[2006.06.30 - 05:45 P.M.]

I have been counting down the work hours to this weekend since around lunch time on Monday. Four days off. Four days! WOO HOO!!! Fuckin'-A-Right I love my leisure time.

OK, first up: Need to respond to Barack Obama's recent speech on religion and the Democratic Party. There's been a ton of criticism of this speech in the blogosphere, but, annoyingly, it's almost all tactical. It's all about how Obama slipped up by playing into the Republican stereotype that Democrats are hostile to religion. The truth is that Obama was wrong on substance too. He was wrong in the same way that Joe Lieberman was wrong on the 2000 campaign trail: He started talking about "We" in the context of religion. For a politician in a secular society, that's a no-no. Obama can talk about his own faith all he wants, but when he starts suggesting that America needs religion, he's crossing the line:

[Americans] are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness."

First off, the fact that Americans have "fewer close friends" doesn't mean they need imaginary ones. (I know, I know, there I go being the stereotype.) Second, sure we all need to find meaning in our lives, but that's a personal journey. If the government wants to help out, it can do so with education grants and jobs programs and community investment and poverty outreach. What it cannot and should not do is aid and abet those who would drive us into the arms of Jeebus. Not their job. Got enough other people working that beat already.

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So I'm walking out of the supermarket a little while ago, and as I glance at the window I see one of those big SALE posters, and it's for "Sirloin Butt Steak". Couldn't help myself. I walked the rest of the way to the car mumbling "Huh huh. Huh. Huh-huh-huh. They're selling Butt steaks. Huh huh."

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Via Ezra, a interesting study showing that time spent on increasing ones income can be deleterious to ones overall happiness, which is, apparently, tied very closely to "passive leisure":

These data show that people with higher incomes devote relatively more of their time to work, shopping, childcare and other "obligatory" activities. Women surveyed by the researchers in Ohio associated those activities with "higher tension and stress." People with higher incomes spend less time on "passive leisure" activities such as socializing or watching television, which the respondents viewed as more enjoyable.

According to the government statistics, men making more than $100,000 per year spend 19.9 percent of their time on passive leisure, compared to 34.7 percent for men making less than $20,000. Women making more than $100,000 spend 19.6 percent of their time on passive leisure, compared with 33.5 percent of those making less than $20,000.

Now, obviously, there are, um, other data points that need to be accounted for here. For example, I imagine that the passive leisure time I spend in my nice house in the 'burbs staring into my 47" widescreen HDTV is of a higher quality than that spent by the dude in the ghetto sitting in a crappy apartment on a ratty couch looking at his 19" old-school tube (which is about what a $20K paycheck gets you in our oh-so-fair economy). But still. Point taken. Given the choice between leisure time in a reasonably comfortable environment or, you know, work, I'll take the former every time.

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Shakes alerts us to -- I shit thee not -- a "Twelve-Step Program" for feminists. Basically, this dude Carey Roberts wants Feminists to turn away from their evil ways and embrace ... wait for it ... yes, I know the suspension is killing you ... just a few more ellipsis-bracketed delays ... you can do it ... here it comes! ... GOD!!!!

I gotta ask: Is there any twelve-step program that doesn't basically boil down to "Trade Your Problem in For God"? Seriously, name one. And don't give me any talk about how they're just advocating submitting to a generic "Higher Power". That's just God with his nuts cut off anyhow. I can't think of a whole lot of problems where, in my opinion, replacing them with God wouldn't be a step backwards. Alcohol or God? I'll take the booze. Drugs or God? Light me up. Feminism or God? Fuck, I've got my issues with patriarchy bashing, but if that's the choice, and I've got a gun to my head? Gimme some of that gender-based, power-relationship-analyzin' hoo hah, baby! Fuckin' God. Please. That's the worst damned addiction to ever afflict our species.

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I really need the Red Sox to lose tonight. Their twelve-game winning streak is starting to put me in the Bad Sports Place. You know, the place I went when the Patriots were on their seemingly endless winning streak. The place where my eyeball starts to twitch and I start grinding my teeth, obsessing over the question of When will they Finally fucking LOSE???!!! I hate that place. I do not want to go there again. GO MARLINS!!!

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Tracy and I just watched the Daily Show episode with Al Gore. Ohhhhhhh... Al. (sigh) Good interview. You know, it's often asked in liberal circles "Where was this Al Gore in the 2000 campaign?" And the more I see him, the more I wonder if maybe he wasn't there all along and the media just never let us see it.

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[2006.06.29 - 01:45 P.M.]

If you're reading this, it means that my DNS changes are successfully propagating and I am back with my old web host. You might recall that I switched from this host, A-Plus, to a company called Web Host 4 Life a few weeks back? That didn't go so well. The "4" for "for" in the name should have tipped me off, I suppose. Or maybe the fact that their entire "Knowledge Base" looks like it was written by a third-grader. Or the horrible customer service. Anyhow, it was a traumatic run, and after losing all of my NBA Draft commentary during a screwed up FTP transfer last night, I decided to cut bait and run screaming back into the arms of my old, reliable friends at A-Plus. Phew. Hold me, Baby.

As is always the case during DNS redirect periods, things could be a little flaky for a few days. Bear with me. Oh, and the comments? Those are from my NBA post. Fuck it. I'm leavin' 'em there.

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[2006.06.28 - 07:25 A.M.]

The Flag Burning amendment was defeated yesterday by a mere one vote in the Senate. It's a good thing, too. With our national energy policy being the hopeless mess that it is -- thanks largely to a Congress that's too busy dealing with meaningless trivia like this rather than doing right by our nation's interests -- the day's not too far off when we might have to start burning flags to heat our homes.

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[2006.06.27 - 08:00 P.M.]

"If this nation could somehow harness the energy in all the smoke it blows up its own ass, we'd all be able to drive to heaven in Cadillac Escalades." -- Jim Kunstler

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[2006.06.26 - 07:30 A.M.]

Last Winter, for the first time in over a decade, I was cruelly denied one of my life's greatest pleasures: Samiclaus beer. Samiclaus, you see, is a seasonal offering, and while it had proven somewhat difficult to obtain in some years, I had always managed to run some down if I just kept hunting around. Not so, this past year. After investigating at least half a dozen liquor stores -- all of whom stocked impressive varieties of rare imports -- I was finally told by one proprietor that the major distributors for southern New England had stopped carrying my beloved Swiss nectar. In despair, I lamented my fate online until, in the distant reaches of cyberspace, a kindred spirit, keenly sensitive to my plight, said "Dude, they have it here, I'll pick some up for you."

So it was that this past weekend, sitting with the Missus and our guests, Angelos & his wife, in the cloying 100% humidity, I finally sat and sipped the World's Greatest Beer. And though it was an atypical time for such an indulgence, I must report that my pleasure was not diminished. That smoke, the alcohol, the bittersweet caramel goodness. All there. All still quite overwhelmingly enjoyable. (Someday, when Beer Blogging returns in earnest, I will give you all a more complete, more worthy description. For now, this will have to suffice.)

