Things I think about

• Who knew this award existed? I would love to be a judge of the Bad Sex Award . Here is the paragraph from the winning author. Just proves that even when sex is bad, it's good.
  

Judges were moved by Hollingshead's evocation of "a commotion of grunts and squeaks, flashing unconnected images and explosions of a million little particles." His description of "bulging trousers" sealed the win, the judges said.

• In an effort to help their team through some defensive woes, the Oakland Raiders have fired their offensive coordinator. They have replaced him with the (former) Bears own John Shoop. Nothing helps a struggling club quite like a 3 and 45 draw play.
• A few days ago was the Harvey Milk / George Moscone murder date (27th). I felt it necessary to recap in case you are ever charged for murder in CA and need a defense. 1979 - Dan White entered the SF City Hall and shot the two men. The lawyer then found jurors IN SAN FRAN who sympathized with a homophobic, overly-religious, conservative who believed in shooting people as a key to solving his issues. The lawyer, Martin Binder, successfully sold the jurors on the fact that Mr. White had eaten so much junk food (Twinkies and Coca-Cola specifically) that he became depressed. My parents never bought this argument as I was growing up but I leave it here for you. P.S. Dan White committed suicide in 1985.
• So the Vikings are mad that Rex Grossman talked trash after scoring a winning touchdown in week 3. I saw that game and luckily when Antwoine Winfield intercepted a pass and returned it for a TD he kept his trap shut. Sharper (the complainer) said that he is only playing this weekend because of the death ruling of Saddam Hussein. He is still mad about 9/11.
• Rumor is that the Cubs are on the verge of signing Julio Lugo. Howard and I find this to be good news. The Cubs will now lose 9-7 instead of 9-3. Good job.
• All you clowns talking about impeaching Bush. Give it up. Now. Seriously. President Cheney does not have the ring you think it has.

Have a pleasant evening. I hope to not watch Thursday Night Football with you.

Writer's block? Try captioning!

"Hey, the sign says, "Yes." and that's what I plan to do."

After years of malapropisms, Karl Rove figures out that the cue cards have been facing him for 6 years.

"What are we doign in Iraq? Clearing brush."

Happy Thanksgiving

"Hey, you took all the meat."

"Mash potatoes AND gravy? Mission accomplished!"

"It's time to put food on our children . . ."

Caption away!

Dime to a Dollar

Wagers I am willing to make:

• I bet that by giving the "strategery" in Iraq a new manly name with no substance behind it will not help the cause nor save one life. The "insiders" have come up with three: "Go Short," "Go Long," and "Go Home." I got one: "No Plan; No War." Maybe we should try that next time.
• I bet WR Jeff Samardzija must play his lilly white ass off this weekend if he every wants to be a champion. USC plays Notre Dame. ND has a chance (albeit a small one) to make it to the championship game. It will be his last chance. He was drafted by the Cubs.
• As offensive as it was I bet that Kramer is the first celebrity apology ever that did not contain the phrase, "I apologize to anyone I MAY HAVE offended." Nor did he claim he was drunk and just needed a touch of rehab. Nope. Just a straight-out ni**er-hater.
• I bet there had to be a time when conservatives were a respectable bunch. There had to be a time when they were all not a bunch of sore-loser cry-babies. How did all that spending of political capital go?
• I bet that if you play this game, you will want Tom to catch Jerry in that nifty mouse-trap you created. Just once.
• Saw "For Your Consideration" last Friday. I bet no one you meet that has seen it will consider it Chris Guests best nor worst film. But they will all have different favorite and least favorites.

Send all checks to:

One F
c/0 Blasphemes
Bowels, Hell
60666

Cubs for Sale... Lovely, Unwinning... Cubs for Sale

Buyers line up for possible bid to buy Cubs from Tribune Co.

CHICAGO (AP) -- A group of 15 investors is lining up financing that would allow it to purchase the Chicago Cubs if the team is put up for sale by its parent, Tribune Co.

Tom Begel, chairman of TMB Industries, said Thursday that he and other investors expect the team to be sold for up to $600 million.

Entire Story Here: LINK

The story of the boardroom drama inside the Tribue Co. has gotten to the point where offers and bids has been communicated to potential buyers - and external media.

Stay tuned, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Football Tuesday

With the excitement of the Bears - Giants game behind us, let's have a little informational fun. I am an NFL guy and this will reflect that. I will leave all college pontification to our dear leader Killre.

