Categories
Month: February 2005
From the Idiots What Brung You Enron: 2006 Goverment Budget (via AP)
Line Item: Printing Costs, 2006 Federal Budget, first edition: $10 Million.
Categories
Another Campaign Promise Broken
My, what big teeth you have (via Kerwoodwolf)
From Wolf’s Future in Wyoming, as Predator or Fragile Species, Is in Court’s Hands, by Kirk Johnson, The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2005:
CHEYENNE, Wyo., Feb. 4 – Gray wolves have thrived in the West since their reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park 10 years ago last month. No one disputes that. There is also broad agreement among federal wildlife officials, ranchers and conservationists that the time is ripe to remove the protections of the Endangered Species Act under which the wolves made their comeback.
[…]
The state argues that wolves are predators across much of Wyoming where they now roam and should be treated as such – residents should be allowed to shoot them at will, like other varmints.
What the fuck? Bush and Cheney promised they’d prevent the wolves from attacking us. They promised!
What’s next? Social Security won’t hit an iceberg?
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The low culture Consumer Advisory
Perhaps you’ve seen the ads for Marlboro Seventy-Twos in Seventeen magazine, while watching MTV, or at your local youth center. And perhaps, like low culture, you’ve been tempted to find out more about Philip Morris’ newest teen sensation and buy a pack. Don’t.
A quick phone call to the suicide hotline at Philip Morris revealed that the “Seventy Twos” are merely shorter cigarettes. That’s right – no value-added tar, chemicals, toxins or tobacco – it’s just less cigarette at the same obscene price. If the tobacco companies can’t be trusted to offer their consumers the best value, can they be trusted at all? Probably.
Wait, wait, wait, my mistake. This particular chart was prepared to demonstrate the dire failings of Social Security, and not the President’s reckless federal budget.
Alert graph readers can make note of this by observing that the above chart depicts a spending deficit occurring sometime after 2020, whereas, with the President’s budget, we’ve had a federal deficit since early 2002.
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Aim High, Vote low (culture, duh)
Okay, we admit we’re not above begging. Please go to The 2005 Bloggies site and vote for us for ‘Best Weblog About Politics’ and ‘Best Group Weblog.’
It means a super lot to us! (Which is why we’re begging!!) And we’ll totally remember you when we’re famous. And, um, we’ll make T-shirts! And we’ll do TV talking head shit. Please, anything. Please, baby, please, baby, baby, baby, please!
Go vote today!
(I’m Matt Haber, and I approve this message.)
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For Ruth, the O.C., florid and pure
So,
there it was.
The endowment was bequested
(requested?)
to POETRY magazine.
The Eli Lilly widow’s 2003
was a banner year
for gifts, for life, for language,
and
you’ve felt a renewed hope for
your dead, dead
(Empty? Forsaken? Barren?)
Poetry. Poesy, posies…
You prey upon the culture
around you, within you, upon you
and you are Us. And
You are thus told, nay
commanded, commandeered, commended
to know about The O.C..
Newport. The lives of the rich
(Empty? Forsaken? Barren?)
in turn prey upon you.
And you love Seth Cohen. Desire
knows not these constraints,
these passionate ties
of 8 through 9pm on Thursdays.
They occur
religiously
regularly
gaily
gleefully
And you take a breath (deeply!). And
contain your desire, and
sit up in your couch, and
Grab your notepad.
Are you pretty sexy?
What sort of knickers are you wearing?
These are not lines that Seth would ask of you.
He listens not to you, but he reads
and, verbally, you smile upon him (deeply!)
And the theme music begins. This
Means you are the Winter to his
Summer.
Actually, I’ve never seen The O.C.; I’m sure it’s pretty good.
The O.C. airs Thursdays at 8PM EST on FOX.
Earlier: O.C.-centric entries, which may or may not avoid both iambic pentameter and high-school caliber angst.
Arbiters of language and justice are seemingly obsessed with the issue of word count in President Bush’s speeches – in particular, his noted recent over-emphasis on the grandiose notions of “freedom” and “liberty“.