With this wonderful experience still fresh in my memory banks, I give you the Question of the Week: What is your favorite beer?

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[2006.06.25 - 06:30 P.M.]

An Inconvenient Truth: Very well done. Just like the Earth's going to be in, oh, another 50 to 100 years. (rimshot) Hey, come on folks, if you can't laugh at the fact that greed, selfishness and stupidity are on their way to making the planet unlivable for human kind, what can you laugh at? I mean, really. Anyhow, yes, the movie. What to say?

As much as I tried to focus on the message of Inconvenient Truth, my brain kept dragging me back to the messenger. The message, dire as it is, is not news to me. Yes, we're heating up the planet. Yes, we may be pushing the environment into the realm of catastrophic non-linearity. And yes, we need to do something about it right now. I get that. I understand.

What had me grinding my teeth and grimacing, however, was seeing Al Gore -- this patient, intelligent, kind, responsible man -- dutifully trudging about trying to get people to listen and to do the right thing and knowing that there's an army of right-wing scumbags out there working to thwart his efforts, to cast aspersions on his motives, and to sow doubt where there shouldn't be any. I'm trying to pay attention to the graphs and figures and scenes of truly eye-opening environmental changes but all I could keep thinking was this guy should be our fucking president, this guy should be in the White House, leading us, doing something about this problem, and instead we're stuck with that grinning, sadistic clown whose every policy seems custom-designed to make matters worse.

By the time we were walking out to the car, I just wanted to go find the nearest winger and accost them, saying You fucking moron, can't you put your idiot politics aside Just. This. ONCE? And listen? Can't you? Please? This isn't some goddamned joke. Yuk Yuk! Ho, I love global warming! More summer for me! Wheeee! NO. Sorry. Not funny anymore. Global Warming isn't a punch line. It's not a prank, either, not something those meddlesome lefties cooked up just to make you feel guilty about driving your SUV. It's a fuckin' catastrophe and it's barreling down at us at a clip that's shocking even those who understand the phenomenon. The reality is outstripping their worst predictions, see? So this can't be about scoring points for your "side" anymore. This is about whether our species is going to continue to have a home on this planet.

At the end of the movie, they list a series of steps you can take to help reduce individual carbon emissions. Choosing clean energy. Buying a hybrid. You know, crunchy stuff. But the truth, the really inconvenient truth, is that there's only so much we can do as individuals. What we need is leadership. We need people at the top who take this threat seriously and who are willing to change the course that our nation is on. We need people who will stand up to the energy and automobile lobbies and say No, your quarterly profits are not something that our species should commit suicide for.

We need leadership on this one. We need someone to step up.

Al? Are you reading this?

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[2006.06.24 - 11:40 P.M.]

Angelos & Mrs. Angelos are down visiting for the weekend. We're playing Cranium. (They're kicking our asses.) Anyhow, they get a pictionary question. The answer is "Police Woman". Mrs. Angelos starts drawing. Here's Angelos:

"Female cop... Female cop... Police car... Cop... Brooke Shields... Police... Shield Bitch..."

Yep. That's our boy.

(He got "Police Woman" right before the timer ran out. But still.)

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[2006.06.24 - 12:00 P.M.]

I have a question: Am I the only guy who finds that one side of his face is harder to shave than the other? Not hard like awkward, hard like a higher percentage of recalcitrant hairs that just sit there flipping my razor the bird repeatedly. Very odd, no? Or does every guy encounter this?

On a related note, overheard moments ago in Casa De Toast: Me, looking in bathroom mirror: "Jesus fucking Christ am I good-looking today!" (long pause) Tracy: "You are so retarded."

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[2006.06.24 - 11:00 A.M.]

Editor's Note: The following post is not directed at all Southerners. Just at a particular type of Southerner. You know who you are.

Here's a story you've probably heard about from YearlyKos: Tom Schaller, author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, was on a panel with this dude "Mudcat" Saunders, who I gather is a politico/consultant/guru of some sort. After Schaller made his case, "Mudcat" told him that he could "kiss [his] rebel ass" for suggesting that Democrats didn't need to frame their strategy around winning back the South.

I'm not going to weigh in on the political strategy aspect of their disagreement. Hell if I know if Schaller's right or not. I hope he is, because I'd just as soon kick the Bible Belt to the fucking curb so the rest of the nation can get on with our collective life. But I don't know if that's a feasible strategy.

What I do know is this: "Mudcat" Saunders is not a "rebel", and neither is anyone else down there in dear old Dixie.

The Civil War ended one hundred and forty one years ago. Not one person alive today fought in it and I doubt anyone alive even knows anyone who fought in it anymore. Not a single living southerner ever rose up and "rebelled" against the United States government, against the northern states, or against much of any other damned thing. But, man, there's a lot of them who sure do love to strike that fucking tired-ass "rebellious" pose.

Well this Yankee has a request for them: Shut the fuck up.

The rest of us are tired of your attitude. You're not separate, you're not special, you're not essentially different from anyone anywhere else in this country. You're citizens of the United States, not the goddamned Confederacy, so take "rebel" and stick it straight up your ass. The only sense in which you're "rebelling" is in the way that adolescents "rebel" against their older and more mature family members. That's OK if you're thirteen. It's not OK if you're an adult, and it's sure as hell not OK if you're an adult who's trying to help set the political course of this sad fucking nation of ours.

Time to stick a sock in the drooling maw from which that screeching Rebel Yell emanates.

The real "rebels" lost. Grow up.

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[2006.06.24 - 10:15 A.M.]

Garrison Keillor sucks. And I'm not just saying that because he's a wankjob who has, in the relatively recent past, taken pot-shots at northeasterners and atheists. I'm saying it because the dude's just not amusing. Somehow, though, he's managed to convince several million listeners that Quaint + Boring = Funny, and it's kinda sad, 'cause it's like they think they're getting "the joke" when, in point of fact, there's no joke there. That's OK, though. It's OK. Convince yourself the guy's funny if you really feel the need. But do not refer to him as a modern-day Mark Twain. Don't do it. 'Cause if you do, I'm going to have to find you and beat you senseless. That is all.

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[2006.06.24 - 12:10 A.M.]

Bonnie & Clyde: All my life I've grown up associating the phrase "Bonnie & Clyde" with an image of two smooth bank robbers in love, ruthlessly blazing a path across the country. Guess I was a media hype victim. The "true" story -- as told by the movie -- is "Bonnie & Clyde & Sidekick & Clyde's Brother & Clyde's Brother's Obnoxious Wife", a gang of would-be criminals, blazing a trail of hapless attempted robberies across the country. How sad. Both as a movie and as a true story.

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[2006.06.23 - 04:55 P.M.]

If it's Friday (and it is) that can only mean one thing: It's time for Slices of Toast! Grab a drink and gather round the monitor, friends and lurkers, for a random sampling of what's on my mind.

