Colin Powell is shocked, shocked to discover that Barack Obama is exactly who conservatives said he was last year:

        

Just look at him, clinging to his guns and love of country. Such behavior should immediately be reported to DHS.



Have a Happy Fourth tomorrow.

        

Today is one of those days I'm glad this blog doesn't cover Arizona politics to any great detail: There's a nasty Red-on-Red fight going on right now between Governor Jan Brewer and Senate President Bob Burns over the state budget.

Espressopundit has the low-down on all the nastiness, and brother, is it getting nasty. Good job, Arizona GOP, you've managed to do what I thought was impossible: You're even more petulant and childish than the Democrats in Washington.

        

"You are not going to wake up in the morning and discover he is crying in Argentina."
   — Charles Krauthammer on Mitt Romney.

        

Just like the Washington Post, I too am willing to arrange meetings with any and all of the important people I know, starting at the modest price of $25,000.

Although why anyone would want to spend that amount of money just to meet the assistant principal of a middle school is quite beyond me.

        

Mega-colony of Argentinian ants takes over the world.

In a related item, Barack Obama announced he was extending an outreach to the moderate Linepithema community and looking forward to a vigorous debate with the ants regarding their possible future as the dominant species on the planet.

        

July 4th weekend is usually a time for good-ol' shoot-'em-up, splodey-boom-boom popcorn fare. But if you want to deeply impact the direction of Hollywood, consider seeing another type of movie:

The Stoning of Soraya M. is a "Schindler's List" for a new generation — a film that starkly exposes the brutality of a regime that is almost impossible for the modern Western mind to comprehend, but is true nonetheless. It won't be seen as that, I fear, by the elites in modern American culture. After all, it condemns an immoral Iranian culture and power structure the enlightened President Obama is trying to respectfully engage...

If The Stoning of Soraya M. has one enduring message, it is that Iran under Sharia Law is as savage, brutal and unfree as any society in modern memory. And the fact that this is happening to women (and men) in Iran, even today, should be an international shame. These atrocities have to end. And it is perhaps divine providence that this film debuts in the same month that young Iranians are taking to the streets and enduring the bullets of their oppressors to topple their barbaric regime.

Needless to say, liberal movie critics are shocked and appalled since the bad guys are neither Evangelical Christians nor American soldiers. If this film finds a strong audience, maybe Hollywood will reconsider their lazy tropes and go-to bogeymen.

(Via Infinite Monkeys)

        

"Female gang may have killed midget wrestlers"

Now there's a Russ Meyer film just *waiting* to happen.

        

Last month was one of the coolest Junes on record.

I ain't complainin', although the humidity is a bit hard to bear at times, but I wonder who we should blame for our nicer weather? If the temperature goes up, it's because of global warming. If the temperature goes down, it's because of global warming.

Who do we blame if the temperature stays the same?

I expect Al Gore will accuse manbearjavelina of being behind all this somehow.

        

Gov. Romney unveiling his portrait. The real Romney  is the one on the right, asking for an oil can.

The official portrait of Gov. Mitt Romney was unveiled in the Massachusetts State House last night. Oddly, the painting was more lifelike than the actual Mitt Romney:

Former Gov. Mitt Romney returned to the State House last night for the unveiling of his official portrait, one that portrays him as a devoted husband and an architect of the state’s first-in-the-nation universal health care law.

Painted by New Hampshire artist Richard Whitney and funded by Romney’s campaign account, the $30,000 portrait depicts the governor seated at the front edge of his desk wearing his trademark business suit. Beside him is a small framed photo of his wife, Ann, and a copy of the health care reform law he called his greatest achievement.

In the gold-framed painting, behind the seated Romney there is another gold-framed painting. It's hard to make out, but it's actually a painting of Romney unveiling his official portrait. And within that painting, another even smaller painting.

Like the famed Hasselhoffian Recursion, Mitt is gonna Blow. Your. Mind.

        

        

"Obama says he's looking forward to working with Al Franken. And why not? They wouldn't be where they are today if not for Lorne Michaels."

- Jim Treacher, via Twitter

        

Finally.

When even MSNBC is leaning towards calling it a self-defense shooting, you can be pretty sure it was a wrongful conviction. 