Well, then, this seems like an easy (if not excessively lazy) manner of proving any sort of ideological point, however disingenuous it may be in spirit…and with that in mind, we hereby are setting out to prove, through careful study of last night’s 2005 State of the Union address, that while President Bush does in fact love the idea of spreading American ideals around the world, he nonetheless hates the people who clean his toilets.
Ok, now, you need proof? Take a look at this precise, scientific statistical breakdown of the President’s address last night:
FREEDOM: 21 instances.
So easy. This indicates a devotion to America and all that for which it stands. Peace, justice, and the American way. Liberty. Democracy. Phrases that can appear on the back of coins. The president loves this shit.
POOR: 1 instance.
This noted depreciation in verbal occurrences, in turn, reveals a deep-seated desire to spit upon the nation’s army of vacuuming and janitorial specialists. And those people that work at Auntie Anne’s Pretzel Shack at the local mall? They, too, shall be subjected to the President’s spittle, in an unusual reversal of the food server/servee relationship.
Oh, and there’s one other remaining gem buried within this close reading of the President’s address:
ASBESTOS: 1 instance.
That’s right, Bush abhors people who live and/or work in homes or buildings constructed prior to the 1970s.
The White House, incidentally, was heavily redesigned in the 1980s, so it’s totally “safe” in this matter. Contractors added this cute little balcony on the South Portico during the Reagan administration, and while uptight White House historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin readily insist this was done under President Truman’s watch, we all know how Goodwin has herself been discredited time and again as a liar.
Ergo, asbestos…Reagan…Bush hates poor people.
Categories
Keeping It Real
If Fahrenheit 9/11’s and Super Size Me’s box office numbers didn’t prove evidence enough, the recent Sundance Festival should convince you – documentaries are a hot commodity. And amid the non-fiction hullabaloo arrives The Documentary, the sizzling hot hip-hop debut from Dre’s latest discovery, The Game.
Unfortunately, The Game’s depiction of thug life stands up to scrutinous fact-checking no more than your average Stephen Glass color piece or Michael Moore agitprop. Aftermath Records? There is a Fabulist among you. Consider the facts:
Fabrication: On his rap song “Dreams,” The Game asserts “They say sleep is the cousin of death…”
Fact: Virgil considers death the “brother to sleep,” (“consanguineus Leti Sopor”) (VI.18). Cf. Heine’s Death, and his Brother Sleep. Brother and cousin represents a material discrepancy.
Fabrication: On the track “Hate It or Love It,” The Game declaims “Kill a nigga on my song but really do it/ That’s the true meaning of a ‘ghostwriter.'”
Fact: According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, ghostwriter means “one who writes for and in the name of another” (transitive sense). No proffered definition, contemporary or obsolete, describes “killing niggas.”
Fabrication: On his hot joint “Higher,” The Game boasts “Like Dre did/ I created a buzz without a single…”
Fact: Per hip-hop resource Rolling Stone, “The Documentary” relies upon the “killer single, ‘How We Do,’ an A-list Dre tune that’s piled with hooks.” Rolling Stone is beyond reproach. Obviously.
Fabrication: On “Don’t Need Your Love,” The Game goes so far as to brag, “got all the critics watchin [sic] my pivot/ On my block in the Coupe reading [sic] kites from prison…”
Fact: To document this statement’s countless failings in source materials and matters of fact would require more space than is available. However, let it be said that New York Times critic A.O. Scott, among others, has never acknowledged watching The Game’s pivot, publicly at least. Additionally, kites, whether box, sled, delta, or winged box, are rarely, if ever, allowed in prisons.
Fabrication: According to The Game’s flow on No More Fun & Games, “Not to down Eminem I fuck black bitches, fuck white bitches, nigga I like bitches/ Them half and half Alicia Keys dyke bitches.”
Fact: There is no evidence that Alicia Keys sapphic inclinations represent only half her gender identity. The preponderance of oral history suggests Ms. Keys is entirely a “dyke bitch.”
Fabrication: On his track “Special,” The Game promises, “I’ll take you to New York City, Atlanta too/ Show you how to fly them birds…”
Fact: Thus far, The Game has not taken me to New York or Atlanta, nor has he shown me how to fly any birds. I am, however, available for promised activities – The Game can contact me here. I also like bitches.