Man, if I were Geoff Ogilvy, I'd be pissed. And not just because my parents chose the weird spelling of "Jeff" either. Nope, I'd be steamed to pick up this week's Sports Illustrated and see that the man I beat to win the U.S. Open, Phil Mickelson, was on the cover over the headline "The Crack-Up: Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open". Yep, I'd be pissed to see my name nowhere at all on that cover after winning one of golf's four major tournaments. But I'd be even more pissed to turn to the table of contents and see:

Back In The Shadow: Phil Mickelson blew the U.S. Open, failing to measure up to Tiger Woods.

That might just send me on a killing spree, considering that Woods didn't even make the final cut in this particular tourney. Of course the fact that my name -- the winner, Geoff Ogilvy's name -- doesn't even appear in the story until 200 words in would probably give me a coronary, preventing said killing spree from really getting off the ground.

Memo to SI: Winners deserve the cover and the spotlight, even if they're not "Big Names". Save the loser's sob story for a back pager.

And I don't even care about golf. Guess this is my week for writing about sports events that I don't care about.

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A Congressionally-commissioned National Research Council study proves conclusively that Global Warming is real, the effect is pronounced, and it is caused by humans.

Suck on that, stupid 'wingers.

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Yesterday, the lead front-page headline of the Hartford Courant read:

Lieberman Goes It Alone

For a moment, my heart almost leapt out of my chest with joy, thinking that George Bush's Favorite Democrat had left the party. Alas, it was not so. The headline merely referred to Lieberman's decision to vote against both Democratic-sponsored Iraq measures.

(sigh)

Oh well. If the man won't leave of his own accord, I guess we'll just have to wait until he exits on the tip of Ned Lamont's shoe.

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Speaking of the Lamont campaign, ain't it wonderful? Democrats and liberals, unhappy with Senator Lieberman's performance in office, decide to rally behind an alternative candidate. They jump into the political process -- some of them for the first time -- and use that amazing tool, the internet, to organize and to make their voices heard. This is democracy at its finest. This is the dream of our Founders made real. It's enough to make you hear the national anthem echoing over the hills as visions of flags wave in your head.

Unless you're a blithering idiot like TNR's Lee Siegel, in which case you hear jackboots and see visions of swastikas:

It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction. It's hard fascism with a Microsoft face. It puts some people, like me, in the equally bizarre position of wanting desperately for Joe Lieberman to lose the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont so that true liberal values might, maybe, possibly prevail, yet at the same time wanting Lamont, the hero of the blogosphere, to lose so that the fascistic forces ranged against Lieberman might be defeated.

Maybe Siegel was hanging out with his stablemate Jon Chait, and that's where he picked up the whole "I'd love Lamont to win, except that it would make the bloggers happy" meme. But the fascism bit? What kind of sick, twisted, bitter freak do you have to be to think it's fascist for left-wing bloggers to rally behind a candidate whose views they agree with? Seriously. What a jack-off.

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Just went out and filled our bird feeder for the weekend. We have a feeder hanging on a shepherd's pole about five feet in front of our living room window. A while back, our neighbors suggested that we take it down because of reports that bears had been attacking bird feeders in our area. We nodded and smiled and said "Oh, really?" And then we went right on filling our bird feeder twice a week. 'Cause, you know, bears? Fuck 'em. Not gonna let the remote threat of some stupid bears stand between us and our birds, dammit.

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Go over to Shakes' place and check out this video-clip of Joss Whedon giving a short speech for the group Equality Now. It's a beautiful and impassioned paean to the strength and grace and greatness of women.

Gotta say, the more I learn about Whedon, the more there is to like. What a pleasant surprise that one of the true creative geniuses of our time -- a man who has brought to my television countless hours of Grade-A entertainment -- should also turn out to have such a great heart.

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[2006.06.22 - 08:15 P.M.]

CoronaThis is what I call creative use of a spray can.

I pass this sign every night when I'm coming home from class. I've probably seen it a dozen times now, and every single time it still cracks my shit up.


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[2006.06.21 - 08:55 A.M.]

The Miami Heat won the NBA championship last night. That's a mild bummer. I like the Mavs a lot more than the Heat. Like their style of play. Like Dirk Nowitzki. Love Mark Cuban, who I truly believe should be the template for pro-sports franchise owners everywhere: Funny, manic, passionate, involved without being a meddler, and always ready to talk smack to the league and to the guys with the whistles. The Heat? Eh. Shaq's just a big, shambling mound these days, and he already had three rings. As for Dwayne Wade Fever, I guess I just haven't caught it yet. So, bummer. But I didn't watch any of the NBA playoffs, so I guess I can't be too upset.

The Carolina Hurricanes won the NHL championship Monday night. That's a very mild bummer. The only reason I gave even the tiniest speck of shit about the NHL finals is that the "Hurricanes" used to be the Hartford Whalers before their owner picked up stakes and left town, leaving our tiny state bereft of any professional teams (no, the Huskies don't count) and screwing over the team's small but loyal fan base. And, no, I wasn't part of that fan base, but as a disinterested observer I think owners who move their teams should be fucked in the ass by the Sports Gods for all eternity. So, bummer. But I haven't watched a professional hockey game in years, so I guess I can't be too upset.

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[2006.06.20 - 05:20 P.M.]

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman still refuses to rule out running as an independent if challenger Ned Lamont beats him in the August primary. Unsurprisingly, he's having to resort to some pretty comical mental gymnastics to rationalize this position:

"If the unexpected happens, do I want to keep open the option of taking my case as an independent Democrat to all the voters of Connecticut so that they can have the last word in November? And that's a question I haven't decided."

There's one big problem here: In the context of an election, there is no such thing as an "independent Democrat". You either run as an independent, or you run as a Democrat.

If Lieberman wants to run as an independent, he should declare his wish to do so now. I say he should go for it. At the very least, dispensing with the whole annoying primary thing will free him up for more Fox News appearances where he can cozy up to the president and attack his former party mates. And he needn't worry about losing the support of Connecticut Democrats because all the independents and "centrists" and even many of our Republicans just love that mellow "bipartisan" streak of his so much.

On the other hand, if he's not willing to take that risk, then he needs to run as a Democrat, and that means submitting to the primary process and, if he has even a shred of honor or integrity left in him, abiding by the outcome of that process.

The worst possible decision would be to drag everyone through a grueling, adversarial primary and then, after losing, jump on the ballot and run anyway as an independent. That would be childish. That would be petty. That would be unscrupulous. That would be self-serving. Oh, wait, that would be... Joe Lieberman.

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[2006.06.19 - 07:00 A.M.]

March Of The Penguins: Omygodthey'resocute!!! No, seriously though: The way they walk, the way they "talk", the way they "love", it's hard not to anthropomorphize these strange and beguiling creatures. Quite the entrancing little nature film. Word of warning, however: Maybe not such a great choice if you're dealing with Inability-To-Have-A-Kid Issues.

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[2006.06.19 - 07:00 P.M.]