        

Thank goodness Al Franken is now a Senator. We need more calm, rational voices of reason like him on Capitol Hill, and quickly.

        

John Hawkins of Right Wing News recently polled right-of-center bloggers (including yours truly) on Gov. Mark Sanford, global wamring, health care and other issues of the day. See how your viewpoints line up!

        

Vox is looking to do another Arizona blogger get-together, this time out in the wild, wild West Side.

I figure it's our turn. Besides, we East End Boys could swing by Cabela's on the way out there to look at all the bright, shiny toys we can't afford.

Leave your ideas for time and place in the comments at her blog.

        

Fortune magazine marks the passing of this iconic film with a retrospective of 60 years of photos from its archives.


Never did like that Paul Simon song that much, but it seemed appropriate here.

I shot a lot of Kodachrome as a kid on photo-trips alongside my Dad as we followed the CP through the Rockies , but I pretty much didn't shoot it anymore once I turned pro. You couldn't clip-test it and the colors were always too much on the red side, but it's fantastic as a photojournalism film, hence it's widespread use by Nat'l Geo.

        

In a media first, the president's speech was broadcast and photographed  using only night-vision technology with the help of about 300 candles.

Aiming to keep the focus on climate change legislation, President Barack Obama put in a plug for administration efforts to drastically reduce energy use by lamps and lighting equipment.

In the past, the president emphasized using CFLs, LEDs and other low-energy bulbs to reduce the nation's carbon footprint. But today Obama asked American consumers to remove light bulbs altogether and use night vision goggles instead.

"I know night vision goggles may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise." the president said, equipped with the high-tech eyewear. "Seven percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and businesses," he continued, standing with the also-goggled Energy Secretary Steven Chu at the White House.

Not since Jimmy Carter famously wore a sweater for a televised address has a president employed outerwear to promote a reduction in personal energy use.

Obama said his "Seeing Green" goggle initiative would result in substantial savings between 2012 and 2042, saving consumers up to $4 billion annually, conserving enough energy to power every U.S. home for 10 months, reducing emissions equal to the amount produced by 166 cars a year, and eliminating the need for as many as 14 coal-fired power plants.

Due to the goggles' significant charging requirements, powering the devices will cost approximately $12 billion annually, but the president considers this a small price for a lamp-free world.

"To avoid environmental collapse, some politicians want you to walk around in the dark while others want to do nothing at all," Obama said. "But my solution uses common sense and the latest technology to improve life for all Americans."

Government-issued goggles will be available for purchase online or at regional Department of Energy and ACORN offices. Those earning less than $67,000 per year will be issued federal rebates to cover most of the $1,459 fee. OSHA standards require replacement every six months.

        

"I once ate at the McDonald's right next to the Arc de Triomphe. My quarter pounder tasted like hegemony."

- Michael Goldfarb

Wouldn't that be a "Royale with cheese" rather than a quarter pounder, though?

        

DefenseTech.org (hardly cheerleaders for the GOP) take the Obama administration to the woodshed for their sweeping cuts in national defense. Bottom line, with North Korea launching missles, Iran developing nukes and an ongoing war on terror overseas contingency operation, defense spending is down to pre-9/11 levels.



I'm looking forward to seeing how Obama will adapt The Neutrality Acts for our day and age. That'll show the world we're not to be messed with!

        

Good thing we got rid of that moron Chimpy Bu$hitler and his war on science!

The Environmental Protection Agency may have suppressed an internal report that was skeptical of claims about global warming, including whether carbon dioxide must be strictly regulated by the federal government, according to a series of newly disclosed e-mail messages.

Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty "decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data."

Now, I'll admit that my scientific career ended with just a class in Freshman Chemistry in college, but it seems to me that the goal of science was to alter your findings to the facts, and not the other way around...

        

Fourth in my series of great war movies that play fast and loose with history but are nevertheless rollicking good yarns.



You're whistling the theme music now, aren't you?

Aren't you?

