, prompting the junior senator to pose the eternal question:

``Do you know who I am?''

``Yeah,'' says one of the gals. ``You're Bob Lobel.''

Oh, the pain. Liveshot was the first male politician I ever saw wearing makeup outside a TV studio. It was during his first Senate campaign, at a hotel fund-raiser, and I was there to do - what else? - a live shot.

Time for a Bob Lobel story, secondhand, unfortunately. When I was an auditor at the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, we were located at 215 First Street in Cambridge MA, about 4 or 5 miles from the Channel 4 (at the time) studios, along the Charles River, where he did his sports segment after 11:20 or so. A former friend of mine, Michael Phillip Kearns, who was the ace state sales tax auditor at that time, used to drink at the bar downstairs and noticed Lobel down there on a number of occasions, hitting and scoring on one of the waitresses before and after his gig. I'm sure Susan Wornick (his wife at the time) was real happy with that shit.

posted by Roger at 9:49 PM

 
Legume: Round Up The Usual Suspects!

Nice try by the Globe to identify Republican switch hitters in the Senate. Chafee, Specter and Snowe are mentioned. Chafee has made rumblings, so he's most likely to go. It means nothing to him unless he convinces Snowe or Specter to join, which is highly unlikely. I hear jim Jeffords is looking for some company!

Numerically speaking, it will come from the House first, and it will be a DemocRAT. I don't see the Senate shifting at all, besides Mary Landrieu (D-LA) losing her runoff next week.

posted by Roger at 9:04 PM

 
Tax Man

Pete DuPont writes in today's Opinion Journal about a Yale professor (it figures) who proposes not tax relief, but tax 'reform'. Exclusively taxing the rich via the income tax and introducing a Federal VAT (value-added tax) are among his brilliant ideas.

The Internal Revenue Code is a walking clusterfuck. I saw a report a few years ago that estimated the time spent on tax compliance in man-hours is equivalent to that of the output of General Motors, which employs 355,000 people, and I'm quite sure that calculation has increased over the intervening time. It's one of the reasons I bailed out of public accounting after a few years, simply disgusted with all the misapplications in logic.

This professor's another walking clusterfuck. What he essentially proposes is a supermajority electorate that will have the illusion that they don't have to pay taxes because they won't have to file an income tax return, but will still have to pay payroll taxes, state taxes (to the extent they don't piggyback the IRC, which are a few states) and the newly minted 14% VAT. I don't see overall tax rates decreasing with this shit proposal.

My proposals, based on experience and an absence of class warfare rhetoric, would include the following:

Flatten the tax rates. 10% (income from 6,000 to 12,000), 17.5% (income from 12,000 to 20,000) and a top marginal rate 25% (20,000 and up) will apply with a full credit for all other taxes paid, to the extent you can document them. This is nice for two reasons: 1) Everybody will start paying closer attention to their overall tax burden, and there are plenty of tricks (phaseouts, income limitations, calling certain government mandated payments 'fees', etc.) that are used to this end. 2) It eliminates any advantage one state might (say, New Hampshire) try to hype over one of its neighbors (Taxachusetts) in terms of the state tax rates because any advantage is automatically eliminated by the Federal credit. This makes decisions to move based on purer economic criteria (availability of jobs) or on quality of life decisions.

Social Security benefits - nontaxable. Jesus Christ, you've been taxed on this already.

Make dividends deductible to the corporations. The same argument applies (double taxation), because dividends aren't deductible by the corporations (tax me once) and are taxed again on individuals (tax me twice). At the corporate level, this will eliminate the bias towards debt financing by corporations, because interest is deductible and dividends aren't.

Capital gains taxes - As long as they're taxing interest & dividends, this tax would remain. I don't buy the argument that this is taxing something twice, as a few would argue, it's tax on the difference between what you started with and what you wound up with.

Unemployment benefits - nontaxable. I don't see the need to kick people when they're unemployed (I know, it's easier, but still...), having paid taxes and putting something into the system before this point.

Eliminate refundable (i.e., the Earned Income Tax) credits other than withholding taxes, which is technically a refundable tax. These types of taxes have the effect of creating high marginal rates when you jump income brackets, which is the whole point of lowering overall and marginal rates. That, and my belief that the government should not be in the business of blindly cutting checks to people. That's great if you're only making 15,000 a year. Go to 20,000, 25,000 or 30,000 and do the math.

Other credits - I'd leave them in, simply because they're credits.

Nuke the AMT. The bastards don't index it for inflation; couples who make 120K+ a year, do a Schedule A and you'll see it soon enough.

I'd also do away or flatten phaseouts, income limitations, etc., but that gets into a lot of technical shit (specific statutes and all that) which I'm trying to avoid due to the immense time it would take to cover them all.

I make these proposals because, let's face it, the Federal income tax will not disappear in our lifetime. It's too institutionalized, too much of a 'tradition', if you will. Think about somebody that has 50K in a Federal capital loss carryforward (given the boom and bust, it's not that hard to imagine, and you might even know someone in this position). And then Bush announces eliminating the income tax. You want to see someone go absolutely fuckin' apeshit? I'd pay $50 to watch that guy go through the roof!

Another point - more than 1/2 of taxpayers have someone else do their taxes. Of course, I shouldn't personally bitch about this point, but I think tax law ought not to be so complicated that you need a fuckin' Doctorate or its equivalent to make a good faith effort to comply with the law.

Many people understand what they get from the Federal government. If they're forced or otherwise influenced to also understand what they put in, I believe the electorate will make better informed decisions about what level of tax they're comfortable with.

posted by Roger at 8:13 PM

 
Al Bore

Here's the Great White Dope, who's blaming everybody but himself for all that ails America, real or imagined (mostly the latter, I believe).

posted by Roger at 6:55 PM

 
Frank Zappa Says

I have a message to deliver to the cute people of the world...if you're cute, or maybe you're beautiful...there's MORE OF US UGLY MOTHERFUCKERS OUT THERE! So watch out.

Of course, from Little Green Footballs.

posted by Roger at 9:22 PM

 
NFL 2002, Week 13

No Turkey Day games on the board. Detroit has a winning record in Thanksgiving Day games, and they rolled the Patriots last time (in 2000), 34-9. Ugly. If the Pats lose this one, they need to run the table against the Jets, Bills and Dolphins at home during the next few weeks, or they're done. They shouldn't, but I have this feeling Detroit will be a pain in the ass.

Home team in CAPS:

Az +10
Chi +9.5
JAX +3
Hou +11
Sea +9.5

Last week = 6-1 (about fuckin' time)
For the year = 27-21-3

Stl @ PHI is currently off the board. I'll update accordingly.


posted by Roger at 9:09 PM

 
When Blogging

... was blogging.

posted by Roger at 8:13 PM

 
On A Lighter Note

I was checking out Hub Blog this afternoon (the Hub Blog that posts with any frequency, I might add) and came across this very interesting update on the rantings of tortured genius, Bobby Fischer. This guy's off his fuckin' John Rocker!