Inaugurating a new tradition here at TwoGlasses, the Question of the Week. Other sites have "Questions of the Day", sure, but they're burdened with a problem I don't have: Traffic. No, here at TwoGlasses, we're going to go the more leisurely route, allowing our select visitors a full week to respond and respond again and then respond to others responses. In addition, to facilitate things, I'm going to duplicate the QoTW over in the top of the nav bar, for I am a gracious host, and your comfort and convenience is always foremost in my mind.

Anyhow, our first QoTW is an obvious one, given that it's Father's Day: What's your favorite memory of your Dad?

I've already told you mine below: Picking my Dad up at the train station. Don't know why, but that still has an emotional resonance for me almost three decades after his death.

What's yours? Doesn't matter if your Dad was a Demon or a Saint, you've got to have something.

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[2006.06.18 - 10:40 A.M.]

A "blog" is a website on which one or more authors contribute their thoughts on subjects of all kinds in entries which are called "posts". Got it? An individual entry on a blog is not called a "blog" it's called a "post". I don't know who's responsible for the growing confusion between these two terms -- although I wouldn't be surprised if the scruffy guy on Invasion was to blame -- but it needs to stop right now. Thank you for your compliance in this matter.

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[2006.06.17 - 12:00 P.M.]

My Dad had his second heart attack on a Saturday night. We'd just finished having dinner, my Mother's "famous" home-made pizza, which she hasn't made since. This was twenty-eight years ago. I was nine years old at the time. I was walking past the door to my parents' bedroom, and he was laying there with the light off taking a nap. "Joey," he said, "Go get your mother." Those were the last words he ever said to me, come to think of it.

My grandmother came over to keep an eye on me while my Mother took my Dad to the hospital. I never saw him alive again. Kept on asking Nana what was going on. She kept assuring me everything would be OK. I knew better, of course. Dad died that Sunday at age fifty six.

My Dad had his first heart attack when I was about a year old. He was on a hike with my older brother's Boy Scout troop. He had just married my Mom a few years earlier. His first wife had died of cancer. He had five kids from his first marriage, the youngest of whom was nine years older than me. This is why I tell people that, functionally, I grew up an only child.

Growing up with a father who has had a heart attack changes the father-son relationship. Specifically, it eliminates the whole "doing stuff with your dad" thing that defines boyhood for most males. We did not rough-house or play fight. We did not play ball together. One time, he helped me make a car for the pinewood derby my Cub Scout troop was having. (I won third place, I believe, which made me ecstatic until he said "What are you so proud of? I did all the work." Man, was my Mom pissed at him about that.)

Aside from that, my memories of my Dad at home have coalesced over the years into a single image of him sitting on the couch, smoking a cigar (El Producto), and reading the paper. He would watch the Lawrence Welk Show when it was on. We would watch Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom together. Saturday mornings candlepin bowling was on. Sunday mornings were for music. Mack the Knife stands out in my memory as a staple from those days. Dad did not listen to anything that could remotely be called "contemporary". He hated rock and roll.

Dad was gruff, but generally kind to me. I caught him in his mellow years, you see. By the (admittedly skewed) accounts of my half-siblings, he was quite the hard-ass when they were growing up. A real Archie Bunker type. And he was quite the right winger in all respects save one: He was a fierce supporter of womens' rights. I think I may have picked up my deeply ingrained respect for women from him. Thanks for that, Dad.

He worked right up until he died. Office job somewhere in Boston. I want to say he worked for Honeywell, but I know that's wrong. Maybe something else that begins with an "H". My single favorite memory of my Dad was the ritual of dropping him off at the train station to go to work and then picking him up at night. Some nights we'd get out of the car and stand on the platform waiting for the train. I loved trains. As the Boston & Main commuter train would approach, my Mother would always caution me not to stand too close or I'd get "sucked under" the train. It wasn't until significantly later that I finally concluded that there was no physical principle underlying this admonishment. When I was very young, my mother and I would drive down to the train station to get him and I'd "hide" in the back seat. He'd get in the car and pretend not to know I was there. A few blocks from the station, I'd pop up and "scare" him. Yeah, nice thing to do to a guy with a heart condition, I know.

That was my Dad in a nutshell: The Train and the Couch.

That is how I came by my concept of a "normal" adult life. A man gets up and goes to work in the morning. He puts in his time at Nameless Corp. He comes home at night and sits on the couch in his nice, comfortable suburban home. He talks to his wife. All is well in the world. That is normal. That is stable.

The odds of my becoming a father are now vanishingly remote. In most other respects, however, I have replicated the pattern that was set before me. Although my Dad was only around for a quarter of my life, he left his mark. His son matured into a gruff but essentially kind man with a seriously opinionated streak. His son married the love of his life. His son works a regular job and owns a nice house in the 'burbs. His son watches sports and sits on the couch a lot. It is not a spectacular life, but it is a stable one. It is a "normal" life his son has made for himself.

I think my Dad would have liked me.

Happy Father's Day.

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[2006.06.16 - 05:45 P.M.]

I had the Tornado Dream last night, one of two* truly recurring dreams that I have. The Tornado Dream is where I'm in a building someplace and I look out and there's a tornado in the distance. And, yeah sure, tornados are sorta random, right, but I always know that it's going to come at me and it always does. Keeps getting closer every time I look. Then it's there, and it either goes right past me -- within touching distance -- or I wake up. Last night, I was in a foyer of some kind with Tracy and her brother when it came. Just as it arrived, I lifted up a couch and put it over us as a shield. Weird. I have no idea why this dream keeps coming to me. Hell, I live in Connecticut. I've never even seen a tornado in person.

(*The other one is the Footwear In A State Of Non-Readiness Dream. Don't ask.)

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In the wake of all the Yearly Kos coverage, the following meme has been getting a ton of play:

Talk Radio : Right Wing :: Blogosphere : Left Wing

Fair enough. Makes you think, though. Isn't it funny that the blogosphere is an interactive medium where liberals talk to each other in pretty much unfettered fashion, while talk radio is an arrangement where one Big Mouth makes a series of pronouncements from on high, occasionally allowing one of the mewling puppies who follow him to mimic his barking on air? I wonder if that discrepancy speaks to any, I dunno, fundamental difference between right and left.

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Ocean Blue Margarita: 4 oz. Tequila, 1 oz. Triple Sec, 2 oz. Blue Curacao, 1/4 cup Lime Juice, 1 tsp. sugar. Blend/shake with lots of chopped ice. Serve with salt. Be happy.

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OK, so have you seen Joe Lieberman's latest "attack" ad? If you're looking for a quick laugh, check it out. I cannot imagine how desperate Lieberman must be to put something like this out there. A cartoon depicting Lamont as the cub to Lowell Weicker's big bad bear? Yeah, that'll swing some votes. Among the 3-4-year-old demographic that's still afraid of bears. (OK, it might get Lieberman Stephen Colbert's vote too.)

