Whiskey Fire

I Tivoed a movie: Guy Pearce is the poor man's Andy Garcia

by JB

Hmm ... I was hoping not to have to delve into the vault for my second review, but honestly ... I'd rather treat my hemorrhoids with a wasabi poultice than sit through New in Town. J. K. Simmons can offset a multitude of cinematic sins, but he's no match for Renee Zellweger, who strikes me as a poor man's Jennifer Tilly. No thank you. Taken? Maybe, but when I read about the film being "elevated" by Neeson's presence, I worry. For every Schindler, there's an Aslan on his curriculum vitae. Did he "elevate" Gangs of New York? Not appreciably. K-19: The Windowmaker? The Haunting? Phantom Menace? OK, I'll give you that last one ... he was the best thing about it, but that's like saying wasabi is the best horseradish product I've ever used to try to relieve my hemorrhoids.

Of course, by not writing about Taken, I'm missing out on the one-word review: Left. Fame eludes me for another week.

So, to the vault it is. I caught The Hard Word (2002) on IFC not too long ago, and I liked it well enough. It's one of those half decent movies you go around acting like you loved and then say to people, "You never saw The Hard Word? You have to see it. It's like a Guy Ritchie movie almost, but without Jason Statham." But it does have a guy: Guy Pearce, trying to recover from the disappointments of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine after the great and yet overrated Memento.

If you like heist movies and people speaking unintelligibly, you'll probably like The Hard Word. If you liked Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, you'll probably like The Hard Word. What? You never saw Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead? You have to see it. It's like Ocean's 11 but with Andy Garcia. Uh, wait a minute...

Anyhow, Pearce is good as usual (as always when he's in that "indie" niche he occupies so effectively). Rachel Griffiths is quite engaging as the bleached femme fatale. Check out if you get the chance ... the price is right.

If I'm Paying 15 Bucks a Month to See Glenn Reynolds Videos, That Fucker Had Better Be Topless

Funny, but it's not like it was all that hard to see it coming. After all, it was always clear that even God thought Roger L. Simon was a douchebag wearing a hat made out of douchebags.

I believe that when people persist in really stupid behavior, and the stupidity of the behavior is obvious to anyone with a grain of common sense, and the behavior is easily avoided, the behavior probably has a supernatural origin. That explains the mortgage mess. It explains Obamamania. And it explains PJM....

The right used to be blessed. Until maybe 2003, our star was rising. Maybe that’s because we were more closely attuned to God. Now we think we have to dump God in order to attract voters. We keep hearing that the problem with the right is that the religious nuts hijacked it. But the right was stronger back when religious people had more power. And it will weaken more and more, as we get more desperate and distance ourselves from God.

You do have to admire this line, though: "PJM’s new hope is PJTV, a pay video site. Where you can pay to watch Glenn and Helen Reynolds. This is not unlike asking people to pay to be punched in the face." Because the inevitable conclusion is that if even God-bothering dingalings like Mr. Hog were able to spot the flaws in the Pajamas Media "business model," what was everyone else's major malfunction? I mean, Pam Gellar has an excuse -- she's a mental patient:

I thought PJM was going to rival AP, UPI, Reuters. Finally, a news portal of citizen bloggers and journalists that would counter the Pali stringers and left wing biased journalists of the news gathering agencies. But PJM went off the rails. Simon decided to chase big names for big money, but to what end?  Who needed another NRO or WSJ Best of the Web? And unlike the left, where Soros, Hollywood libtards and Google-type asshats embarrassingly fund the leftwing sites vis a vis Moveon.org et al, the right has none of that. None. We live on fumes. G-d bless our small advertisers and our readers who contribute.