I played chess growing up, and I'll admit it, I sucked like a five dollar whore. Still, it was fun to play and get the illusion that you're smarter than your buddies when you beat them.

The link above covers a lot of ground, from a recap of Bobby's life to his recent anti-American rantings and Jew-hating paranoia. Well, if I was basically kicked out of the U.S. for being an asshole ignoring a Treasury Department order not to travel to Yugoslavia because of UN sanctions in the war-torn country, I'd be pretty pissed off, too:

In 1992 Fischer came out of retirement to play Boris Spassky in a $5 million rematch that commemorated the twenty-year anniversary of their meeting in Reykjavík. Aficionados dismissed the match as meaningless, since Fischer was no longer the world champion, and Spassky was then ranked ninety-ninth in the world. But the press had reason to celebrate: Fischer was a big draw; there was the nostalgic superpower angle; and the setting was Yugoslavia. United Nations sanctions had been imposed in an effort to halt the fighting in the country, and Americans were forbidden to do any business there, even in the form of a chess match. Fischer spoke arrogantly to the press about the irrelevance of the sanctions, and practically dared the United States to keep him from playing. Annoyed, Washington decided to make an example of him; the Department of the Treasury issued a cease-and-desist letter to Fischer, stating that if he played chess in Yugoslavia, he would be in violation of Executive Order 12810. The penalty for defying the order was a $250,000 fine, ten years in prison, or both. Fischer appeared untroubled.

He had signed on for the match because he desperately needed money. This was to be his big payday. After all the missed endorsements and spurned multimillion-dollar matches, he was prepared to play one last time, to ensure his financial security: the winner's share would be $3.65 million.

In the end, though, Fischer didn't play for money. He played for love. Not for love of the game but for the love of Zita Rajcsanyi, an eighteen-year-old Hungarian chess prodigy who had leveraged a pen-pal relationship with Fischer into a full-fledged romance. With glasses, a long ponytail, and Converse high-tops, Rajcsanyi was hardly a goddess. But she was exactly what was needed to coax Fischer out of his shell. "Zita wrote Bobby beautiful letters telling him how wonderful it was for her to be inspired by his great genius," Harry Sneider, the WCG member, says. "She had a lot to do with him coming back. Actually, it was she who inspired him."

That Rajcsanyi was able to talk Fischer out of his apartment, much less onto a plane bound for Yugoslavia, is miraculous. By this time his paranoia had intensified. Several months before the match Darnay Hoffman, who produced a 1972 TV exposé about Fischer and was working on another TV project about him, had tracked Fischer to Orange Street—in the heart, curiously, of the Fairfax district, then L.A.'s largest Jewish neighborhood. When a film-crew member knocked on the door to request an interview, he heard Fischer inside frantically dialing a rotary phone and screaming into the receiver, "They've found me!"

Once Fischer arrived in Yugoslavia, however, he showed not the slightest indication of mental trouble. He wore a suit and appeared healthy, robust, almost happy. "Bobby is so kind, so friendly," Spassky marveled at the time. "He is normal!" Lev Alburt ventures an explanation. "Chess is a game that forces you to be objective and to take into account an opponent's views," he says. "It forces you to make reasonable judgments and to be sane. When Bobby quit playing, it was really the end of his rational existence. And he began filling that void with crazy ideas."

This was made painfully evident when Fischer kicked off the pre-match festivities in Yugoslavia with a press conference on September 1. After the usual battery of chess-related questions a journalist finally asked the question that was on everybody's mind: "Are you worried by U.S. government threats over your defiance of sanctions?" Fischer calmly reached into a briefcase, pulled out the Treasury Department letter, held it up, and said, "Here is my reply to their order not to defend my title here." He then spat on the paper.

Fischer proceeded to rattle off a series of astonishing proclamations: he hadn't paid his taxes since 1976 (and wasn't about to start now); he was going to write a book that would prove that Russian grand masters ("some of the lowest dogs around") had "destroyed chess" through "immoral, unethical, prearranged games"; he really wasn't an anti-Semite, because he was pro-Arab, and Arabs are Semites too. His assertion that Soviet communism was "basically a mask for Bolshevism, which is a mask for Judaism" elicited the most quizzical expressions.

The old Bobby Fischer was back, and more bizarre than ever. This was made eminently clear when Fischer informed tournament officials that he wanted the toilet in his bathroom to rise higher in the air than anyone else's.

Fischer played beautifully in the first game. Spassky resigned on his forty-ninth move. Considering that Fischer had been away from formal competitive chess for two decades, this was no small accomplishment. But the rest of the match featured less-inspiring play. Although Spassky was clearly outclassed, the contest dragged on for almost six weeks before Fischer was finally declared the victor, with ten wins, five losses, and fifteen draws. Today Fischer attacks critics who dismiss the significance of the rematch. "I hadn't played in twenty years!" he bellowed during one of his Philippine radio broadcasts. "I did what was utterly impossible. It's still my greatest match."

The Bush Administration wasn't impressed. Fischer was immediately indicted, and an arrest warrant was issued. He hasn't returned to the United States since.

But you know what, Bobby? You brought all this shit upon yourself.

What he will never figure out, for all his 'genius', is that the concepts of wealth and anonymity have a high negative correlation.

posted by Roger at 7:52 PM

 
For Your Information

Just so you blog readers don't think I'm some sort of right wing warhorse with rigid ideological blinders, I do manage to check out other points of view.

This looks like, and I hope this is, part of the game plan. You know, pat our ostensible friends on the back while we search for the soft spot to sink the fuckin' knife...

posted by Roger at 7:31 PM

 
I Almost Forgot

About the Dukakis - Kerry connection.

This makes it easier to portray Captain Hairdo as another East Coast Liberal.

posted by Roger at 7:26 PM

 
Bad News For The Bad Guys

The Russian Army is returning to its Soviet heritage by (re)introducing the Red Star as its' official emblem.

Given that a few days ago, Vladimir Putin explicitly questioned the loyalty of our 'allies' Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it starts to look like the classic good cop / bad cop routine:

We should not forget about those who finance terrorism," Putin said, adding bluntly that 16 of the 19 terrorists blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks "are citizens of Saudi Arabia, and we should not forget about that."

Then, turning to Pakistan, Putin said abruptly: "Now, where has Osama bin Laden taken refuge? They say he is somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan." And he noted that Pakistan, where bin Laden may be hiding, already has nuclear weapons that could fall into terrorists' hands.

I think the Jihadis have been put on notice...


posted by Roger at 7:23 PM

 
Out Of Ammo

Not much to comment on today, thanks to a lack of editorials at the Boston Globe.

posted by Roger at 10:49 AM

 
This Is Called a Standing Headline

In other words, regularly:

"Arsons investigated in Lynn"

posted by Roger at 10:24 AM

 
This Needs Some Work

I was making the rounds this morning and noticed this on Drudge's website.