BTW, I love this bit from the Wikipedia article on Stalag Luft III:

To avoid infiltrators, newcomers to the camp had to be personally vouched for by two existing POWs who knew the prisoner by sight. Any who failed this requirement were severely interrogated and assigned a rota of POWs who had to escort him at all times until he was deemed to be genuine. Several infiltrators were caught out by this method and none are known to have escaped detection in Luft III. The German guards were referred to as "Goons" and, unaware of the western connotation, willingly accepted the nickname after being told it stood for "German Officer Or Non-Com". German guards were followed everywhere they went by prisoners who used an elaborate system of signals to warn others of their location. The guards' movements were then carefully recorded in a logbook kept by an assigned rota of officers. Unable to effectively stop what the prisoners called the "Duty Pilot" system the Germans allowed it to continue and on one occasion the book was used by Kommandant von Lindeiner to bring charges against two guards who had slunk away from duty several hours early. (emphasis mine)

Who were the prisoners, and who were the guards?

        

From an email I just received:

We appreciate you taking the time to advise us of your interest in the
Outdoor channel.  Although this channel is not currently available, we
have notified our Programming Department of your interest in seeing it
added to our line-up.  Please be aware that we do have plans to add this
channel sometime during this summer.  (emphasis mine)

That means we'll soon be getting The Shooting Gallery and Cowboys and Best Defense and all the other great programming The Outdoor Channel provides.

Time to upgrade the hard drive on my TiVo...

        

Hey!

It's Friday!

Get up and dance! (2-Step, in this case).

Definitive proof that there was much, much more to music in the 80's than one former child star proclaiming himself the King Of Pop.

        

And NASA is making Buzz Aldrin very angry indeed:

As I approach my 80th birthday, I’m in no mood to keep my mouth shut any longer when I see NASA heading down the wrong path. And that’s exactly what I see today. The ­agency’s current Vision for Space Exploration will waste decades and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reach the moon by 2020—a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago. Instead of a steppingstone to Mars, NASA’s current lunar plan is a detour. It will derail our Mars effort, siphoning off money and engineering talent for the next two decades. If we aspire to a long-term human presence on Mars—and I believe that should be our overarching goal for the foreseeable future—we must drastically change our focus.

Read the whole thing.

NASA, you've been warned. This is what Buzz Aldrin does when he's upset.

        

If you're my age, you couldn't avoid Michael Jackson. I never owned one of his albums, but I remember staying up late to *finally* watch "Thriller" on Friday Night Videos (we didn't have cable).

He was my generation's Howard Hughes. He was bizarre, freaky, a danger to himself and others, and an unmitigated genius.

Here's my favorite Michael Jackson cover, Alien Ant Farm doing "Smooth Criminal".



Exit question: Who will Corey Haim idolize now that Michael Jackson's gone?

        

The people of Iran are almost as mad for Hollywood movies as I am. So what do their leaders do when faced with a popular uprising?

Why, show three movies back-to-back-to-back about how a small, unorganized, out-numbered band of courageous men, dwarves, hobbits and elves overthrew an overwhelmingly evil, oppressive, vicious regime, of course.

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crushing down! But it is not this day!

THIS DAY, WE FIGHT!

By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

Oh yeah, that'll calm the people RIGHT down.

Good move, mullahs, it's like you WANT to be overthrown or something...

        

CZ-USA re-did their website.

Good: The old one was out-of-date and unusable in Safari.

Now if only they'd give me one of these for relentlessly promoting their pistols here...

        

"All our problems are George Bush's fault."

"I hear ya, brother."

No wonder Obama wants to negotiate with Ahmadinejad: They have so much in common...

        

Are the media upset that Obama planted a question with a Huffington Post blogger at a news conference, or are they upset because they he didn't plant a question with them?

        

We've got exclusive excerpts of Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs responding to charges that he's a complete and utter failure.

...and I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Obama that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Rahm too, because they've moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, Bill Pante switched from a Blackberry to an iPhone, but I kept his Blackberry because it didn't make as much noise, and I kept the battery for his Blackberry and it's not okay because if they take my phone then I'll set the building on fire.

Shamelessly stolen from here.

        

The Obama campaign began it's long road to the White House with a press conference in Washington D.C. today.

Let me begin by saying thanks to all you who've traveled, from far and wide, to brave the heat today.