• The complete history of your favorite teams helmets. This is really cool. And a tremendous waste of time.
  
• Why the AFC's Colts should not get too happy. Assuming they recovered from that Pittsburgh loss.
  
• Need some Bears trivia? Not unless it involves the Honey Bears and Rocky.
  
• Does a Republican or Democratic President help the Buffalo Bills win? I say neither but here is the data. And they remembered their helmet.
• There were winners and champions in Wrigley throughout the 50's and 60's. And you thought the PLACE was unlucky.
• Longest run in NFL history? Look at the full bluff to TD video below.
  

Opening the Flood Gates

For the first time in 20 years I went to bed and slept soundly after an election. Every race that was important to me went or was going in the way that I was hoping it would. In the course of two short years gone were Delay, Santorum, Frist, Allen, and democracy-hating, vote manipulating J. Kenneth Blackwell. I may have been one of the few who tipped a cold one at a Secretary of State race (especially one in Ohio) but that was one cold, tasty sip.

The election had gone as many had anticipated. Many voting problems in god-forsaken Florida. Recounts in the House, offspring arrested (guess where?), and Keith Olbermann summing it all up for us while Colbert cries. I slept well Tuesday night.

When I dragged my slowed body out of bed Wednesday morning, my head pounding with memories of champagne and Pabst Blue Ribbon, I softly turned on my television to ensure that I did not misunderstand the results. I am not used to being on the winning end of any election or World Series. I focused my eyes in an attempt to read the ticker at the bottom of the screen. "Rumsfeld to resign." I whistled through my shower.

At lunch that day I had the fortune of watching Bush's reaction to the elections and announcing the resignation of Rumsfeld. Seems that we now need a "fresh set of eyes" on this war, uh, liberation we have gifted Iraq with for all the years of good network news that they have given us. Then it came. Sure as a leopard can change his spots and the Cubs can't lay off a first pitch, Bush nominates a sycophantic, intelligence-twisting, threat-enhancing career liar, uh, politician in charge. And dime to a dollar I bet no one remembers. I, however, watched Iran-Contra very carefully. (At the time I thought that selling weapons to radical Islamic Iran in exchange for hostages and money to Nicaraguan rebels was as bad as things could get.) I feel queasy and the drumming in my head returns as the name is announced . . .

Robert Gates.

That son of a bitch Robert Gates. I suppose Ollie North was busy with his ham radio gig. I won't bore you with a full Gates resume but I will bullet point some "nice to know" items. And with my fingers crossed and with God as my witness if the newly Democratic Congress rejects this crook, I will post an image of the three-toed dog.

• Gates did some clever editing of intelligence reports in the 1980's to fit senior Reagan administrations "convictions." Among them, Russia was going to assassinate the Pope and Soviet agents were arming Marxist revolutionaries in order for them to carry out terrorist attacks.
• Helped Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl rewrite a CIA analysis to "to suggest greater Soviet support for terrorism."
• Involved heavily in Iran-Contra
• Co-chaired the Council on Foreign Relations for relations to Iran whose main position was to allow them to work on Nuclear technology as long as they promised to use the technology only for peaceful means. This was 2004 BTW.

Finally, he is a liar. last year he had this quote, "To put the rumors to rest, I was indeed asked to take the position [Director of National Intelligence], wrestled with perhaps the most difficult — and close — decision of my life, and last week declined the position."

If there is a God, he put the Dems in charge for one reason. To prevent this man from further harming us all.

Hari-Kerry

First of all, before I telestrate the potentially game-breaking verbal fumble committed by the Great Wooden Chin, there's one other little piece of unpleasantness that I'd like to get out of the way. You couldn't be blamed, Dear Reader, for wondering why I would choose to even mention it here rather than elsewhere on this, uh, blog, uh, thingy. Likewise, you can't be blamed if you wonder about the ambiguity of my stated rationale...

Because of the symbolism, damn it.

*ahem*

Howard,
In the unlikely event that I "jump back on the goddamn bandwagon" anytime soon (go ahead and hold your breath for that, you low-level government lackey) and start rooting for the [Censored], [Unutterable], Bogus [Stool-samples] again, rest assured that I wouldn't be buying the number 33 jersey of left-hander Glendon Rusch. If I were to buy a jersey at all, it would be the numero 29 worn by that scrappy, switch-hitting outfielder, The Pagan Angel. If you're going to waste the government's time and the taxpayers' dollars spying on me, the least you could do is pay attention.