Since Drudge doesn't archive his stuff, I'll repost it here:

JOHN KERRY, VIETNAM, AND THE ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Sun Nov 24 2002 10:09:53 ET

Senator John Kerry's 'aristocratic reserve, his utter inability to pose as a populist, is not a quality recently associated with successful candidates for President of the United States,' Joe Klein writes in 'The Long War of John Kerry,' in the December 2, 2002, issue of the NEW YORKER.

MORE

Kerry will soon announce his intention to run, Klein reports. To give himself a chance, Klein suggests, 'John Kerry may have to become the politician he once dreamed of being,' before naval service in Vietnam altered the course of his life. Kerry's criticism of Bush's foreign policy is 'meticulous and comprehensive,' Klein writes.

Kerry says, 'The Administration mistakes tough rhetoric for tough policy. They may gain short-term domestic advantage as a result, but they are damaging the long-term security of the country. This is a far more complicated world than the ideologues of the Administration care about or understand.? For example, Kerry argues, Bush's rejection of the Kyoto treaty on global warming was short-sighted.

'One hundred and sixty nations spent ten years working to get to a certain place and the United States just stands up and dismisses it out of hand.... It just declares it dead. Now, what do we think those presidents of those countries, those prime ministers and those finance ministers, those environmental ministers are? Are they all dumb? Are we telling them they are absolutely incapable of making judgments about science, that the ten years of work that they've invested in conference after conference, many of which I attended, was absolutely for naught.'

He's going to run against Bush on Kyoto? Is Kerry really this fucking stupid?

James Carville tells Klein, 'I think he's had a hell of a year. Why? Because he's actually saying something. People do notice that, you know.'

In Vietnam, Klein reports, Kerry was 'something of a cowboy.'

During the firefight for which Kerry was later awarded the Silver Star, Kerry, after his boat had crashed ashore, found himself facing a lone Vietcong holding a B-40 rocket-propelled grenade launcher. 'When he first stood up, he froze,' Kerry says, 'because he didn't expect to see us staring him in the face, literally ten yards away.'

After the man was wounded by one of Kerry's men, he began to run away. Kerry chased him down and killed him. 'I didn't want to let him get away,' he says. 'I didn't want him to run away and turn around with an active B-40 and take us out. There but for the grace of God...The guy could have pulled the trigger and I wouldn?t be here today.'

Vietnam and its legacy has dominated Kerry's political career, from his leadership of Vietnam Veterans Against the War to his bipartisan collaboration with Senators McCain, Hagel, and Cleland concerning policy on Vietnam veterans and normalizing ties with the country.

David Thorne, a close friend from college and Kerry's former brother-in-law, tells Klein, 'He knew that his actions in Vietnam might have some bearing on his future life. But none of us could anticipate the impact 'the psychological trauma' the war would have on us. John's been able to live with the demons of combat, but they are there and they've given his life shape and meaning in a way that he never anticipated.' Developing...

posted by Roger at 10:16 AM

 
NFL 2002, Week 12

Home team in CAPS:

Min +7.5
Cle +6
Cin +10.5
AZ +8
WAS +4
Ind +6.5
Phi +7

Last week = 3-3
For the year = 21-20-3

posted by Roger at 10:12 AM

 
Bad Editing

Some former businessman didn't preview his Powerpoint presentation before his colleagues saw a picture of child porn come across the screen. Well, actually he did, but the dumb son of a bitch tried to open another document while the overhead projector was still on, producing a nekkid picture of a young boy.

It reminds me of the time I sat through one person's slide show, only to see the guy's resume on the first slide. Now that's funny!

Of course, the above link is not (link via Drudge).

posted by Roger at 9:18 AM

 
Steven Segal Update

Someone found the smoking gun. It definitely sucks to be him right now (link via Drudge).

posted by Roger at 9:10 AM

 
Another Man Of The People

Yes, that would be that other Massachusetts Senator, DeadTed Kennedy, demanding preferential treatment by dropping a dime on a CEO.

May I say, Senator, this is a system that you helped to create. Live with it, or change it for the better.

posted by Roger at 7:41 PM

 
Steven Seagal Update

I think he might be in some deep doo-doo if this stuff pans out.

Why not just say you had a flashback and waste the reporter with an inadvertent backfist or something? How about his car (think Audi) with an accelerator problem and destroying her car as he was trying to drive away? Am I the only one wondering about the total lack of creativity here?

posted by Roger at 7:28 PM

 
Frank Zappa Says...

"In every language, the first word after "Mama!" that every kid learns to say is "Mine!" A system that doesn't allow ownership, that doesn't allow you to say "Mine!" when you grow up, has -- to put it mildly -- a fatal design flaw. From the time Mr. Developing Nation was forced to read "The Little Red Book" in exchange for a blob of rice, till the time he figured out that waiting in line for a loaf of pumpernickel was boring as fuck, took about three generations. ... Decades of indoctrination, manipulation, censorship and KGB excursions haven't altered this fact: People want a piece of their own little Something-or-Other, and, if they don't get it, have a tendency to initiate counterrevolution."

This item is from Little Green Footballs.

posted by Roger at 6:26 PM

 
Darwin Award Nominee

Another 'Jackass' imitator bites the dust.

posted by Roger at 6:22 PM

 
Captain Hairdo's Magical Mystery Tour

Actually there's nothing magical about it. Egomaniac Presidential hopeful John Kerry is doing one of an endless series of pre-announcement acts of self-aggrandizement interviews, this one with the New Yorker's Joe Klein.

I told you all he'd pull endless stunts shit like this. Just remember, you heard it here first.

posted by Roger at 6:20 PM

 
Rantburg Rules

Read this article for an understanding of the shit the Saudi's are pulling on us over there in East Texas Saudi Arabia.

Oh, yeah, read this one, too.


posted by Roger at 9:10 PM

 
Pick On Me, Not Vennochi

OK, if that's what you want...

Pick on DeLay, not Pelosi

I was close...

By Ellen Goodman, 11/21/2002

ISN'T IT NICE to have a woman around the House? It's barely a week since Nancy Pelosi became minority leader, and there's already been a regime change of metaphors. Out with sports; in with food.

It's nice having a woman around the house. To cook, to clean, to fetch me beer...

On ''Meet the Press,'' the woman who became head of the Democratic Household cheerily compared her postelection fate to the patriotic poultry.

Here we go with the cute routine again.

''You know the story. It's like the Thanksgiving turkey,'' she said. ''You bring it out, you get this great honor, everybody oohs and ahs ... and then they begin to carve you up.''

If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

The slice-and-dicing began with the usual suspects

"LEGUME!"

"Yes?"

"Round up the usual suspects!"