We all made this journey for a reason. It's humbling, but in my heart I know you didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union.

That's the journey we're on today. But let me tell you how I came to be here. As most of you know, I am not a native of this great city. I moved to Washington over four years ago. I was a young man then, with just two years in the Senate; I knew no one in Washington, was without money or family connections. But a group of powerbrokers offered me a job as as President for $400,000 a year. And I accepted the job, sight unseen, motivated then by a single, simple, powerful idea - that I might play a small part in building a political machine in Washington D.C. that was just as powerful as the one in Chicago.

My work took me to some of Washington's best ice cream parlors. I joined with congressman and union bosses to buy auto companies that had been ravaged by excessive labor costs. I saw that the problems people faced were simply local in nature - that the decision to ignore a cry for democratic change was one that I could get away with; that the lack of national security could be traced to the skewed priorities of politicians a thousand miles away; and that when a nation like North Korea turns to nuclear weapons, there's a hole in our missile defenses that my government will not fill.

Suggestions that this speech was similar to the Obama's kickoff speech from 2007 or that he doesn't need to campaign again for the Presidency until 2011 because he won in 2008 were dismissed by Presidential spokesman Stephen Root Robert Gibbs.

        

It's a hand cleaner, it's a rocket fuel, it's two, two, two things in one!

Or,

Hey, you got got rocket fuel in my hand cleaner! Well, you got hand cleaner in my rocket fuel!

All I know is, we are DEFINITELY taking some hand cleaner with us on the next Exurbanleague He-Man Camping Trip/Corporate Business Retreat/Ironman Belching Contest trip.

        

The Far Side is dead. Long line The Argyle Sweater.

        

"52 professional media outlets have asked to attend an arraignment hearing for some singer accused of beating his girlfriend . . . meanwhile the world depends on amateur footage to get honest reporting from Iran."

- Bob Krumm

Forgive us our sins, oh Lord.

        

This Irish animated film was released in March — but only in Ireland:



The Book of Kells is a favorite of mine... wonder if I can special order this baby. Uhh, for my kids, of course.

        

Dylan's original was for the lyrics, Hendrix's cover was for the geetar, but U2 did it to show off Adam Clayton and Larry Mullins.



You could drive in nails with that bassline.

        

Reacting quickly to the controversial firing of the AmeriCorps Inspector General, President Obama has reached outside the beltway for a replacement who will fit right in with his administration:

"Tim brings more than just great expertise to this task. He brings the respect he earned during his years of principled, disciplined refereeing in the NBA," President Obama said in a press conference announcing the nomination. "He knows how to get things done, even if it means breaking a few rules. And he has the trust of folks from every angle of this issue: Loan sharks, politicians, interns, and former NBA players — all of whom will have a seat at the craps table as we work on this vital issue."

NBA President David Stern, who covered up the scandal fired Donaghy from the NBA, was at an undisclosed location planning the Lakers' win/loss ratio for next season and unavailable for comment.

        

If you missed tonight's broadcast of Somali Pirate Takedown on The Discovery Channel, don't miss the repeat Tuesday night on The Military Channel: It's some of the most-gripping action I've seen on TV and puts Hollywood's flights of fancy to shame.

God bless our troops. Especially our snipers.

(Oh, BTW, it also devastates the idea that Obama authorized the snipers onboard the Bainbridge. The pirates opened fire on the Bainbridge with their AK's from their lifeboat, and at that instant, their lives became forfeit: It wasn't a question of "if", if was just a question of "when").

        

A few quick Father's Day links...

The 50 home improvement tools every man should have (duct tape is #51).

The 100 skills every man should know.

My favorite grilled pizza recipe.

        

John Sturges' last movie, based on a Jack Higgins novel that stars Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, Larry Hagman, Treat Williams and the chick from Logan's Run.

Yer darn tootin' it's one of my favourite films.

        

After their recent release from Guantanamo Bay and relocation to sunny Bermuda, the Uighurs (pronounced "wee-gurs") haven't wasted any time finding gainful employment.