Besides, it's "God-damned bandwagon," you poser.

Now, then...

MEMORANDUM

From: Killre

To: Mr. John "Hari" Kerry, the, uh, steamed Senator from Mass-o'-two-[chetts] who, like a New England lobster, is cooked; Mr. John "Parry" Kerry, that brightly-painted wooden soldier with the tomahawk-chop arm and the magnificent, malleable mandible that really moves when he talks (oh, brother, does it ever!); Mr. John "Airy" Kerry, the very, very former Presidential candidate for the party of the big, parenthetical (D), which apparently stands for "Disorganized," or "Discombobulated," or maybe just "Defense," since that's the side of the ball they always seem to be on in that big, on-going political scrimmage inside the beltway, reacting a half-step too late to the latest ground-gobbling play sent in by the (R)-team's offensive coordinator, Karl Rove.

Re: Your fumble, sir.

To wit: Nice goin', putz.
Almost in spite of their own willy-nilliness, your team (such as it is) was actually holding its own in this year's Mid-term Bowl. For once, they actually had those big, bad, hypocritical (R)s backed up deep in their own territory... before your little choke-job, that is.

Those expensive shoes of yours must taste awfully good. Why else --in the name of all that is sacred and holy!-- why else would you utter these remarks in front of a phalanx of cameras and microphones and students at Pasadena City College...

"You know, education: If you make the most of it --if you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart-- uh, you, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Whoa, lost the handle on the ball there, din'cha, Johnny-boy? Let's run that play again...

"Education: If you make the most of it and study hard and do your homework and make an effort ... you just might learn how to tell a [juxtaposing] joke!"

For that is what you called it, didn't you, oh, great, wooden and chinly one? A botched joke. A badly botched joke, intended to skewer the President by tying his questionable intellect to his questionable foreign policy. Not a bad idea... even if I do say so myself. But, as any coach will tell you, even the best-designed plays in the book can go horribly wrong when poorly executed.

Now, there are some people on your side of the field --Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher among them-- who have rushed vociferously to your defense, Johnny-boy, saying that your remark was taken out of context and that if one looks at the transcripts and the remarks leading up to it and takes the thing as a whole and crawls around inside your brain for awhile and blah, blah, blah, blah...

With all due respect to these defenders, I say, "Phooey."
They're reaching. Plain and simple, they are reaching too far to make your case for you. Don't get me wrong: I'm willing to believe you when you say it was a botched joked aimed at Bush. But their assertions that it wasn't even really all that badly botched is wishful thinking. Asking most Ordinary Citizens to conduct their own, personal, in-depth investigation into the subtle background and textured context of one careless remark is, frankly, asking too much. Most people don't have that kind of time... nor should they be expected to make it. They have better things to do than to try and figure out what you really meant.

The truth is, Mr. Hari, Airy, Tarry-too-long-on-the-National-Stage... the truth is that in this, the Era of the Sound Bite, you handed the opposing team a bit with which they promptly took a bite out of your [jackass]. And you deserved it. You ought to know better. After all, you're no rookie. Besides, gang-tackling somebody who verbally trips over their own feet and winds up with one of them in their mouth is precisely the sort of thing that everybody --including many Republicans and/or conservatives-- has been doing to a certain Smirking Marionette for six years, now. What's good for the Elephant is good for the Donkey, honky.

Now watch what happens, Mr. I Got Even Poorer Grades at Yale Than George W. Bush Did, when some no-name truck driver writes your joke for you. I can't guarantee that it'll be any funnier, but at least it won't sound like you're calling the troops that are dying halfway around the world --so that your party can win control of the House-- stupid.

"Y'know... Education: If you make the most of it --if you study hard and you do your homework and you make an effort-- you can do well. If you don't, you get us stuck in Iraq."

See what I did there?

------------------------------
Luckily for you, Johnny-boy, Ted Haggard is, uh, "playing for the other team," if you know what I mean.

------------------------------
P.S.... Bud "On Wisconsin, On Wisconsin,
Fight Right Through That Line" Selig must go.

The War In Drugs

The enemy, it seems, is hiding in the tall grass.

Last month, a General Rick Hillier, head of the Canadian defense staff, reportedly reported that Canadian troops in Afghanistan have encountered a drug problem in their fight against Taliban militiamen. Specifically, the enemy has taken to hiding in a vast, virtually impenetrable field of ten-foot-high marijuana plants-- a real, uh, woolly mammoth. They are using guerrilla tactics, y'see: A whole new way to roll on the concept of "hit and run." Strike a target and then, puff --I mean, poof!-- disappear into the green zone.