The Economist called her ''a disaster for the Democrats.'' The National Review foamed - and foam is the right word - that she was a ''latte liberal.'' Rush Limbaugh dubbed her ''Miss America'' and his political-porn Web site featured her head on a beauty queen's body.

Care to show me that National Review quote, Ellen?

Across the media spectrum she was characterized as a ''San Francisco Democrat'' - wink, wink, nod. And the Democratic Party chair in South Carolina basically asked her not to show her face in his state.

Pelosi's a rug muncher? Is that what you're saying?

At this rate, Pelosi will be down to the wishbone any day now.

I wish for an even more liberal leadership from the DemocRATS. It will be fun getting a filibuster-proof Senate.

Meanwhile, what of the election of her Republican counterpart, Tom DeLay, a.k.a. ''The Hammer,'' ''The Exterminator,'' ''the ''meanest man in Congress''? He barely got a nick in his drumstick.

What of the point you're trying to make, besides that all Republicans are Pure Fucking Evil?

In some places, DeLay's rise to majority leader was so inevitable it was deemed non-news. In other places, he was paired with Pelosi - San Francisco Left and Sugar Land Right - as if the two were symmetrical dining partners.

This is the Tom DeLay who called the EPA a ''Gestapo,'' said the Columbine shooting was caused by birth control and day care, and that global warming is a myth. He talks about the ''Nobel Appeasement Prize,'' and doesn't want kids to go to Texas A&M because there's sex on campus.

Some parts of federal government do act like jackboots, global warming is indeterminate at this date. When people like Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat win the Nobel Peace Prize, even people like Ellen 'Horseblinders' Goodman should notice. It's comforting to see civil, well reasoned discourse from both sides, though.

Shall I go on?

Why would I want to stop you?

He once described Democratic voters as a combo of ''Greenpeace, Queer Nation, and the National Education Association'' while claiming the Republican Big Tent included ''all kinds of people, from the Christian Coalition to the Eagle Forum, from Arco to Exxon.''

He forgot the rest of organized labor and the professorate, but not far off target.

But somehow or other Pelosi, who believes in gay rights, was put on a par of extremism with a DeLay, who doesn't believe in evolution. Pass the cranberry sauce, please.

It wasn't just politics that ended up with Pelosi on the platter and DeLay unscathed. It was also gender.

Jesus Christ, here we go with the fuckin' "Year of The Woman" shit again.

The mother of five was the first woman to break through what she called the ''marble ceiling.'' No sooner had she won than people were asking, did you run as a woman? This is a question that Pat Schroeder famously answered with the retort, ''Do I have a choice?''

It wasn't that funny, Ellen.

The implication is that after 215 years of male leadership, Pelosi had some unfair and suspiciously female advantage. A model of restraint, she answered again and again, ''I didn't run as a woman but as a person with 15 years of legislative experience.''

But all the ''persons'' in America are female, while the ''men'' are men. So how come no one has ever asked Tom DeLay whether he ran as a man?

Because it's as dumb as the Schroeder quote you used. Is this why you're not talking about the 'latte liberal's record on the issues?

As the Democratic National Committee's Ann Lewis says, ''I'd love to hear the Sunday morning shows earnestly discussing what does it mean that the Republicans elected a man. Do we think he used his gender to political advantage? Is it fair?''

"Fair" in the DemocRATS mind meaning bellyaching about not getting women elected as DemocRATS...

Can you imagine George Stephanopolous interviewing DeLay: ''Nancy Pelosi's first career was as the mother of five children while your first career was as a bug exterminator. Was that a deliberate ploy for the killer male vote?''

George won't be around long enough to ask that question. Maybe you can fill his shoes, Ellen?

How about Tim Russert barreling in: ''When your daughter was in third grade, she asked her mother if `someone had adopted daddy because he was never around.' You said, and I quote, `I was totally self-centered. It was me, me, me, me, me. It was golf or business or politics that came first.' Do you think that having a wife was an unfair male advantage?''

And Bob Schieffer: ''You were part of the Gingrich revolution in 1994. This was about as male a cohort as the Augusta National Golf Club. Does that mean that you ran as an (angry, white) man?''

Finally, Wolf Blitzer: ''Where do you get your hair cut?''

Ellen's gone off the deep end. Not satisfied with discussing facts, she commits the journalistic sin of making shit up. An unoriginal technique, to boot. Great job, Ellen.

Ah fantasyland. As the next Congress opens, we'll see two different images. A Democrat from the hills of a dot-com boom-and-bust country who smiles, maybe too much. A Republican from the flatlands of sprawl and oil who kept two bullwhips in his office. Both shine in that unisex venture of fund-raising. So how come only one is getting carved up?

Because she's the New Kid on the Block. Are you that fucking stupid, or what?

Let us assume that it is still early in this political feast. I'm told that Pelosi's specialty is dessert: Raspberry chocolate cake. I just hope we leave enough room.

You can't miss. There's plenty of room.

Ellen Goodman's e-mail address is ellengoodman@globe.com.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 11/21/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

posted by Roger at 8:46 PM

 
The Sports Guy

Bill Simmons weighs in on the Augusta National circus.

posted by Roger at 7:45 PM

 
Frank Zappa Says...

Kid's heads are filled with so many non-facts that when they get out of school they're totally unprepared to do anything. They can't read, they can't write, they can't think. Talk about child abuse. The U.S. school system as a whole qualifies. -- Discussing the state of the education system in America - Playboy magazine, April 1993.

I wonder what ever might have given him that idea?

What a bunch of dumb fucks (the teachers and especially the kids, who don't even realize what's going on). I'm glad I got out of the government public school system when I did.

posted by Roger at 7:23 PM

 
John Lee Malvo Update

They booted his mother out of the country. They can pull her back to the States for testimony in his trial, which will go something like this:

"My son wouldn't hurt a fly. He was so nice to everyone".

Tap... tap... tap...

No, sorry. Sympathy Meter's still busted. Maybe I'll get a new one for Christmas?

posted by Roger at 7:12 PM

 
Ballsy Boston Bikers

No, not those bikers, these bikers. It sort of states what you may find intuitive, that bike couriers suffer more injuries than even NFL players.

Well, no shit, Sherlock! Almost every courier doesn't go full tilt when they're making the rounds, but I see half these guys riding the wrong way up one-way streets. There's almost no way to avoid getting doored except to ride out of the swing of parked cars. The problem with that is that it puts you closer to flowing traffic. That happened to me last year, two fucking days before I was going to attempt the Mt. Washington Hillclimb. I avoided getting doored on Hancock St. in Quincy (during rush hour, of course) and because I was more in the flow of traffic to avoid another dooring, a car pulled out from the right lane and came to an immediate stop because of all the traffic. I sailed right over the rear quarter of the Pontiac Sunbird, and I yanked the end of the tail fin of her car as my left knee slammed into the bumper, causing thirteen stitches. People at the hospital were gawking at the knee, saying such comforting things like "I've never seen a patella tendon up close like this!". That, and I had to lay down next to a drunk bum who I thought was going to barf on my knee.