The Al Qaeda-trained ex-detainees have formed a groundbreaking hip-hop group named U.W.A., short for "Uighurs With Attitude." Their first release, Straight Outta Gitmo, chronicles their hard-knock path from pastoral goat herders to international cause célèbre.

        

What can I say? We've got connections that others just don't have, and we've managed to finagle a a list of questions for June 24th's interview with the President from our fevered imaginations super-secret sources within ABC News .

Mr. President, will your new health care plan cover benefits to surviving same-sex partners of insects?

Multiple choice: Would you characterize the people opposed your plan as greedy, self-centered, uncaring or just domestic terrorists?

As you know, some extremists on the right wanted Jake Tapper or John Stossel to conduct this interview, but instead we've turned them over to the White House for protective custody. Can you tell us if they're in Palau, Bermuda or Gitmo?

Will you be appointing your wife Michelle as "Deputy Undersecretary of Biceps"?

Just a suggestion: We all know that health-care rationing is the eventual outcome of any government-run health care system, so why not hand out ration books like they did in WWII? And better yet, make it an alphabetical system. That way, the really important stuff like heart transplants and cancer treatments could become E-Ticket rides.

And on that same subject, we've talked to some of our co-workers at Disney, and they think you should change the names of some procedures in order to make them more consumer-friendly. What do you think about "Polyps of the Caribbean" or "Mr. Toad's Wild Colonoscopy"?

Last question, Mr. President: Would you or your wife be willing to participate in Wipeout! this season?

        

"I think it would be a good idea." *

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

So Flint, Michigan is looking to blast away up to 40 percent of it's rotten, decayed neighborhoods.

Hmmm....

Well, there's a half-acre of useless space from the Flint area that would beautify the entire country by it's absence. Let's look into that first.

But beyond that, can we, the American People, nominate cities we'd like to be, ah, "returned to nature" ?

I mean, let's face it: Do we really need Tucson?

* Stolen from Henny Youngman, of course.

        

This looks like an interesting job:

Requirement:

To write a pistol coaching program and provide firearm training
to the Department of National Defence, Canadian Forces Combat
Shooting Team, Kingston, Ontario, Canada as per the Statement
of Requirement at Annex "A" of the solicitation document.

Not sure a 'D" class USPSA shooter like myself is who they're looking for, though. Maybe I can get Rob or Angus to help write my proposal.

Upside: Teaching pistol shooting to Canadian soldiers. Downside: It's in Kingston, Ontario, aka the Cleveland of Canada.

        

Joel and others on the left wonder where the Tea Party movement was during the Bush administration.

It's simple: The Tea Party Movement was called "Porkbusters" back then, and just like today's Tea Party Movement, Porkbusters went after out-of-control spending by both parties. Just ask Trent Lott about that.

And secondly, why isn't the left up in arms about Obama's string of broken promises on terrorism trials, gay marriage, the war in Iraq, foreign surveillance, etc, etc. ? Where is the outrage from Obama's supporters and why hasn't it resulted in people marching in the street?

First take that big ol' honkin' piece of wood out of your own eye,  and then (and only then) worry about how other people see the world.

        

"A political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives-money, political jobs- and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership control over member activity. 'Political machine' started as a grass-roots campaign to gain the patronage needed to win the modern election. Having strong patronage, these 'clubs' were the main driving force in gaining and getting out the 'straight party vote' in the election districts.

- Wikipedia

Obama has fired 3 Inspectors General in the past two weeks, and told the IG in charge of "stimulus" money that he only reports to the White House.

There's the tangible incentives and patronage, now on to getting out the vote.

        

White House spokesman Stephen Root Robert Gibbs was unable to name one country where a single-payer health care system works. He then states that Americans are happy with our current system. So why do you want to change it at a price of $4 trillion?

        

The anti-government movement has protest babes now.

        

This bad: France is taking a harder line with Iran than the current administration. *FRANCE*.

“France, like its European partners, is expecting clear answers to doubts expressed about the vote” it said, adding that “Paris condemns the numerous arrests, notably of political personalities, that have taken place since Saturday. France equally condemns the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations and the repeated attempts to muzzle the press, expression and communication.” 

Getting out-muscled by France is kinda like losing to Tahiti in curling. The Obama administration should be ashamed of itself.