According to General Hillier, the problem with... um... weeding them out is two-fold (or, if you prefer, double trouble). Not only does the cannabis camouflage the enemy from plain sight, it also disguises their heat signatures, making it difficult to detect them with thermal sensors. Marijuana, apparently, absorbs heat really, really well.

Ah, but not well enough. So far, efforts to, uh, smoke out the militiamen have been hempered --I mean, hampered-- by the very hardiness of the ganja. They have tried to clear the field by --say it in unison, now-- burning it, but the stuff is too wet, and it won't stay lit... prompting (probably) one soldier to say, "Dude, I, like, hate it when, like, that happens." They have tried white phosphorus. It didn't work. Then they tried dousing the plants at the edge of the field in diesel fuel (because the price of petroleum products is way cheaper in Canada... after all, they've got the metric system) but that didn't work, either.

All in all, it's a real buzz-kill.

------------------------------
Believe it or not, marijuana use is on the rise in Afghanistan: The crew of at least one armored car is using it as camouflage. (Why, what did you think I meant?) Heh, I guess they figure the enemy is less likely to take pot shots at them, now.

And, borrowing an idea from the fly-boys of yester-war, they have even given their vehicle a nickname. They call it, "Death By Stoning."
(Okay, so I made that one up.)

------------------------------
...All of which begs one very, very important question...
There are Canadians in Afghanistan?

Yeah, I didn't know that, either. Apparently it's a... uh... hmm...
Oh, what the hell, I'll say it: It's a joint effort.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

------------------------------
P.S.... Allen H. "Bud" Selig must go.

Insert Army Boot to Mouth

Senator, and until yesterday, 2008 Presidential hopeful John Kerry inserted a muddy army boot into his mouth. Kerry told the students that if they studied hard they could do well, but if they didn't "you get stuck in Iraq." His office said he neglected to add the punch line: "Just ask President Bush.

Questions and constant analysis of 'what he said' and 'what he meant' will continue for the next 32 minutes of the news cycle, maybe 33 depending on how long it takes to type.

Whether you think John Kerry was digging at President George Bush or actually insulting the men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform is a matter that you have to ask yourself. It's open to interpretation on how you personally want to take the quote. However, my concern is that Kerry is completely ignorant of the world that we live in, and a terrible politician

Exhibit A : George Allen.

George Allen. How can a serious candidate for the highest office in the land, potentially the world, be unaware of YouTube/Blog-o-sphre of influence that every word and every comment is recorded and shared by all? No one cares, unless you blow it.
And he blew it.

Exhibit B :
On Prompter or Off? Was his comment a pre-planned joke or was it off the cuff?
Damned either way. Why go off the script, and fail, or design the joke and then blow it?

Exhibit C:
Good joke? Not at all. It takes way too long to set up.

Exhibit D:
Kerry went into Spin mode about Rush Limbaugh before Rush was even on the air that day. Why go into spin mode and issue statements about your statement, unless you knew you blew the original statement? "I voted for it before I voted against it."

Exhibit E:
Not 'getting' his audience. Speaking at a college, he assumes that the students will have to goto Iraq if they don't study hard? Huh? It's a pretty big stretch to say if you drop out of college, you'll be in Iraq. Suppose he is comparing Iraq to Vietnam - where apparently John Kerry once spent some time - apparently the Army was not all volunteer based, as it is now. Does he really think that the 18 year old kids in immediate audience can even grasp what the draft was? Not understanding whom you're talking to, another major goof up.

Exhibit F:
The lead up: "If you study hard you can do well..." is also a big goof. John Kerry made all his money by marrying it. I even heard that George Bush had better grades in Yale than John did, but the transcripts had the tell-tale little 'th's that Microsoft Word automatically adds when you type 3rd or 4th...

So this guy is smarter than George Bush?

Again, whether you believe it was a bad joke or a dig at the fighting men and women who have volunteered to fight our nation's battles - doesn't change the fact that John Kerry is a terrible politician. He's unaware of the political atmosphere that exists, he's opened up the anger that galvanized the Republican voters to keep him out of the White House, and he's created a wave of aftershocks for the Democrats in this mid-term election. And worst of all, he's not funny.