A few weeks later, her insurance company sends me a bill for the damage to her car. Yup, I got dissed.

The moral of this story - Just Dog It (down Hancock Street).

posted by Roger at 7:01 PM

 
I Missed One

I guess my birthday is a pretty cool day after all.

posted by Roger at 10:53 PM

 
What Sucks?

Not this first cartoon. (via Sgt. Stryker).

posted by Roger at 10:18 PM

 
Interesting

I'll admit I was too lazy to research this myself, but The Homeless Guy says that PayPal donations received by bloggers are considered gifts and are thus not subject to income tax.

Hmmmmmm, PayPal account...

posted by Roger at 8:24 PM

 
Darwin Award Nominee

Kids: Don't play with live grenades, even with adult supervision (via Rantburg):

Two more persons, Muhammad Yousuf Lone and his daughter Niza, were injured when they accidently set off a grenade inside their house at Zainapora village of Pulwama district, sources said, adding, Yousuf had found the grenade in a field and taken it home and tried to fiddle with it causing the blast.

Actually, it sounds like the gene pool would be better off without Muhammad...

No doubt about that.

posted by Roger at 8:13 PM

 
Win Some, Lose Some

Boston Mayor Thomas 'Mumbles' Menino, who secured the 2004 Democratic convention last week, has suffered a setback in an attempt to reintroduce rent control in Boston. Being a reflexively traditional Democrat, Menino tries to pander to vocal crybabies help needy constituencies like tenants:

Supporters of the plan point to a precipitous rise in Boston rents over the past decade and a recent spike in homelessness. But in the past year, many in the real estate industry say, the rental market has cooled considerably. They say rent control will discourage the building of more housing.

Here's a radical idea - build more houses!

posted by Roger at 7:11 PM

 
Stupid White Boys

I'm sure glad that people like Leonardo DiCaprio are around to inform me of such matters:

'NOT MUCH . . ." This is movie star Leonardo DiCaprio's answer when Barbara Walters asks him what he has learned about success and failure?

Pressed for more expression, DiCaprio - anchored protectively for this interview between his "Catch Me If You Can" co-star Tom Hanks and his director Steven Spielberg - manages to muster up, "I think ultimately success is good. Failure not so good . . . uh . . . " To that we respond with "duh!?"

Wish you could take that one back, don't you, pretty boy?

posted by Roger at 6:59 PM

 
Man Of The People

Fidel Castro, living large.

What a lying, hypocritical bastard this guy is. Like it's news...

posted by Roger at 6:55 PM

 
Sux To Be Jeffords

Benedict Arnold James Jeffords wants his committee chairmanship back. Apparently the Republicans were too polite to tell him to piss off.

posted by Roger at 6:52 PM

 
Hootie Johnson / Augusta National Update

Hootie and Martha 'Battleax' Burk exchange pleasantries via Instant Messenger.

posted by Roger at 6:48 PM

 
John Lee Malvo Update

At least his lawyers are persistent. They're now requesting a psychiatrist so they can try the insanity defense.

The judge rejected this request as well.

Just fuckin' execute him. We'll do the trial later.

posted by Roger at 6:46 PM

 
Bend Over, My Fisk Doll

Here we go again. Joan Vennochi, factually challenged, to put it mildly:

Kerry walks a fine line

By Joan Vennochi, 11/19/2002

SENATOR Max Cleland of Georgia lost both legs and his right arm in a grenade explosion in Vietnam in 1968. That did not stop C. Saxby Chambliss, a Republican with no military service, from questioning his patriotism in 2002, On election day, Chambliss beat Cleland, 53 to 46 percent.

Not true, Joan. Highlighting differences in your position isn't evidence of questioning one's patriotism.

That barebones, admittedly simplistic storyline inspires a basic question for would-be challengers to President Bush in 2004: After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, can a Democrat vote against the president on war and still remain a viable national candidate?

Responds Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a Vietnam veteran and likely Democratic presidential candidate: ''Absolutely. Without any question.''

Then test your theory, Captain Hairdo. Please.

So, did Kerry vote ''safe'' when he supported Bush on the Iraq resolution? To that, Kerry says heatedly, ''You don't vote safe or nonsafe when you're talking about sending people to war. ... You had a national security issue. You may hate the timing, the cynicism of it, the raw political exploitation of it. But you still have a fundamental national security issue.''

That makes Kerry seem, well, hypocritical.

Kerry says that what he voted for was ''for the president to have the ability to maximize leverage with the United Nations ... I think it worked. We have the UN involved. We got the president to go to the UN. Where we have the president is in the position we put him. He may not stay here; if he moves from there unilaterally, I made it very clear, absent any showing of imminent threat, which does not now exist, I do not think we should proceed unilaterally. If he decides to do it, I will oppose him forcefully and vociferously.''

I don't think mentioning 'the UN' incessantly is going to help, either.

In Georgia, Chambliss - another Republican candidate drafted directly by Bush - accused Cleland of being soft on national defense because he did not back the Bush position on creating a homeland security department. Cleland did not oppose the concept; like Kerry, he voted against amendments that would have replaced the Democrats' version with the path favored by Republicans. To highlight Cleland's votes, Chambliss ran an ad campaign which flashed the faces of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

Taking another page out of the DemocRATic playbook. It's about time Republicans get back to Lee Atwater style tactics.

In Washington, the conventional wisdom is that the patriotism issue alone did not end Cleland's Senate career; he was out of sync with Georgia or at least allowed his opponent to cast him that way. But Kerry says Chambliss - and, through him, Bush - ''displayed the Republican, craven, utterly shameless, ruthless, cruel willingness to say or do anything, no matter what.''

Just like Al Gore did to get himself elected. Boooring!

Cleland's election-day loss points to another post-Sept. 11 political reality: Real battle scars on Democrats offer precious little protection from saber-rattling Republicans who never spent a day in combat.

I'm a CPA, Joan. Does this mean you, or Cleland or Kerry, must defer to me when it comes to re-writing tax law? Of course not. Now shut up!

Says Kerry: ''If Dick Cheney ... and a bunch of people who didn't serve want to make that the fight, I'm ready for that. I'd welcome that. How do you really best defend the security interests of the United States - that's a debate we should have.''

Then enter the race, Senator.

On the national stage, Kerry is definitely trying to walk a fine line between critic and patriot. He has been highly critical of Bush policy in the Middle East. He was the only Democrat to speak out on Bush administration tactics in Afghanistan, while defending the Democrats' ''right to ask questions on war.'' He continued his high-profile questioning of the Bush administration's talk of war with Iraq, winning praise from national pundits like The Wall Street Journal's Albert Hunt, who wrote recently that ''no Democrat has offered a more coherent criticism of the Bush national security policies, ranging from military operations in Afghanistan to diplomatic fumbles in the Mideast.''