Newsflash for the Chinless Wonder: In terms of strategic value, tying your opponent to Lowell Weicker, a Connecticut independent who is still remembered fondly by a great many of his former constituents, isn't about to offset the far more legitimate link that Lamont has drawn between your sorry ass and the Arrogant Bungler In Chief. But really, if that's the best you've got, keep 'em coming. I'm always up for some comic relief.

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Tracy is downstairs right now, acting in her capacity as Chef's Assistant for the Stir Fry Extravaganzza I'm about to cook up, and as she's slicing a green pepper, she says "Ooooh, this is so cool when there's a pepper growing inside a pepper." I pause, horrified. "What?" "Look!" She holds open the cavernous inside of a pepper and there, inside, is a pale green baby pepper. "That. Is. Gross." I respond. "No! It's cool!" Uh... huhhhhhhhwwwwrrrgggghhhhhsssshudddder. No. It's not. (sigh) Looks like we'll be eating freaky alien peppers tonight.

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[2006.06.16 - 07:20 A.M.]

This one ratchets up my stress level just the tiniest amount every single morning as we listen to NPR: People who use the archaic pronunciation of "WH" words that slips what us normal people regard as the silent "H" in front of the "W", thus creating a "hhhhWoooshing" sound. Nothing gives me a low-grade migraine like hearing pretentious twits pronounce the words "white" and "where" as "hhhWite" and "hhhWare". Listen up, doofi: If the "H" was meant to come before the "W", those words would be spelled "Hwite" and "Hwere", no? So just stop it. Think of that "H" as you would a small child: It should be seen, not heard.

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[2006.06.14 - 06:20 P.M.]

In the midst of further rumination on Greider's piece that I linked to over the weekend, a friend of mine asked me if I didn't think that Greider's proposal to basically tax the bejesus out of corporations in the service of achieving the laudable social goals he set forth wouldn't chase those companies overseas. My answer was that I think a certain amount of corporate emigration would be unavoidable -- particularly when it comes to those giant multinationals that wish to continue being socially irresponsible -- but hey, good riddance to 'em. When they leave, they will create a vacuum, and in that vacuum is an opportunity for a new corporate model to emerge.

As I thought about this, however, I decided that Greider's solution of hammering all corporations with a monster 45% tax rate and then letting them "work off" the points with good behavior struck me as too overtly punitive in nature (and cumbersome to administer to boot). Instead, why not let our current crop of corporations go about their business, but at the same time begin planting the seeds of a new, more socially-responsible breed of corporate citizen? Call it the "R-Corporation". R for "responsible", not to be confused with "Republican". Oh, hell, I suggested "C" at first for "community" but a buddy of mine pointed out that was taken, so then I was going to go with "F" for "fuck you for pointing that out and forcing me to think of something else". But I digress. Regardless of the designation, these entities would play by a new set of rules and be rewarded in kind.

Here's the idea: An "R-Corporation" would be incorporated under a new arrangement where they'd get highly favorable tax and regulatory status at both the local and federal level and be allowed to participate in a new government-administered health-insurance program, relieving them of the burden of spiraling medical costs. The price of these benefits could include any or all of the following:

  1. A specific, contractually-enforceable commitment to provide a certain wage base (a specified number of jobs above a certain baseline living wage) for the communities where they are physically located .

  2. A cap on Executive pay which would be set at a multiple of the annual salary of their lowest-wage employee.

  3. Some sort of employee profit-sharing system that would guarantee workers see some of the fruits of their increased productivity.

  4. A requirement that they adhere to current "best practices" with regard to environmental impact and energy efficiency.

  5. Voluntary participation in a "Sunshine" program which mandates the highest standards of financial transparency in all stock/securities matters.

Basically, the plan boils down to the government stepping in and giving a hand up to any business that refuses to participate in the Race to the Bottom that currently drives 90% of business behavior. Some of these ideas would no-doubt be denounced as heresy or socialism or worse, but in today's cut-throat marketplace I'd bet there are plenty of entrepreneurs who would jump at the incentives and happily bear the added responsibility. And by making it an "opt-in" arrangement you would largely de-fang the big business lobbies that scream bloody murder over the sort of blanket arrangement that Greider suggests.

So what do you think? Hare-brained scheme or rare moment of creativity and insight?

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[2006.06.14 - 07:25 A.M.]

Here they come. Do you hear them coming, bounding across the media horizon? (Boing! Boing! Boing!) The Bush Bounce stories are heading to a newspaper, television, or radio near you. Hell, I've only been awake for an hour and already both NPR and the Washington Post have gleefully informed me that things are lookin' up for the White House! Karl Rove's off the hook in Plamegate, so they've got some breathing room, baby! Hot damn, why, the President's stunning six-hour layover in Baghdad should have those poll numbers cresting into the mid-thirties any day now! Take it away, WaPo:

The spate of positive developments may have arrested the president's months-long slide in opinion polls, at least for now. Bush's approval rating has risen from a low of 31 percent in May to 38 percent this week, according to a USA Today-Gallup poll. Zarqawi's death seems to have somewhat shored up confidence in the prospects for victory in Iraq, with 48 percent now believing the United States will win, compared with 39 percent in April.

Comments, Mr. President?

(sniff) "They don't hate me. They really don't hate me."

Ruh-hiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Memo to the Press: Nothing has changed, substantively, absolutely nothing. The war's still a mess. The economy still sucks for most people. And we still have a bunch of Constitution-shredding criminals running the show. Try to remember all that in your unseemly eagerness to dust off and re-deploy those creaky old story lines about "George Bush: Super-Duper Extra-Popular Good Guy Winner".

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[2006.06.11 - 12:20 P.M.]

If you can read this, that means TwoGlasses.com has successfully moved to our new host, WebHost4Life.

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[2006.06.11 - 10:50 P.M.]

Life of Brian: No, I really had not seen this prior to last night, and no, I have no excuse for the oversight, OK? Good. Now, see, that was laugh-out-loud comedy. It's been some time since I've watched any Monty Python, and I'd forgotten just how strong they can bring the Funny. Best Scene? When the Roman guard comes by and finds Brian writing "Romans Go Home" and starts correcting him on his Latin. I thought I was going to fall off the couch.

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[2006.06.10 - 08:00 P.M.]

Ohmygod I want a meerkat. Tracy and I just watched the premiere of Animal Planet's new show Meerkat Manor. We couldn't take our eyes off the TV to eat. These little things are shockingly cute. They're so... people-like. Standing up on their little legs all alert and stuff. Fascinating.

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[2006.06.10 - 02:30 P.M.]

I took the plunge and signed up with a new web host today, so if the site suddenly isn't accessible or you get some generic page instead of my beautiful black and blue hues, don't go hanging yourself or anything. Shouldn't be down for longer than a day or two, if that.

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[2006.06.10 - 02:00 P.M.]