There is a grain of truth there -- nobody ever doubted for a second that Pam "lives on fumes." Or that there is lavish financial support for liberal blogs. Whiskey Fire, for instance, has a pretty interesting and unusual financing model. See, what happened is, I got something that in economic lingo is known as a "job," and I use the revenue stream provided to me by this "job" in order to undergird the elaborate fiduciary network that supports my blog, which consists of me paying $15 to TypePad every month. (I understand that there are even ways to blog for free, but I dismiss these rumors as unfounded hype.) I mean, you all helped me buy a laptop last year; thanks. But I'm not really getting the "send me a lot of money every month so I can blog" thing. I don't even have ads up, which I'd like to say is because I'm adhering to some sort of strict principle or other, but is more to do with the fact that I'm very very lazy and have not gotten around to putting any up yet. It's only been 2 1/2 years, after all, what's the rush...

As I've said before, I blog out of spite, and anyone who does not blog out of spite is a blockhead.

And in that respect, the collapse of Pajamas Media is one hell of a payday.

MORE. Now, THIS is funny, from Mr. Douchehat himself:

We disbanded the ad network part of our business for a simple reason: it was losing money and we couldn’t see how in the reasonable future that would change.

Actually that part of our business has been losing money from the beginning, so the people getting their quarterly checks from PJM were getting a form of stipend from us in the hopes that advertisers would start to cotton to blogs and we could possibly make a profit. Didn’t happen. No wonder those people are kicking and screaming now that they are off the dole. I might too. [What's their beef? I thought most of them were free marketeer libertarians or something.-ed. Go figure.]

Like Simon himself isn't playing with someone else's money. This is the biggest hog at a rapidly shrinking trough oinking out his opinion that the other inmates of the sty should stop acting like pigs.

I mean, sane people in the reasonable past couldn't see how they'd ever make money. Even us commie socialists!

EVEN MORE. Funny. Almost as entertaining as the apparently straight-faced claim, as observed in Douchehat's comments (thanks marindenver) that Douchehat should have TOLD bloggers running the ads that the ads were losing money. They are shocked, shocked! to find loss-leading on a moronic business plan going on in here... the wingnut conception of the Free Market, ladies & germs! (Polite applause, mild laughter)

Fall to your knees and re-brand, if you please

by Ripley

The GOP's got itself some trouble, some biiiig trouble.  Well, nothing a little re-marketizing won't cure, eh?  Hell, if the policies and philosophies aren't working, just change the label, right?  Right!  Now with 100% less Bush!  New label - same shitty taste!  You've seen it all before, I'm sure.

Here's something I wrote last September about the label change, but I had no idea it would become official GOP policy.
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Real American Heroes (It only shoots t-shirts!)

You’ve probably already seen this pandering, disgusting, heartless, piece of shite “tribute” the GOP trotted out for the last night of their Convention.

“And kill us they did.”  Are you kidding me?!?  Assholes.

I saw the video online, last night, but as I thought about it this morning I realized something interesting.  Maybe you had the same thought I did:  ’What’s missing?’  I’ll show you.

Where was America’s hero, George W. Bush?  Banished to the political cheap seats of satellite speech.  Deliberately and conspicuously left out of John McCain’s “new Republican” National Convention.  One might almost think the McCain campaign was trying to avoid association with America’s Worst President, even as they promise more of the same from a man who was proud to accept Bush’s endorsement, who voted with George W. Bush 75-90% in the last few years.   That’s my impression, at least.

I chose the title of this post deliberately.  Bud Light started their “Real American Heroes” ad campaign in 2000, iirc.  The concept was so strong they’re still using it today, with one minor adjustment.  See, after the attacks of 9/11/2001, they decided that their goofy, tongue-in-cheek descriptions of Real American Heroes would be offensive to Americans’ views of police and firefighters, so they changed the tag to “Real Men of Genius.”  Still goofy, still tongue in cheek, still witty and funny, but appropriately reverent to America’s suffering after 9/11/2001.

I can dig that, I suppose.   Courageous men and women gave their lives to help complete strangers.  While I, and most of America, looked on in slow-motion shock, they ran into burning, disintegrating buildings to save those who could be saved.  They didn’t run to the Republican floors or the Democratic offices - they deliberately ran into fire and smoke and Hell on Earth to save their fellow human beings.  Rich, poor, powerful, CEOs and brokers to janitors and interns - fellow human beings.