Just what I want for Christmas, an endorsement from Al Hunt. Why not just tie some cinder blocks to my feet and throw me into Boston Harbor?

Yet despite all the cautionary talk, and despite heavy lobbying from antiwar constituents, Kerry voted for the Iraqi war resolution. On election day, at least 20,000 Massachusetts residents voted for a write-in Senate candidate, Randall Forsberg, to protest Kerry's support of war.

It's called waffling.

Cynically speaking, that is good news for Kerry. He can use it to show he is not the stereotypical Massachusetts liberal the Bush clan loves to run against.

George Bush the elder accused Massachusetts Democrat Michael Dukakis of being weak on defense in 1988. Fourteen years later, Republican candidates are still using the infamous photo of a helmeted Dukakis riding in a tank as ammunition against Democrats. But the first President Bush had a real World War II combat record; the current President Bush has time in the Texas National Guard - and his still unresolved war against the evil-doers.

I used that photo. It points out that he looks like a fool for such a photo op.

For now, Kerry is talking left, but voting centrist. After 9/11, it may be the only way to run for president. But is it the way to beat one?

Doubtful. let's hear what Kerry would do to combat terrorism, then we'll talk.

Correction: My column of Nov. 14 referred to the Republican National Convention in Houston ''in 1994.'' The Houston convention took place in 1992.

Arrgh! I should have caught that one! Damn, damn, damn!

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com

This story ran on page A23 of the Boston Globe on 11/19/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

posted by Roger at 8:53 PM

 
It's A Huge Game

That's with respect to the inspections in Iraq. The U.S. is telling its' (our) citizens to get the hell out of East Texas Middle Eastern countries before December 7th. Interesting choice of date, gentlemen.

Like I'd be over there in the first place...

posted by Roger at 7:50 PM

 
A Man Of Honour

That would be Daniel Drezner. His predictions on the 2002 elections were wrong, so he swore off blogging for two weeks as penance. I checked his site, and no bloggage since November 6, when he made the announcement.

Too bad Big Media donkeys don't follow his example, or at least admit they're wrong. The bucket over his head that night greatly improved his looks. How would you like to go through life looking like the bastard love child from that rape scene in Deliverance?

posted by Roger at 7:40 PM

 
Tiger Woods Update

I'm starting to like this guy a lot more. He basically tells the New York Times to fuck off and says he's playing in the 2003 Masters Tournament.

Check out Jesse Jackson's statement:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who says his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition will organize protests at the Masters if a woman is not a member by April, called the Times editorial "unfair and inconsistent'' for singling out Woods.

"I don't remember them saying to Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus to boycott the Masters because blacks are not playing,'' Jackson said Tuesday.

Well, why do you plan on protesting then, Reverend Jackson? This message seems pretty inconsistent / contradictory to me.

posted by Roger at 7:23 PM

 
Why I Don't Bet On Basketball Anymore

This can be evidenced here.

Thanks a lot, Detroit.

posted by Roger at 7:14 PM

 
This Day In History

Many interesting things happened.

It's also my birthday.

Big fucking deal.

posted by Roger at 7:11 PM

 
The Best Case for Loser Pays

Can be read about here.

After giving this some thought, I believe frivolous suits should pay double the amount of the opponent's legal bills, plus the Asshole Tax.

posted by Roger at 7:27 PM

 
Speaking Of Liberal Hosts...

George Stephanopoulos might be joining Phil Donahue in the unemployment line.

I'm wondering: Is there a way I can make bets on how many DemocRATS defect to the Republican Party? I'll report on that later, if that's the case.

UPDATE - No politics there (probably only for major races, and I don't surf Ladbrokes much) , but when Chris Childs of the Knicks is on the cover of their basketball section, I'll go with the Pistons (-5.5) at New York instead. (lines at Stardust and Ceasar's are both DET -4.5, but I'll stick with Ladbrokes because I'm feeling ballsy). Call it a hunch.

posted by Roger at 7:09 PM

 
Local Gal Makes Her Parents Proud

I caught this yesterday on Rantburg, and now the local papers have reported that unemployed bum 'peace activist' Susan Barney will be kicked out of Israel. Do we have to take her back?

Rantburg - Always One Step Ahead.

posted by Roger at 7:02 PM

 
Good Riddance

Another aging liberal bites the dust.

It's too bad I didn't catch this one:

Donahue was the subject of a biting NBC Saturday Night Live parody Saturday in which Darrell Hammond played the liberal talk-show host.

When your own network starts goofing on you, watch out.

Yes, indeed! One obvious question: Why wait?

posted by Roger at 6:46 PM

 
Here's A Surprise

The Paper of Record is siding with the battleax Martha Burk in her quest to leverage public opinion to force Augusta National to admit women. Harold Raines The editorial is calling on political pawn Tiger Woods to not play in 2003.

The probability of that happening is roughly proportional to my Sympathy Meter suddenly starting to work again.

posted by Roger at 6:24 PM

 
Spam Alert

Anyone getting mail from 'post master' (mail909@yahoo.com) about 'your info', just ignore it. Fortunately there's no virus attached, at least in the ones I received (one on Thursday, one today). Asking them to unsubscribe doesn't work, as this is what's returned:

The following addresses had delivery problems:


Permanent Failure: 553_VS10-RT_Possible_forgery_or_deactivated_due_to_abuse_-_see_http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/spam/spam-18.html_(#5.1.1)
Delivery last attempted at Mon, 18 Nov 2002 23:07:13 -0000

So now whoever's doing this is spoofing that e-mail address. Thanks, asshole.



posted by Roger at 6:12 PM

 
Iranian Justice

Is giving new meaning to the phrase fucking donkeys.

posted by Roger at 5:09 PM

 
Double Standards

Jeff Jacoby writes about them in today's Boston Globe.

posted by Roger at 10:42 AM

 
This Isn't Really News

It's about the 200th time Iraq has attempted to lock onto British and US planes with radar and took shots on our planes.

I mean, after Iraq 'accepted' the UN resolution, how fuckin' stupid is this move? This game playing is old and boring, so I hope Bush decides to end the fucking around real soon. Like tomorrow, as I'm cracking open that first beer. When the hammer finally comes down, it will start around midnight their time, which gives almost eight hours of serious ass pounding by the Bad Boyz and the Lawn Trimmers.