William Greider has a phenomenal, must-read piece in the Nation. This paragraph just about took my breath away (emphasis mine):

[T]he way is now open for alternative thinking: the new ideas that can lead to a new governing order. These ideas must be grounded in a determination to give people back their future. The strange paradox of our times is that despite America's fabulous wealth, most people's lives are shadowed by economic anxieties and real confinements, the wounds that market ideology has imposed. They fear that much worse is ahead for their children. Reform must re-establish this fundamental principle: The economy exists to support society and people, not the other way around. Only government can liberate them from the harsh rule of the marketplace, the demands imposed by capital and corporations that stunt or stymie the full pursuit of life and liberty in this complex industrial society. This very wealthy country has the capacity to insure that all citizens, regardless of status or skills, have the essential needs to pursue secure, self-directed lives. This starts with the right to health, work, livable incomes and open-ended education, and to participate meaningfully in the decisions that govern their lives. The marketplace has no interest in providing these. It is actively destroying them.

That is laying the visionary smack down. "The economy exists to support society and people, not the other way around." Thirteen words that perfectly encapsulate everything I've ever thought or felt about economics. And trust me, people, he's just getting warmed up. If you read one thing this weekend, make it this article. Well... wait, you're already reading this. If you read two things this weekend, make the second one Greider's article. OK? OK.

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[2006.06.09 - 05:53 P.M.]

Friday NIGHT, bitchezz!!! Time to pull some slices from the Toaster! FSMdammit, it's 5:53 PM and I am loaded. Decided to make Mojitos tonight for the wife and myself and, um, well first I had to make a Test Batch and I made 'em strong and then I ended up drinking both of the Test Subjects because someone spent a little too much time at Whole Foods and and and... (sigh). What's a hubbin' to do? Had to take one for the team and make Tracy a fresh one and I couldn't let the original one I made for her go to waste and...

Do any of you have ANY idea how much the Toast loves the Friday?

I don't think you do. It's a love too big for most people to get their head around.

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Sometimes I don't have the words to express how cool my wife is. We're sitting here drinking and surfing in the office with the Weekend Mix playing on iTunes, right? So Too Legit To Quit comes on, and I'm sitting there, arms crossed, giving her the smart eye, waiting to bust out the hand signs that accompany the chorus and impress the schizzle out of her. Chorus hits? She's on top of it. She's flashing me the 2 L Q and I'm like, wow, this woman is too much. She's too cool. Fuck.

On the other hand, my new Mojito Dance is sparkin' mad. So at least I've got that going on.

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Quick Shout Out: Happy Anniversary to Angelos and Erica. Congratulations on your first year of marriage.

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So you all heard that Ann Coulter flung some of her slime at the 9-11 widows, claiming that she's never seen a bunch of wives "enjoying" their husbands deaths so much. There's not much that a rational person can say in response to that. The only appropriate response would be for one of those widows to beat the piece of shit into a bloody pulp. But, failing that, Rude Pundit's beat down serves as a decent fall-back option:

It is a sad truism in the business of whoredom that someone younger, hotter, more hardcore is gonna come along and take away half the johns that the older skanks used to pleasure. One day, you can be blow job queen of the Strip; the next day, a 19 year-old with DSLs that'll suck a cock clean in three minutes or less is gonna have 'em linin' up like free burger day at the drive-through. So you gotta get crazier. Show that these little slits with tits are nothin' compared to you. Pretty soon, you're not only walkin' around in nothin' but a g-string and tube top, you're promisin' you'll go places no other hooker in Vegas'll go: "Yeah, sure, you can shit on my twat and then fuck me through the shit." "Yeah, you can bloody my asshole with a bottle and then fuck me through the blood." "Yeah, you can get ten of your friends to run a train on me while you stand on the side and jack off on a little boy holding a kitten before you make me eat the kitten." Then you can head back to the corner, hold your head up, spit out kitten hair, and show all the little slutettes who the nastiest cunt is.

Yep, that's our little Annie. Pushing the boundaries every damned day to prove that she's the Lowest of the Low.

Disagree with the 9-11 widows' public statements if you will. That's cool. But attacking a bunch of women whose husbands actually burned to death or were crushed in that most singular of attacks that, as we all know, Changed Everything? The same attack your ideological cohort has been demagoguing for years? Congratulations you sick fucking bitch. That's about the most disgusting thing I can conceive of.

Wouldn't this be a great opportunity for some right-wing fan of Coulter's -- anyone, really -- to say "No, that was wrong. That's too far."? Yeah, I think it would be too. But I'm not holding my fucking goddamned breath.

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Ho. Ly. Shit. OK, I knew my boy Aaron at Hornswaggler was, uh, shall we say, obsessive about certain things. Like Philly sports in particular. And, like, the Eagles even more particular. Ly.

But I did not know -- and really, how could I have? -- that he was one of the blogosphere's premiere Lost obsessives. I mean... this? And this?

Yikes. I am impressed. And a little bit afraid, true. But impressed, mainly.

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[2006.06.09 - 07:15 A.M.]

As you may have heard, yesterday, the Senate blocked a vote to permanently repeal the estate tax. The repercussions of this decision are as shocking as they are painful: At some point in the not too distant future, a very, very, very rich person will die, and their very, very rich heirs will be forced to settle for something less than every last penny they might have had coming to them. To them I say this: Know that I feel your pain, and that I stand in emotional solidarity with you.

I will now shed a tear.

(squeeeeeeeeeeeeze)

Come on... come on...

(mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmpphhh....)

Push! PUSH!!!

(rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....ghah!)

Ah, fuck it. Stupid tear ducts.

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[2006.06.08 - 05:00 P.M.]

If you read Bill Simmons, or if you think A-Rod's an overhyped jerk who can't hit in the clutch, or if you're just a baseball fan who wants a textbook lesson on how statistics and sound reasoning can be used to utterly destroy the unjustified stereotypes that have become attached to one of the league's best players, then you have to read this masterpiece by Lane Meyer of NoMaas.org.

As my readers know, I'm a big fan of Simmons' writing. He's given me more belly laughs and spit-takes over the last few years than any author I can think of and there are plenty of days when he is still the maestro of culture-saavy sports writing. His recent stuff on the Yankees generally and A-Rod in particular, however, has just been atrocious. It's not the old Red Sox-Yankees sparring he used to offer which, while obviously biased, was genuinely funny. Nope, lately his writing on The Rivalry has been spiteful, random, and terribly unfunny. Maybe he'll read Meyer's piece and see the light. If not, he'd be better off recusing himself from further commentary on the Yankees than continuing his recent string of embarrassingly unfair and uninformed pieces.

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[2006.06.08 - 07:20 A.M.]

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, killed last night in a bombing raid by U.S. forces. I suppose that, as an America-Hating Leftist™, I should be sitting here wringing my hands and worrying if this will help Bush's poll numbers. Since I'm made of flesh and blood, however, rather than straw, I'll just say, Nice job, guys. It's good to wake up and find out that there's one less vicious thug in the world.

Update: Just saw the headline "Oil Tumbles on al-Zarqawi News". Wow, so he was the son of a bitch making me pay $3.20 a gallon for gas? Who knew? Seriously, though, markets are so weird.

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[2006.06.07 - 07:10 P.M.]