And the GOP decided to exploit this tragedy.  For political purposes.  Again.  Just as they’ve done for the last 7 years.  But, now, even they had the “good sense” to leave George W. Bush out of it.  Even though John McCain has played pilot fish to Bush’s shark for the last 7 years.  Mr. Maverick - well, at least on the campaign trail.

He, with the Media’s obedient droning, tells us he’s a reformer.  Sarah Palin, with the Media’s gran mal head nods, tells us she’s a reformer.  Reformers.  But… but, they just can’t help themselves.  Like well-dressed junkies, they go back to get their fix; like spoiled children, they break down and cry and demand attention; like washed up athletes and Little Misses, they can’t stop talking about their Glory Days, when what they did mattered, at least to them.

And they expect America to sit quietly, smile politely and listen, once again, to how they could throw that football over that mountain.   How, if things were different, they would have won.  But always, always, revisiting whatever scene makes the best excuse and gets the most sympathy.  And for Republicans, it’s always 9/11/2001.  Always.

So, be afraid, America!  Fall to your knees and let your Freedom dribble down your leg.  If nothing else, your taxes will go down.   Well, maybe not your taxes, but…

And, back to the title:

Trivia, for those who care - the singer in the Bud Light commericals is Dave Bickler, from Survivor.

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Operation: Chaos - Limbaugh thought he'd throw the Democratic Primary by telling his dozens of Gold Bond addicts and loyal dittoheads to deny their Republican roots and vote Democratic in the Primaries.  Y'know, for shits and giggles, not because they didn't believe in the GOP candidate.  How'd that work out, ya lazy, overpaid, arrogant fuck?

Operation: Leper - I'm not even sure what the Hell that was supposed to be, but it started at RedState, iirc, so... there ya go.  Republicans fighting Republicans and kicking out the, I don't know, what... the not-insane-enough Republicans?  New era, bitches!  Silly Putty!  Foam balls!  Relevance!  Wolver-fucking-ines!!!  Or Fuckerines!!! or whatever they're yelling at the radio, these days.

Operation: Wax Job -  Buff It Out, America!  Maybe some lipstick or nail polish or shoe polish.  That's all we need and it'll be good as new.  We don't really need to call the Law or report this or make a big fuss about this, do we?  I got a cousin who knows a guy.  He'll totally fix this for you.

And so it goes, so it goes.  Frankly, it's a little offensive.  You know, that idea that if they talk fast enough and loud enough they'll confuse us and we'll just give in to stop the noise and the brain pain and the too-much-garlic-for-lunch breath in our faces.  Shrewd?  Maybe.  Intelligent?  They don't learn.

I was talking to my landlord tonight - dittohead, money-grubbing, personal responsibility SOB with a vengeance - and even he's bitching about Bush.  He's no Obama fan, but he's smart enough to know that the current crop of Republican "leaders" are suffering a severe case of dipshittia, and have no chance in God's cold Hell of ever righting the wrongs or turning this country around.

But I gotta tell ya kids... I am enjoying this shit.  I haven't been this excited about stuff on the TV since MTV came to Smalltown, USA in '82.  And the blogs... sweet, minty fresh Jeebus, the blogs!  I could kiss John Cole, I swear.  (Kevin K., it goes without saying...)

If you're a Republican politician or blogger, lemme hip you to something you might not have noticed.  The World - the entire World - is laughing at you.  We despise everything that you stand for and everything that you do.  We want you to fail, politically and socially, so hard that children tell your story with flashlights under their chins a thousand years from now.  We're tired of your shit, tired of your "traitor!" tantrums, tired of... you.  And you're not fooling anyone with the sock in your Party pants.

So - eat, drink, make babies, go skiing and rent movies, take your children to the park and yell at the clouds.  But go the fuck away. 

We have work to do.  And you're getting in the way.