Sleep tight, Saddam. Wherever you are.

posted by Roger at 8:18 PM

 
Happy 20th Anniversary

To Ozzy Osbourne, who bit the head off of a live bat on stage on this day in 1982. For those that think it was an intentional thing, read this:

George got a book from the library called The Truth About Rock Music or something like that. It's a fundamentalist Christian thing saying that rock is evil (except for Christian rock and Hootie). It's funny because it's obvious they have no idea what they're talking about!! They even used the example of Ozzy Osbourne stomping puppies onstage. Guess what. That never happened! Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that one of Ozzy's gimmicks was to stomp on puppies. First of all, nobody would give him puppies because they would know he does that. Ozzy's very famous. Second, even if he could get puppies, he'd have to clear it with the venue, and I promise you they would have a problem with it. He'd also have to clear it with local law enforcement, and that would never go through. Even if it did, he'd have the Humane Society on his back as well as the ASPCA, not to mention all the lawsuits he'd have to answer to. This is where you say something like why was he able to bite the heads off bats, then? That, my friend, was an accident. He had this gimmick where there would be a bunch of rubber bats on stage. Ozzy would prance around and bite their heads off. The point is that they were all fake. At one concert, some dumbass brought a real live bat into the venue. During the bat-biting portion of the show, the idiot got close to the stage and threw the bat at Ozzy. Ozzy, thinking it was a fake one, bit its head off. He wasn't very happy about it.

posted by Roger at 7:50 PM

 
Cry Me A River

Poor accused sniper John Lee Malvo. He's unhappy with his current living arrangements.

The judge's response is summed up here.

I need a new Sympathy Meter. This one's definitely busted...

posted by Roger at 6:59 PM

 
Are We Getting Serious?

...about the war with Islamofascists? That's what I read into this report, as far as the 'pressure to resume testing' comes from this quarter (link from Drudge):

Democrats in Congress say that the interest in resumed testing comes not from the uniformed generals or the physicists in the weapons labs, but primarily from conservative civilian leaders, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and advisers such as former defense official Richard Perle and John Foster, a nuclear weapons designer.

Then again, this comment is coming from the DemocRATS, so it tends to speak for itself.

posted by Roger at 6:25 PM

 
More on Herold

...can be found here.

posted by Roger at 11:28 PM

 
Fuck France!

Yes, it's late, but the cheese-eating surrender monkeys have finally closed their petty witch hunt inquiry into 2 year old doping allegations against the US Postal squad.

Why couldn't your ace investigators find anything? Because it's not there.

I don't mean this as ill will against Lance, of course, but I was hoping they'd keep this hanging over his head, thus insuring Tour victory number five.

posted by Roger at 7:29 PM

 
Lance Armstrong Update

He finished second overall to Erik Zabel of Telekom for the yearly points competition. The UCI points are awarded for year long performance, so give Zabel lots of credit because he rides hard from February to October. Lance got 500 points (out of a total of 2,110) for winning Le Tour, but he doesn't enter as many races during the year as Erik, so that's the difference.

By the way, I couldn't find squat on Lance's site about not going for the hour record. I'll do some digging later on...


posted by Roger at 7:23 PM

 
NFL 2002, Week 11

Home team in CAPS:

DET +3
SD +2.5
Az +11
TEN +3
SEA +4.5
Chi +10

Last week = 4-3
For the year = 18-17-3


posted by Roger at 7:08 PM

 
More Reader Feedback

It's from Tom Hackleman again, as part of his first comments to me:

"I am disappointed to find only one cycling comment and three NFL comments."

I pointed out that this is the lull in the cycling season, and I simply post my NFL picks and don't find discussion of football very interesting unless I'm pounding beers with my buddies and munching on Buffalo wings or something (I'll post a recipe for 'Bitching Buffalo Wings' later on).

However, today I stumbled across an inspiring tale about Jean Nuttli, a formerly Large Swiss Man who has slimmed down enough to land a professional cycling contract. He's going after Chris Boardman's hour record. Lance Armstrong was supposed to have gone after the same record; it fell off my radar screen, so I'll follow up on it some other time.

Unfortunately for Jean, he failed in his attempt. I think he'll be back, though.

posted by Roger at 7:05 PM

 
That's Gotta Suck

If you're Steven Segal, whose latest movie, Half Past Dead sounds like it should be renamed DOA. You can tell from the trailers you may or (better yet) may not have seen recently.

I liked the Under Siege flicks, but Segal, not to be confused with this Steven Segal or this Steven Segal, hasn't made a good movie since. Here's his chance at redemption.

Here's the Official Steven Segal website, for you curious folks.

posted by Roger at 6:35 PM

 
Move Over, Jacko

You have some company.

This might explain his 'hot' pursuit of Ferris Bueller.

posted by Roger at 6:02 PM

 
Had The United States

been a real Imperial power...

We would have told the saudi's to stick it up their ass... after American technology located, drilled & produced their oil fields.

We would not be refering to the Middle East anymore. There would only be 2 countries. Israel and East Texas.

Texas would border Columbia.

posted by Roger at 5:59 PM

 
Middle East, 2003

Get your new Middle East maps here!!

posted by Roger at 5:53 PM

 
Reader Feedback

Tom Hackelman writes, in part:

"You don't even seem that "Angry". Perhaps the recent elections have taken the edge off."

Them's could be fightin' words, but he has a point, to an extent. Part of the reason for using the name "The Angry Cyclist' is to be unique, my 'schtick', if you will. That, and no one else grabbed that name on Blogspot. Also, Tom doesn't ride bikes in the Boston area. Let me tell you it's bad enough driving a car around here. Where do you think the phrase Masshole comes from, OK?. You try doing 20 MPH on your bike down Hancock Street in Quincy around rush hour. I've got some battle scars to show you, Tommy!

There's also the fine line of being taken seriously and swearing your brains out on a website. Readers will note that I managed to steer around that although I called Professor Marc Herold a "dumb fuck".

Face it. I walk the line.

posted by Roger at 7:02 AM

 
Marc Herold, Spreading The Disease

...of lies and deception in the local newspaper, the Foster's Daily Democrat, in front of a packed house of 25 people.

Quoth Professor Herold:

"This has not been refuted," he said.

Oh, really, Professor? Matt Welch appears to have your number. So does David Wiegel, as I do, Joshua Muravchik, Flit the Blogger on two posts, Carl Conetta, Mark Steyn, Iain Murray, and Human Rights Watch, which reports on how the Taliban massacred Afghanis in several areas.

Thanks goes to Rollerball, who plans on following up with Michael Goot, the Foster's Daily Democrat reporter who doesn't seem to be familiar with the good professor's background in the Afghanistan civilian casualty count.

posted by Roger at 9:44 PM

 
Convention(al) Wisdom

I'm taking Juan (sic) Vennochi off of Suicide Watch , for now.

Hub must mend its conventional ways

By Juan Vennochi, 11/14/2002

Trolling for the Hispanic vote, Juan?

THE DEMOCRATS are sticking with the formula - and right now, it looks a lot like the political formula that lost on election day 2002.

Even Juan recognizes that. Knock me over with a feather!