Kos has an interesting post here musing on what he believes is an emerging ideological category, "Libertarian Democrats":

Traditional "libertarianism" holds that government is evil and thus must be minimized. Any and all government intrusion is bad. While practical libertarians (as opposed to those who waste their votes on the Libertarian Party) have traditionally aligned themselves with the Republicans, it's clear that the modern GOP has no qualms about trampling on personal liberties. Heck, it's become their raison d' etre.

The problem with this form of libertarianism is that it assumes that only two forces can infringe on liberty -- the government and other individuals.

The Libertarian Democrat understands that there is a third danger to personal liberty -- the corporation. The Libertarian Dem understands that corporations, left unchecked, can be huge dangers to our personal liberties.

Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians. But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn't believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck is effective in checking the power of corporations.

Yup. For as long as I can remember, every time I've heard libertarians and other anti-government types going on about Big Government wanting to run our lives, I've shook my head thinking "No, dipshit, it's Big Money that's trying to run our lives. That's the real threat to individual liberty in this country."

I had a word for my belief system: Liberaltarianism. Traditional liberal when it comes to using the government to reign in the excesses of capitalism, but deeply libertarian when it came to matters of individual prerogative. Frankly, I think "Libertarian Democrat" is a lot less clumsy sounding. Whatever you want to call it, it's the right set of priorities for running a country.

Update: Just want to add that, if you're looking for somebody who self-identifies as a libertarian but leans liberal/Democrat at the polls, look no further than Mrs. Toast. Not everyone who's walked under the libertarian banner is a foaming-at-the-mouth government-eliminationist, and I can't imagine that, after the six-year orgy of right-wing authoritarian government and crony corporatist capitalism we've just been through, my wife's the only one who's decided to give liberalism a second look.

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[2006.06.07 - 06:15 P.M.]

Used to be I'd wonder about people who always claimed they had back pain. Back pain? How bad could that be? What can go wrong with a back? I mean, it's just a back, what's there to be in pain? Seriously, I never understood what all the bitching and moaning was about.

Can I just say that never, ever in my life have I been more eager to return to a state of blissful ignorance? Ugh.

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[2006.06.05 - 02:25 P.M.]

I'm not 100% sure, but I may have just had the best Reuben I've ever had in my life. It was certainly in the top three. Tracy and I stopped at Rein's Deli in Vernon, Connecticut on our way back from Boston. I'd heard of them. I knew they were supposed to make a mean sandwich. But... wow. The rye bread was greasy. The melted swiss cheese spilled out from where the sandwich had been sliced and pooled on the plate. The pastrami. Oh, the pastrami. So tender. So flavorful. The only thing I'd ding them for was putting the Russian dressing on the side. Russian dressing should not be treated as an optional element of any proper Reuben. Still, aside from that minor technicality, a freakin' masterpiece of a sandwich. If you're in the area and you're a Reuben fan, check Rein's out.

On a related note, I recently noticed that there's a strong correlation between how many napkins you need while eating something and how bad for you it is. Very interesting.

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[2006.06.04 - 10:00 A.M.]

FUCK! Fucking FUCK! What better way to start the day than by accidentally over-writing everything you wrote yesterday? I can't think of any, can you? Fucking stupid fucking retard. Ugh.

Update: As you can see, I'm attempting to restore the missing material from the great backup hard drive that is called My Brain. Sorry for any discrepancies from the originals.

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[2006.06.03 - 04:40 P.M.]

North By Northwest: My hands are still sweating and clammy from that final scene on Mount Rushmore. Phew! Well, then, that was a snappy little adventure. Quite enjoyable. I have to admit that I was relieved to discover that it was in color and not black and white. For some reason I had assumed it was the latter. Oh, and Cary Grant is one scrawny dude. What's up with that?

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[2006.06.03 - 01:00 P.M.]

I just had one of those Ben Folds Moments that forcefully remind me why he is the Poet Laureate of Toast Nation:

Landed:

The daily dramas she made from nothing
So nothing ever made them right
She liked to push me and talk me back down
Until I believed I was the crazy one,
and in a way
I guess I was...

But I opened my eyes and walked out the door
And the clouds came tumbling down
And it's bye-bye, goodbye I tried
Treading a sea of a troubled mind
Had to leave myself behind
Singing bye-bye, goodbye I tried

Seriously, it's like the dude can practically make me bawl on demand.

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[2006.06.03 - 11:30 A.M.]

Wow. This story is seriously cool:

As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis's laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens.

In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples -- water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis's home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001 -- contain microbes from outer space.

Specifically, Louis has isolated strange, thick-walled, red-tinted cell-like structures about 10 microns in size. Stranger still, dozens of his experiments suggest that the particles may lack DNA yet still reproduce plentifully, even in water superheated to nearly 600 degrees Fahrenheit . (The known upper limit for life in water is about 250 degrees Fahrenheit.)

So how to explain them? Louis speculates that the particles could be extraterrestrial bacteria adapted to the harsh conditions of space and that the microbes hitched a ride on a comet or meteorite that later broke apart in the upper atmosphere and mixed with rain clouds above India.

If his theory proves correct, the cells would be the first confirmed evidence of alien life and, as such, could yield tantalizing new clues to the origins of life on Earth.

First off, this would be an absolutely amazing scientific discovery. But, secondly, can you imagine how batshit crazy this would drive all the religio-wingers? Red alien cells??!! Hmmmmmmm. Could they have come from... Sayyyy-tan?

Hat-tip: Wife.

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[2006.06.03 - 10:00 A.M.]

So I'm reading this article in the New York Times about the Chevy Impala and the decline of American car manufacturing, and I come to this paragraph:

In the 1960's, the Impala was king of the road. General Motors sold more than a million of them in 1965. Now the Impala is still the best-selling American car, but it is selling less than a third of that total.

Wait a second. The Chevy Impala is the best-selling American-made car? How can that be? I do not know, nor have I ever known in my life, anyone who drives an Impala. So how can it be the best-selling American made car?

Update: Later in the article:

"The American companies spent so much time focusing on trucks and S.U.V.'s that they neglected their cars," Mr. Moody [of Edmunds.com] said. "Now they're just playing catch-up."

Fucking retards.

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[2006.06.02 - 05:45 P.M.]

It's Friday Night! Let's see... Computer? Check. Music? Check. Whisky? Double check. Plug in the toaster and turn the dial to extra crispy, 'cause it's time for... Slices Of Toast!

Item The First: I cannot see the back, sides or top of my head. I imagine you can't either. This simple truth is something that most of us probably don't spend much time contemplating, but it was brought home to me in jarring fashion the other day when I went to get a haircut. It was my first time trying out a new barbershop near my office. Come in, wait, wait some more, and then I am beckoned to the chair. I sit down, give the man with the scissors his orders, and we're good to go. And then he turns the chair around. So I'm facing out the door, not at the mirror. Uhhh... ?