[Update] - And other people... not have memo

Via Chris (the gay Muslin abortion gun-stealing America hater) in Paris at Americablog, we get this tidbit from Rudy "Ask Me About 9/11" Giuliani:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Bonuses for Wall Street fat cats are easy political fodder in uncertain economic times, but former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Friday cutting corporate bonuses means slashing jobs in the Big Apple.

"If you somehow take that bonus out of the economy, it really will create unemployment," he said on CNN's "American Morning." "It means less spending in restaurants, less spending in department stores, so everything has an impact."

First, why is anyone asking this fucking clown for his opinion on anything other than paper or plastic?  Seriously... Giuliani?  What did this poor bastard at CNN do that pissed his bosses off enough to make him ask for fucking Giuliani's take on the situation?

Secondly, shut the fuck up, Giuliani.  When we actually want your opinion, we'll ask one of your Mistresses.  Maybe one of them can hock up a sentence without reminding us of 9/11. 

Thirdly, keep talking, Giuliani.  You are the perfect spokesman for the Republican Party.  I know, I'm contradicting myself, here, but come on... Giuliani's going to give us Econ lessons?  Weren't you against Socialism before you were for it, Rudy?   Or is there a new form of manly Trickle Down Socialism that we're not aware of yet?   Let's never mind that - just keep dazzling us with your sassy take on pink collar finances.  Brain dead and out of touch?  You're soaking in it!

This guy - this fucking arrogant asshole with a wandering eye and friends who need parentheses for their middle names - thought he was in touch with America; thought he could convince the Common Man that he was just like us, if we'd only give him a chance to shine, shine, shine... And the caption under the picture on the CNN page reads:

Rudy Giuliani says that when he was mayor, he gauged the New York City budget by Wall Street bonuses.

Fucking brilliant, man.  I hope that shite muncher on Wall St. is enjoying the bonus I paid for to retain his "whoops! do-over!" ass in the position that fucked the better part of Americ's economic stability.  Shit, I'd hate to lose that kind of talent.

But someone better call Erikson and Limbaugh, so they can put a leash on Rudy before he blows the whole operation, whatever it's called now.  I don't know, Operation: I'm Not That Kat Anymore or something.  Keep it together, guys... gotta keep it together. 

Rip -

Bee 150000000

I'm starting to think the only people who sent away for the Red State Little Orphan Annie Magic Decoder Ring Strike Force e-mails are those of us who signed up just make fun of them.

Anyhow now I'm getting their "morning briefing." It's mostly the usual garbage, but one part of it gets to something I find consistently irksome, the trick of finding a "silly" bit of government spending in order to "prove"how ridiculous the government is when it "does things."

Very often when you look more closely into stories like this you'll find that the money isn't being wasted at all, it's just that the idiot telling the story and laughing and snarking doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. Here, from their email:

Senate Democrats Add Absurdities to Obama's Spending Plan

The list is extraordinary and mind numbingly stupid. And how exactly does any of it create new, sustainable jobs?....

$150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: "The Secretary shall use up to $50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary")

Bees! Omigod that's so hilarious spending money on bees how comical they must be dumb.

Right. Bees. How stupid of anyone to want to help keep honeybee keepers in business. How could that ever have an economic impact.

This kind of an insurance scheme is in fact precisely the kind of activity a stimulus bill should be funding; this is even something that would need to be done even aside from a stimulus. That should be obvious even to someone willing to spend about five minutes with the Google learning about the issue.

Pea-brained pig-ignorant wingnut gobshites...

Strictly Comedy

This is the funniest thing I have ever read on the Internet.

House Republicans are reacting strongly to reports that the White House plans a political onslaught to pressure Republicans into supporting the stimulus package and to punish those who don't.

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)  will soon issue a statement contending that Obama's promise to "put an end to petty politics" is "threatened" as the White House and their allies "are making political threats rather than crafting a bipartisan economic stimulus plan."