The Democratic National Committee announced that it will nominate the party's next presidential nominee in Boston, a city that launches losing Democratic presidential bids almost as regularly as other municipalities launch antilitter campaigns. The decision makes sense for Boston. But for the national party?

Is there a difference?

For Boston it's a perfect marriage of politics and business, ego and ambition. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the driving force behind this effort, wanted a national convention as the crowning moment to his long political career. Mayor Thomas Menino can't wait to play host for a city that is desperate to be seen as world class. Massachusetts political leaders put aside old stereotypes and sold the idea of a new, inclusive Boston. To close the deal, business leaders put $20 million behind the package (and will have to find $30 million more).

Sorry. Couldn't help that link, folks...

The state's Democratic political cottage industry hasn't put together a winning presidential campaign for 42 years - or even a winning gubernatorial campaign for the last 12 years. But its practitioners, too, will get to strut their stuff on a national stage, and many may even be the muscle behind the party's next would-be president, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry.

Whose bid is DOA, as discussed earlier.

The DNC bought the package, and on one level, it's easy to understand why. Boston has wonderful symbolism as the birthplace of American democracy. Delegates will enjoy its history, charm, and funky new clubs and restaurants, at least those who are not consigned to hotel rooms in Nashua, N.H., or Woonsocket, R.I. Television producers will find plenty of scenic backgrounds for the reports that are now standard fare for today's totally scripted, no-news-is-good-news national political conventions.

I predict venues moving closer to Tyngsboro, MA and Providence, RI, if you catch my drift.

But the choice is symbolic of something less than wonderful - a party that still looks to the same tired messages, the same tired warhorses, and the same tired constituencies that voters rejected nationally this November.

Maybe I'll put Juan back on suicide watch after all...

Democratic candidates lost key Senate races in Missouri, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. They also lost gubernatorial races in Florida, New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts. Those defeats were losses for the entire party, including DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe, former president Bill Clinton, New York Senator Hillary Clinton - and Ted Kennedy. Before election day, McAuliffe brayed that Florida's Governor Jeb Bush was gone; today the president's brother is very much alive and running Florida's state government. Clinton and Kennedy both campaigned hard and futilely for Democrats, including Massachusetts Democratic gubernatorial nominee Shannon O'Brien and for that ultimate symbol of the old Democratic party, Walter Mondale, who lost a weeklong race to be senator of Minnesota after the death of incumbent Paul Wellstone.

I'm definitely putting her back on suicide watch now...

And now, the no-message, money-greased structure that is the national Democratic Party is coming to Boston, a place with its own political image issues.

The political world outside Massachusetts doesn't know new Boston from old Boston. It knows Boston as Kennedy country, and beyond Bay State boundaries that is not necessarily a positive. It knows Boston as the place where Michael Dukakis began a candidacy that Republicans painted falsely, but successfully, as a left-wing conspiracy. It knows Boston as Bill Clinton's favorite place to raise money and escape the voters' moral outrage over his Oval Office tryst with Monica Lewinsky.

Oh, Bill's going to love some of our historic monuments, then.

Political conventions may be outdated, but they can still send messages. The Republicans learned that in Houston in 1994, when conservatives commandeered the spotlight and scared away mainstream American voters. The same thing can happen in Boston if the convention is awash in Kennedy liberalism and the creaky feeling of machine politics. George Bush, the elder, beat that combination in 1988.

1994? What happened in 1994, Juan? If your editors refuse to fact-check your ass, I'll do it for them.

Boston will use the convention to promote a newer, hipper version of what it is.

If national Democrats can't do the same thing, they have no chance of beating the Bush who is now president.

Amen, brother.

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 11/14/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.

posted by Roger at 8:49 PM

 
Senator Kerry, Don't Even Bother

Even before Captain Hairdo gets a chance to finish his oh-so-painful Hamlet act and FINALLY announce his candidacy for President of the United States, I am boldly stating that he doesn't have a fucking chance. Why am I so sure, you might ask? It's not a question of being sure per se, but I think my bullshit detector has an excellent Early Warning System, and based on all available facts, he'll never get the nod, regardless of the fact that the DemocRATic convention is being hosted right here in good ol' Beantown.

Two things pretty much sealed it for me today. Here's an excerpt from today's Wall Street Journal, quoting Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) on why the Democrats lost (sorry, no link - it requires a subscription, and it's not on opinionjournal.com), titled Our Party Needs to Embrace Tax Cuts:

It's hard to run on your record when you don't have a record. And it's hard to run on your vision when you don't have a vision.

Al From, head of the Democratic Leadership Council, in an article right below Zell Miller's, mentions five things Democrats need to do to get back in the ring: A need to appeal to all Americans, to expand their base, get the big things right, offer bold, innovative reforms and look outside Washington for ideas that work. While I agree with most of what Al said, he waffles on point number Four, when he says "A bold tax overhaul would be a start". Not a tax cut, but an overhaul. With that statement, I'm tempted to throw out the whole article.

And then there's Captain Hairdo. The first item I'll cite if this piece by Jay Nordlinger of National Review:

It is its fault, however, that it (Massachusetts) keeps sending John Kerry to the Senate. I’m sorry, but what a disgraceful character. Will no one in the mainstream media call Kerry on his incessant bashing of those who “didn’t serve”? This has been a semi-obsession of mine, for the last many months. No one else seems to mind Kerry’s act. If conservative Republicans did this to non-serving liberals — no, when they do it to liberals — everyone goes nuts. The other day, Kerry referred — again — to “Mr. Cheney, Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, [and] all these guys who never served in the military.”

The man is a bully. And sometimes his tactics are what in other circumstances one would call McCarthyite. He gets to be both the brave veteran and the anti-war hero. He plays a slick and ultimately dishonest double-game. And he gets away with it, shamelessly.

The second is his attempt to 'take on' President Bush in the Boston Phoenix, titled It's time to fight, which is ALL the Democrats seem to be doing in their campaign slogans anyways. As soon as I got to the fourth paragraph, that sealed it for me:

We must begin by demanding a different, better, fairer economic policy that grows jobs and creates wealth for all Americans. We must say it plainly: stop the new Bush tax cut for those at the top and instead relieve the growing burden for those in the middle. Stop turning record surpluses into a new river of deficits. Stop shortchanging education, health care, and even national security to satisfy the demands of special interests at the expense of both prosperity and social progress.

History also works against a successful Kerry bid for the slot. The majority of Presidents and contenders over the past fifty years have been Governors instead of sitting Senators (note - I couldn't find a site to easily tabulate them, so it's off the top of my head. Feel free to fact-check my ass.). I do know that more Governors get elected President than Senators during this time span, though, so I'm extrapolating a bit.

That, and the remainder of the article I'll spare you from, contains not a single new idea. These things, and his tiresome Hamlet act on the Iraq resolution, have all led me to conclude that his Presidential aspirations are toast.

posted by Roger at 6:49 PM