It was very odd. For fifteen minutes, my attention was focused on a parking lot and some trees. I had no idea what was going on. Couldn't see myself. Couldn't see the barber. Very, very disconcerting experience. First time anyone's ever put me in that position during this particular operation. And yet, I gotta say... great haircut.

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The right has seriously lost their shit over the Haditha Massacre. There's a full-bore effort underway to simultaneously downplay the seriousness of the tragedy and blame the left for using it to -- wait for it -- undermine our troops. Michelle Malkin was all over this theme in an op-ed the other day, and several marginally-less-insane 'winger voices have taken it up as well. The bestest of these is some dude named Peter Ingemi, who Instapundit quotes as saying:

Our press and the anti-American left both in this country and outside of it has been reporting "Hadithas" over and over again over the last three years.

Time and time again our friends have accused us of every possible atrocity that there is to the point that internationally people are already able to believe this or the 9/11 stuff or all the rest.

Because of this, internationally it is totally irrelevant if the Marines actually violated the rules of war. Our foes are going to say that we've done things if we do them or not, so the only people that it really matters to will be; the people killed (and family) and the people in our own country who support the military.

The real danger is that we who support the war will reach the point that we say "we might as well be taken as wolves then as sheep". At that point the left can celebrate that they have made our military and those who support it the people they claim we are. Once that happens however any compunction about respecting them will be gone, and remember one side is armed and one is not.

Love it, no? Nothing gets my weekend started right like having the knuckle-dragging right make (barely) veiled threats against people of my political stripe. And, as I said to Insta (we're on a first-name basis) in an email, I'm not sure what's more infuriating, the constant suggestions that the American right is going to rise up and literally start kicking liberal ass or the blasé assumption that we lefties are all a bunch of pussies who wouldn't or couldn't defend ourselves were that to happen.

I would say "Hat Tip: Angelos" but I can't really tip my hat to someone who forces me to read right-wing ravings. Instead, therefore, I will say "Wag of the Finger: Angelos".

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Speaking of Haditha, here's Salkowitz:

Personally, I’m not surprised this happened. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. When you give 19 year olds automatic weapons, train them to kill, and drop them in the middle of a foreign country full of people even the most sympathetic of whom likely deeply resent our presence, it’s miraculous that the entire occupation isn’t an unbroken string of atrocious stories.

That’s the inconvenient truth about even “good” wars: they’re violent. A lot of human lives are wrecked or ended for no good reason. A lot of people who thought they had a future in this world, or wanted to stick around to see their children grow up, or were about to write a heartbreaking novel, or whose wit and good humor were always beloved by their families, end up spending their final moments screaming in pain or cringing in terror of imminent, anonymous, premature death. The luckiest are probably the ones who never knew what hit them.

Rob Salkowitz, people. Writing skills that are simply too good for the blogosphere. Somebody get that man a byline.

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Earlier today, Atrios was commenting on how denial of global warming has somehow become a mandatory article of faith that all good right wingers are required to parrot:

Speaking of hot days, the right wing denial of global warming is somewhat amusing. Sure there are the industry-funded shills (and those who want to get themselves some of that good wingnut welfare) and the professional contrarians, but it doesn't stop there. Global warming denial has become one of those obligatory positions for conservatives. It's a little bizarre. What's conservative about it, really? I have no idea. But for those in the conservative movement it's a required position, and even the college kids are hip to it.

I was thinking along these same lines recently, not with regard to global warming but with regard to some of the other Truly Crazy Shit that has been etched into the stone tablets of the Right Wing Bible over the years. See, the other day I was talking to a hard-core conservative co-worker of mine, and he mentioned that he frequently reads and usually agrees with both Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. My voice dripping with contempt, I said "Oh, great. One tries to defend Japanese internment and the other thinks Joe McCarthy was a great guy."

Now, you figure that's a conversation stopper, right? Nope. "Well, I think they both had valid points there," he replies. "I see those things in shades of gray."

Um, hello? There are no shades of gray when it comes to rounding up an entire population based on ethnicity and putting them in concentration-style camps. There are no shades of gray when it comes to orchestrating a politically-driven witch hunt based on fear and demagoguery that destroyed numerous lives.

Anyhow, later, after the shock had worn off, I found myself wondering: How does a seemingly normal and decent guy get there? How does that happen? Twenty years ago, nobody -- absolutely no one -- would have publicly admitted sympathies for McCarthy or internment. We all took history in High School. We all took civics classes. We had, I thought, arrived at a shared national understanding about these events. Namely, that they were two of the more shameful episodes in our nation's history and they illustrated that we, as Americans, must never complacently assume that we're immune to humanity's baser impulses.

Yet here we are. Somehow, I get the feeling that if my neighbor in Cubeville has internalized this shit even to a limited degree, things are much worse out there in the far reaches of Wingerdom. In America, in 2006, if the GOP Noise Machine says "Believe This Crazy-Ass Shit", there are literally tens of millions of people who say "OK! I believe it!"

That just does not compute for me.

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I just saw Richard Cohen on Last Comic Standing. No, I kid thee not. He was going under the name "David Kinion" for some reason. Probably didn't want to bias the judges in his favor. Don't believe me? At 51 minutes into the premiere of LCS season 4, check out the dude with the big weird face, the scruffy white hair, and the dorky looking glasses. Yeah, that guy. The one who one of the judges asks "Have you ever made anyone laugh in your life? Ever?" Tell me that's not Richard Cohen. Bitch is trying to burnish his comedy cred after dissing Colbert.

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[2006.06.02 - 07:30 A.M.]

Some thoughts from the couch:

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[2006.06.01 - 07:20 P.M.]

If you needed more proof that every decision made by the federal government under Bush -- every single last goddamned decision, no matter how consequential -- is driven by politics, you need only consider this latest outrage: New York City, according to the Department of Homeland Security, has no significant landmarks or icons, and therefore they're getting their security funding cut:

NEW YORK -- From Times Square and the Empire State Building to the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty, New York is a city of spectacular landmarks. Ask any of the 41 million tourists who visited last year.

But according to the Homeland Security Department, New York has no national monuments or icons _ a determination that led to a 40 percent cut in anti-terrorism funding.

New Yorkers are seething over the news, and some are demanding the firing of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., charged that the Bush administration had "declared war on New York" with its decision to reduce anti-terrorism funding by $83 million while increases went to cities like Jacksonville, Fla., Louisville, Ky., and Omaha, Neb.

"I'm not begrudging any other city, but why would you cut the No. 1 target in the country by 40 percent?" said King, who demanded an investigation. "How can you possibly justify that?"

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday said President Bush "should not come back to New York and stand with us" until his administration comes up with more money to keep New York safe.

Don't worry, Chuck. Bush isn't up for re-election. Why would he feel the need to come back to your den of Blue State iniquity?

The obscene political calculation that prompted this decision is remarkable even by the standards of the Bush Era, and yet it is eclipsed by the mind-bending denial of reality underlying the so-called "analysis" DHS did.

Come on: New York City doesn't have any icons? New York City is a fucking icon.

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