He'll call on Obama to "immediately disavow" plans by liberal interest groups who have announced their intention to run attack ads against the Republicans. These groups, organized under the Americans United for Change umbrella, coordinate regularly with Congressional Democrats and are in touch with White House officials.

Earlier, an Obama aide said that the White House was not directly involved in these most recent efforts and had not encouraged its allies. The plans were reported in the Politico by its chief political reporter, Mike Allen.

"Let us be clear: attack ads will not create jobs or help struggling families but will only serve to undermine our nation's desire for bipartisanship. Instead of thinking about winning at any cost, we should all be thinking about creating the jobs Americans need," Cantor intends to say.

The GOP House Whip, ladies and gentlemen, via The Politico. Flaubert only wished he could write like this...

The New Dunciad

by va

Finally, finally, David S. Broder has broken his silence on the issue of Rod Blagojevich and his impudence:

Even as Blagojevich has abandoned any pretense of mounting a legal defense of his actions, he has launched a full-scale public relations campaign, hitting the morning talk-show circuit to parade his impudence under the guise of proclaiming his innocence.

Shorter Broder: Hey you kids! Etc. Really, the interesting thing Blago is parading is poetry. Poetry, David Broder! Poetry is for assholes again, poetry is part of the magical joie de fuck you! This is an important development. Not since a young Alcibiades punched his teacher in the face for failing to keep a copy of Homer handy has poetry had such a stalwart statesman advocate. And boy did Blago pick the right verses--"If" by Rudyard Kipling, about the virtue of being the only person who is not insane, which Blago apparently thinks he is. Suddenly politics is beautiful again. So a proposal: that every political scandal have attached to it a poem, together with a pedagogical message. This can apply retroactively.

IPERS? I hardly know her..s!

by Ripley

I know a lot of you were probably sitting there in your computerizing chairs, thinking, "Hey!  When is Rip gonna lay another righteous smackdown on some unsuspecting motherfucker who caught his eye and pissed him off for a day or so?"  And possibly also thinking, "Hey!  Isn't Rip supposed to be helping his ailing Mother, who's ailing and what not?"

Well, now you can!

Mother Ripley (88) suffered a mild stroke in October.  Ten days ago, she showed some of the same cognitive dysfunction and incoherence that previewed her recent stroke, so we admitted her to the hospital and now she's in a nursing home.  That's that.  We take over the responsibilities that our parents had for us and we do what we can to keep them safe and happy as their suns set.  Which leads me to the point of this post.

I live in a small town in Iowa.  Good schools, safe community, friendly and helpful neighbors, unlocked doors, what have you.  Father and Mother Ripley raised us all with at least one handful of morals, to say the least.  We've gone on to do our respective things, and now I'm back in Odin's Country, watching my mother, and so many of her generation, wilt away, if you will.  Again, this is what we do, as we grow older.

But...

(I know Thers didn't intend this site to be a pixelated bordello for airing personal grievances, but bear with me.) 

Some of you may know that I was working with the local Dems to elect some State candidates.  One of our candidates was challenging an Iowa State Senator.  An Iowa State Senator whose father held the seat before him.  An Iowa State Senator who - I am not making this up, kids - called government employees who receive State penions.... bottom feeders.

Bottom feeders...

A man who works 4 months a year for the State - making "rules" and directing funds, at his whim - and receives a State salary and State pension for his ruling and whimsy-ings, called State employees "bottom feeders".  Because they... I don't know - had the audacity to work for the common good and hope the State might give them some recompense?  To bust their knuckles and their asses, to spend all night on the road when the snow hits, to build a better Iowa with their brains and brawn, to take a god damned job and suck it up and stick with it for a decade or two and hope the State might remember them?  And maybe remember them well, even when they're all spread from Hell to breakfast when they retire?

See, now I'm just fucking pissed off, so let me quote my friend, Humboldt Blue, who gang-ranted these assholes better than I can come up with, at the moment.

These shitsacks, who make usury a way of life have the unmitigated gall to talk about morals? These scabrous con men with their ponzi schemes, their mutual back scratching, their payola we call campaign finance have the sheer audacity to lecture us on what ethical, moral behavior is?

