New Rove Talking Points

Watching Rumsfeld today on the news shows (he was on nearly all of them) today, he defended Rove by saying that Rove was speaking of Moveon.org when he used the term liberals. It's so obvious.

If that is the case, then I suppose I can equate Ann Coulter with "conservatives." Watch, it's fun:

Conservatives say we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.

Conservatives say their only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.

Conservatives say that we need to execute people like John Walker Lindh in order to physically intimidate liberals.

Hey Karl Rove...

Couple of quotes from Bush's #1 advisor:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers."
-- karl Rove - speaking in NY on June 22

"Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."
-- karl Rove - speaking in NY on June 22


Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Karl, Go Fuck Yourself! You have the balls to say this in New York City? I hereby promise if I ever see you on the street, I will personally punch your lights out for saying that on New York soil. If you ever saw the movie Diner then you can now equate Rove with Willard Broxton.

Mortgage madness

I just read about a mortgage called an option ARM that gives you the option of 4 different payments a month.

1. Minimum payment (less than even interest only)
2. Interest only
3. the classic 30 year payment
4. the 15 year payment.

According to this article fromt he SF Chronicle, 50% of people choose option 1, which is essentially a payment that puts you in the hole deeper because you are paying less than the minimum. Assuming interest rates rise, then if you select option 1, then you are creating negative amortization. In the words of my Polish friend Alex, WHAT THE FUCK???

To my cynical peepers, the insane predatory credit card market is being extended to the mortgage market. Lenders are starting to prey on people who have no problem getting in way over their head.

I'm no Alan Greenspan (which isn't saying much these days), but there are going to be a shitload of foreclosed homes on the market in the next couple of years.

Here is the link to the article.

This is the state of our government

From Today's NY Times:

Philip A. Cooney, the White House staff member who repeatedly revised government scientific reports on global warming, will go to work for ExxonMobil in the fall, the oil company said today.

Mr. Cooney resigned on Friday as chief of staff to President Bush's environmental policy council, two days after documents obtained by The New York Times showed that he had edited the reports in ways that cast doubt on the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and rising temperatures.

A former lawyer and lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute, the main lobbying group for the oil industry, Mr. Cooney has no scientific training.

So, Mr. Cooney is found out to be revising documents regarding global warming that favor Big Oil, so he then resigns on a Friday. On Wednesday, it's revealed he has taken a job with the Biggest of Big Oil.

Holy fucking shit. There isn't even a need to hide this kind of crap any more. Because nobody cares.

Hell on Earth is...

Your poor daughter with a three day fever during a relentless heatwave.

Since Friday morning Grace had a fever that hovered between 100 & 103. There was a brief respite yesterday, long enough to go to a child's birthday party (if this is my life for the next 15 years, kill me now! The party itself wasn't bad, but with so many babies, it will become more unbearable than birthdays in the office).

She woke up this AM with a 101, but with the nectar of the gods, Motrin & Tylenol, she seems to have finally turned the corner (unless you ignore the diarrhea from the antibiotics).

I've never considered myself a worrier until now.

It's true what they say...

About Jersey drivers. We had the occasion to head to the Garden State today for a child's birthday party & there were at least three reasonably close calls with knucklehead drivers.

It's called an "turning indicator" for a reason.

Clearly they have earned the highest auto insurance rates in the country.

Because I Can

This post is coming to you from a moving 15 passenger van. Cool, in a completely useless way

Mr. Popularity

Here is a quote from Eric Alterman that puts our 43rd President's popularity in context:

George W. Bush’s approval rating is now a full twenty points lower than Bill Clinton’s was on the day he was impeached. Dear media, that means you gotta stop referring to him as a “popular president,” and no less important, stop treating him like one. If you want to be wimps about everything, fine, just don’t blame it on his ‘popularity.’ Blame it on yourselves.

I have nothing to add here.

A Little Inside Baseball

If you follow politics, then you have noticed the recent stories about Howard Dean and his "intemperate" comments about Republicans this week.

People should simply shut up. Dean will make comments that will occasionally rile up the right wing smear machine, and the idiot press will lap it up because that is the preconceived storyline about Dean. "HE'S A CRAZY HOTHED WHO SCREAMS AND IS UNHINGED. DIDN'T YOU SEE HIM IN IOWA!!!!??? LOOK AT HIM HE'S A CRAZY MAN!!"

I'll take a chairman who gets himself outside of DC over terry McAuliffe any day. Dean will say some shit, but so what, he's saying shit about Republicans. Stop worrying what they think. The more we piss them off the better. I don't see the press calling Frist on his crazy batshit comments or aligning his party with insane fundamentalists.

What needs to be said

Okay, I'll say it because nobody else will.
Ron Howard is a shitty director.

Want evidence? Okay:
Willow
The Missing
The Grinch
A Beautiful Mind (C'mon you know it's lousy)
Far & Away (extra shitty)
Cinderella Man (I admit I haven't seen it, but there is no way it is a good movie. Russell Crowe as a depression era boxer - it's impossible to be interesting)


He had a mini steak of non sucky movies with Apollo 13 & Ransom, but then went back to full suckiness with EdTV. I do like Splash & Cocoon.

I understand he is a great guy, but don't get me started on The Paper.

CORRECTION: I have decided that the adjective "shitty" is really the wrong word to describe Mr. Howard's work. I would like to substitute it for "boring-ass." I feel that is entirely more accurate.