"With the aplomb of a runway model"?

The New York Times has an article about Holly Mangold, the 16 year old sister of a pro football player who is playing offensive line in high school at 5'9" and 310 pounds. Now, I have no problem with women playing football, and I do not ascribe to the belief that all women should be skinny. However, for a journalist to claim that she "carries herself with the aplomb of a runway model," seems to me to be the wrong kind of hyperbole. Anyone reading this article has to be having some though about how big this girl is. Putting her image next to that of glamorous anorexic women is a weak attempt at ignoring the issue of size that only makes it conspicuous that they never mention it as an issue. Imagine an article about Michael J' Fox that compares his hands to the "steady hand of a surgeon."

I'm Obama'd out

So, there's been a lot of Barack Obama talk these days. I was pretty sure he was either 1) the salvation of the democratic party, 2) a good speaker with no real record of accomplishments under his belt, 3)the latest in the deomcratic party's string misladen hopes, one scream away from Dean.

This article brings up two more possibilities. They are 4. A tool of the lobbyists, and 5. just a good, smart politician.
Yawn.
Talking about Mr. Obamas got to get more interesting this, given the latest wave of scandal in Washington, I want some conjecture. I want an article that calls him a "self-hating racist" a gay pirate, an immigrant smuggler, or a vegan. Those people who are wondering if he could be the antichrist have the right idea.

Mets

I watched some of the game tonight. Nothing else to say, really.

Tacos

This is an add for tacos. All I'm saying here is, this man looks way too ecstatic for cheap tacos. What kind of tacos is he enjoying? Also, why does he have a halo? And why are his arms stretched in a classic Jesus-on-the-cross pose?
Overdone.

Cindy Sheehan likes the metaphors

Cindy Sheehan wrote a little article recently. I skimmed it. Thusly, I have learned that Bush is a bad president. She made her point with several illustrative metaphors.
here's a summary in Sheehan-language.

Democrats are jumping for joy. Republicans are scrambling like Keystone Kops and falling all over each other to cover their asses. . . Democrats are busy counting their un-hatched chickens and Republicans are getting muscle cramps from pointing fingers at everyone, including the pages that Foley hunted down. . . molested by the entire Congress.

She has been waiting for the other shoe to drop. . .that awful other shoe dropped.
George and his crime family. Not holding my breath. Crap rolls down hill. . .crapped on by our government. . .we are covered with crap. . .drip, drip, drip.

I'm just saying, that's a lot of metaphors. And a little too much poopy talk for my tastes.

Evil will always win because good is dumb

or why I don’t understand the case for impeachment.

I read a little bit about impeachment today.

A large number of liberals seem to think that would be totally awesome if we impeached the president. For my life, I cannot understand why. Is the desire to impeach simply a manifestation of rage at the president? Are we seeing a man whose personality and policy we hate, and feeling that the best way to deal with that hate is to punish him the same way conservatives tried to punish Clinton. This is the only answer I can see. I realize that there may be a decent case for impeaching the president, but I don’t see where it would take us.

The big negatives you get with any impeachment are that the process distracts the government’s attention from the business of making policy. The impeachment process can tie up the legislative branch (and the media) for months, and I would argue that is an extremely divisive thing to implement, that it can be extremely damaging to the country’s morale and, in this case, could only increase partisan tensions and decrease citizens’ faith in government. I realize that one could easily be of the “so what” opinion. You could say, “So what, we should impeach anyway, because our morale is already low, our partisan tension is already high, our government isn’t legislating well, our case is strong, and Bush deserves it.” Where I’m confused at this point is, what do you do now that Cheney’s the President? Are we any better off? I would argue no.

So, you decide to impeach them both. This is harder to accomplish. We waste more time and create more divisiveness. Let’s assume it works out. According to the 25th amendment, Hastert’s next, or, if he resigns because of his role in the Mark Foley scandal, someone else from the republican leadership. If the post happens to be vacant, we get Ted Stevens. I see us as no better off.

Of course, impeachment probably wouldn’t happen unless the Democrats succeed in taking control of the Senate. If that happens and we impeach, we still need control of the House to get a Democratic president out of this. Let’s assume that we overcome the very low probability of winning the whole legislature and convicting both Bush and Cheney, At this point, opponents of impeachment can easily paint it as a Democratic ploy made for the purpose of getting a Democratic president outside of the electoral process, and you have a lot of people who are angry at the party coming into the 2008 election. I think, in any eventuality, impeachment is a bad strategy because it assuages our short-term angst at the expense of long-term prosperity, and thus, evil wins because good is dumb. If we don’t impeach, we have the chance to set the Democratic party up as the principle-driven foil to the corrupt, inept Republicans and, if current trends continue, that works in our long-term favor.

With a poster of Cheney above the weight bench. . .

This week's New Yorker has a "Shouts and Murmers" by Ian Frazier. Typically I read shouts and murmur's and then I say "meh" and then I look at the ads for cherry bedsteads and specialty bow ties. But I have to say that that this little piece on anorexia in the suburban middle-aged male got me chuckling. Like here:

The media hammers this image into our brains every day, but now I begin to understand: I can have the same glasses as Karl Rove, wear my belt like Karl Rove, wave from the insides of car windows like Karl Rove. But I will never be Karl Rove, so I might as well quit trying. Even Karl Rove probably can’t look as fabulous as Karl Rove. I have martyred myself trying to become a fantasy.

Awesome. I'm picturing men looking at Karl Rove on the magazine covers, and wishing they could have his thighs. I'm picturing teenage girls with autographed Karl Rove posters ripped from the pages of Teen Beat magazine. Finally, I'm picturing unsatisfied housewives all over the country letting their thoughts stray to Karl while there husband snores next to them. I think the country would be abetter place if this were true.

I want the world's women to want to touch him, to see him come out of a plain and to scream until they faint. To watch C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2, hoping just to catch a glimpse. "Oh Karl", they'll think, 'I'd let you assassinate my character anytime."

Get Funny

Ok, I'm not usually a comics reader, and I'm not much of a comics critiquer. I think that the Comics Curmudgeon has already reached the pinnacle of this field. He is a man without peers. But, I have two big problems with one of last week's Get Fuzzy. While most comics are never funny, this one can be on occasion. Anyway, the comic manages to go into two very unfunny jokes at the same time.
1. It assumes that Cockney British accents are funny. This is wrong.
2. It makes the, "people from Massachusetts are communists" joke. You know, becasue their are a lot of liberals there. This joke has only been made well one time in the history of man. It was during a Simpson's episode, and it was only funny because,
a. Homer said it to Sideshow Bob without any Massachusetts related set-up.
b. He used the word "pinko" which is funny.
As a native northeasterner, I find insinuations of Communism boring, trite, and in-poor-taste. I want people to please stop calling us Communists. That word should be reserved exclusicely for reference to Canadians.