It’s like listening to Ted Haggard bemoan how hard it is to not to want to suck cock because Jesus wants him to eat pussy.

Yeah, that's what I was about to say.  But back to Mother Ripley.

Y'see, Mother Ripley receives an IPERS check because she was a County employee.  A damned fine and highly repsected County employee, who did more good in the world and for the world than most people could bother reading about.  And the IPERS check is Iowa's way of saying, "Thanks for the work!  We believe you're a human being with potential financial needs in your future.  Did we say Thanks! ?"

And this... this fucking Republican piece of shit who sidled his way into a State Senate seat, humping his Daddy's friends' legs and fucking his own neighbors sans Vaseline...  Well, that's just it, isn't it?   He lost his race, btw and thank Zeus.  But it's the last 30 god damned years of "fuck the working man" on a half shell.  And still they're not satisfied.

Good folks like my parents get "American Dreams" and oopsie doodles! and the short fucking end of the stick.  Good folks like you, too.  They'll bail out the dipshits at the top because "we can't lost our talent" - even though their talent sort of... kinda maybe.. a little bit.. pooooosibly made the decisions that sort of... kinda maybe... a little bit... poooosibly made the banks fail.  Do over!  Amirite?  Fucking right I'm right.

Again, Thers' place isn't my personal rant space, I apologize.  I have my own pixels to murder when I'm feeling groovy.  But this - it isn't about Mother Ripley.  It's about the assholes - the FUCKING ASSHOLES - who stand up and put us down.  The wannabe celebrities in the Gov't who think that a lapel pin is more important than my mother.  More important than Your mother or father or sister or brother.  More important than your health, your job, your... your version of the American fucking Dream.

And still they're not satisfied.  America stood up and said "No More!"  But they're not satisfied.  I don't know - the rich aren't rich enough?  The poor aren't poor enough?  Too many children have health insurance?  Too many non-white folks doing... non-white-rich-guy stuff?

Fuck. Them. All.

This is our time to make the world a better place.  We don't need bibles or wrist bands or... well, shit - we don't need anything to prove we're right, because we are right.  We are.  You know it and you can feel it in your damned bones, big or skinny as they may be.  We are right.  (Also, we are strong.  No one can tell us we're wrong.)

I'm pretty sure Mother Ripley never voted Democratic.  But she healed everybody and every body that came through her unit - white, black, Republican, Democrat, gay or straight, and then some.  And, given the chance, she'd heal that ex-Senator. 

I know this guy, the ex-Senator.  Nothing would make me happier than to drag him by the neck into my mother's room and ask him if she's a bottom feeder.  Well, if my sisters were there, it might be more fun.

[Oh, I give up on the formatting. Fuck!]

It's our turn, kids.

Rip -

In the Bookmobile

Buy Will Bunch's book or else you suck.

Buy it here.

Theep Dought

Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Armey have the cutting edge ideas that will lead the GOP back into relevance.

Pax Moronica

I just read a piece in the online Wall Nut Journal onion pages by someone affiliated with the Hoover Asylum. And you're right, that's my own damn fault. But I'm not looking for sympathy, though it did hurt quite badly. I'm not even asking you to "read the whole thing," insofar as it is a lament for Obama's apparent abandonment of Bush's wildly successful Mideast diplomacy. (No, really, it is.)

I was just interested in this paragraph as a point of history:

In the ebb and flow of liberty, power always mattered, and liberty needed the protection of great powers. The appeal of the pamphlets of Mill and Locke and Paine relied on the guns of Pax Britannica, and on the might of America when British power gave way. In this vein, the assertive diplomacy of George W. Bush had given heart to Muslims long in the grip of tyrannies.

Indeed. Whenever British ships hove into view, natives all over the planet had the exact same response: "hooray, here comes the liberty." Just like now the universal response to the roar of American planes is, "oh look, they are dropping even more freedom, in the form of powerful explosives."