Sunday, August 29, 2010

Weekend Update - Disgruntled Edition

(Well, you have problems. We all have have them from time to time. Your house can burn down. Your car can explode. A chunk of frozen excrement from a passing airliner can strike your house. Hey, you've seen the bumper sticker, shit happens. The older you get, the more you expect it. When things are going smoothly, it's like the old line from a Gothic novel: "It was quiet. It was too quiet." With me this time it was the wife moving out. Just got up out of bed in the middle of the night and announced she was leaving me. And then did. Well hell, I'm a pretty astute person, I think, and I sensed something was wrong right away. I'll spare you the intimate details of the rest of the story, but after about 3 weeks she's moved back in and we're attending weekly counseling sessions with a very sincere family counseling specialist in a very sincere family counseling office. At this point, I think we'll be okay - if we can get all of her (the wife's) emotional problems out in the open where they can be dealt with in a professional manner, and I can suppress my disgruntledness about the entire episode. And so how have all of you been? But I digress ... )




  • The Idiot Glenn Beck shouted down at the multitudes gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear him and Sister Sarah pontificate on the evils of black people leading the country and allowing godallmighty Himself speak through them, and using Fox News math announced that attendance was 300,000 to 5000,000 people! Actual count, 87,000.

  • Did you hear? Did you see the blazing headlines, the parades, the TV crews lining up in a rabid media frenzy on the White House lawn? Did you attend a rally, a march, a flag-wavin' gun-tootin' victory party, or perhaps gather around the TV at the local saloon, waving a tiny American flag and cheering wildly? Finally after thousand of young soldiers lay dead, and billions of dollars wasted, the War in Iraq is finally over! Why don't we feel like celebrating? Mark Morford reports.

  • Gotta love Ellen Goodman. Did someone slip Mel Gibson an overdose of testosterone? He's the unanimous winner of our Raging Hormonal Imbalance Award after starring in an eight-minute audiotaped rant telling his ex-girlfriend that she needs a "bat to the side of the head" and threatening to put her in a "f---ing rose garden." We send him a curtain. Coming down. The "Equal Rites Awards."

  • Vive la révolution! This Tea Party movement is interesting in many ways. But one of the most interesting is just who in hell is bankrolling it? Is it Fox News itself? Not really, although they're a part of it. The big money is coming from a very select group of billionaires who have an interesting stake in all of it. Like we've always said "follow the money." Follow it with Frank Rich, and it'll all make sense.

  • Remember back a thousand years ago when George W. Bush was president? Remember how whenever he had a public speaking engagement people were hand-cuffed and taken away for having anti-Bush bumper stickers on their cars, or for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts? In West Virginia, Jeff and Nicole Rank were handcuffed and taken away from a July 4, 2004, rally on the state Capitol grounds shortly before the president arrived. They had tickets to the event, but wore homemade T-shirts with a line crossing out the word "Bush." The government later paid $80,000 to settle their lawsuit. But those who have taken their cases before judges have not fared as well. Read more.