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Thursday, December 8, 2005 |
Bob Cesca: Bring the Horror, O'Reilly. Or Christmas Gets It!. Bill O'Reilly: a man long divorced from reality. A man barely in touch. A man who thinks progressives are waging a war on Christmas. A man... who wears so much make-up, he looks like a Geisha who was hit in the face by an exploding bag of Cheetos. That's right, Bill, I'm calling you out. Today on "The Radio Factor" you said:
"I am not going to let oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country diminish and denigrate the holiday and the celebration. I am not going to let it happen. I'm gonna use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people who are trying to do that. And we have succeeded. You know we've succeeded. They are on the run in corporations, in the media, everywhere. They are on the run, because I will put their face and their name on television, and I will talk about them on the radio if they do it."
When I read the word "horror" in the transcript above (courtesy of Media Matters, who you're too scared to debate by the way... tough guy) I thought, "Oh snap! Bill's going to emerge from my television like that dead girl from The Ring and scramble my face into a Photoshop filtered blur!" But your idea of "horror" is to what... talk about people on radio and television? That's scary, Bill. Scary stupid.
So bring the horror, Bill. Put my picture on TV. It's right up there -- the smirky, bearded, black and white photo at the top of this page. The one that looks like Corey Feldman's ID photo from the rehab clinic. And mention my name all you want. Because while I have no desire to "diminish or denigrate" Christmas, I do think your farkockteh "war on Christmas" is -- what's the word? -- a pathetic and kneejerk farce.
Christmas is freaking everywhere, Bill. Push your team of body guards aside and take a look around. Any rational human being knows that Christmas isn't going anywhere. But if my wife and I choose to send Happy Holidays cards to our family and friend because -- gasp! -- not all of them are Christians, it doesn't mean we're trying to steal the yule long that's somehow buried in your invariably well-made-up ass. By the same token, if my kid's public school organizes a Holiday Concert, it doesn't mean they hate Christmas; it simply means they want to hold a pageant for all of their students -- not just the Christian ones, you tool!
So not only have I called you a tool; made ad hominem remarks about your make-up, your ass, and the yule log nestled therein, I've also said that the phrase Happy Holidays isn't a threat to anyone -- except you -- which means I've somehow denigrated Christmas according to your paranoid, borderline personality standards.
But maybe that's not enough.
I'll tell you how much I want your brand of horror, Bill. From now until the 25th, I'm going to take several seconds out of each day to personally fart on something featuring the phrase "Merry Christmas." That's right, Bill. I'm going fart on the two words you love so much until you talk about me on your shows. It's your call, Bill. Quite the conundrum, isn't it? You ignore me and you'll have to live with Merry Christmas being farted on by a progressive ex-Catholic filmmaker/blogger who called you a tool on the Huffington Post. Or you can talk about me and save your precious phrase from the stench of my flatulance.
And make up your mind quickly because as soon as I click "post" I'm walking into the yard next door and farting on a giant inflatable lawn eyesore that kind of looks like Santa Claus. I say "kind of" because it's half deflated and sort of hunched over backwards.
What'll it be, Bill? [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
10:16:25 AM 
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Stephen Gaghan: On Syriana and Corruption. What's the way in? My first blog. You only get one first time at anything. I'm on a plane. I'm drinking bad coffee. I'm promoting a new film, Syriana, that I've spent the last three and half years writing and directing, cutting and scoring, agonizing as recently as three weeks ago over details like the font and point size of the end-title scroll - I chose Highway Gothic, considered in some circles to be the new Helvetica. Since this is an inaugural blog and it's clear skies at 37,000 feet, I thought I might write a brief primer on corruption. As I travel around I often ask people if they know what corruption actually is and I'm surprised how few people really understand it. It seems it's just another one of those words that have been politicized out of meaning. Corruption has been in the news with more frequency lately, but not nearly as much as it should be or as much as it will be.
A brief scan of the cover of yesterday's NY Times would give you a congressman from San Diego, Randy Cunningham, known as "Duke,"? facing significant jail time for accepting 2.4 million dollars in gifts and indirect payments (one "friend"? bought his home for 1.7 million dollars only to sell it nine months later in a booming housing market for 700,000 dollars less) from defense contractors, a piece on Nigeria (in many years the gold standard of corruption measured solely in terms of number of shakedowns between the airport and town) pointing out that over the last four decades perhaps as much as 400 billion dollars, all of it from oil profits, has been stolen or misspent, as well as an article ruminating on how the 37 billion in federal aid to New Orleans will be allocated.
Corruption is the inducement of a government official to allocate state assets at a price below market value. In a resource rich nation the resource almost always belongs "to the people."? But someone is making the decision where and to whom to sell the goods and that person can usually be induced. We nominate this one person to rise above the others and we pay him a million times his fair share in order that he'll sell everybody else's share to us for less than it would cost on the open market. This is inducement. It's against the law in America. The problem is if we don't induce we don't get the goods. Why? Because everybody else induces too: the French, Brits, Russians, Chinese. All of them. And in order to stay competitive in the global natural resource biz you better be prepared to induce, early and often. Or as Tim Blake Nelson playing Danny Dalton, says in Syriana, "Corruption is just government intrusion into market efficiency in the form of regulation - that's Milton Friedman, he got a goddamn Nobel Prize."
So how do we induce and get around the regulation? The simple answer is: through middle-men. An oil exec making 300,000 dollars a year isn't going to risk ten years in jail to pay a twenty million dollar bribe to a government official in Kazakhstan or Sau Tome or Nigeria, but there are plenty of people who will be willing to do this on his behalf, secretly, often on their word alone, in order that they be cut in on a small percentage of that income stream, in order that one company gain a highly efficient advantage over another.
Perhaps the reason there is so much inducement surrounding the monetizing of oil and natural gas is that it is not a complicated business. You stick a straw in the ground and billions if not trillions start spurting out. This massive pile of wealth, of found money from a puddle under the earth, has the same effect as the gravity of a black hole that bends and swallows the morality of all who pass into its orbit. You think you're immune? Well, I suspect you just haven't been induced yet, you haven't met your devil with just the right, previously unimaginable, dollar figure.
A brief message from Duke, San Diego's congressman: "The truth is, I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office. I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions and, most importantly, the trust of my friends." Randy Cunningham, known as Duke, Congressman from San Diego, lived on a yacht called the "Duke-Stir."? It was anchored in the Potomac basin in sight of the Capitol Building. It was paid for by military contractors. He drove up to the Capitol in a Rolls-Royce paid for by military contractors.
So what do Nigeria and America have in common? The Dukester's boat was paid for with taxpayer's dollars, yours and mine. Because those contracts were awarded at above market value, we overpaid for goods and services and the profit went not back to the taxpayer, but to Duke and his boats and cars and fancy toilets. In Nigeria the government officials keep their yachts in the south of France. So do the royal families of other oil-producing kingdoms. And every one of those fifty or hundred million dollar boats represent how many elementary schools and colleges, how many educations, opportunities for young people, investment in research and science, better hospitals and highways, not just for the citizens of Kazakhstan or Nigeria, Sau Tome or Saudi Arabia, but for the citizens of the USA, the people of San Diego and Kentucky, Texas and Vermont.
And remember that if a culture can spring into existence on the banks of the Potomac that makes it seem perfectly okay to accepts multi-million dollar gifts from private business, that same culture can be changed, induced, if you will, to turn those gifts down and represent all of the people instead of a tiny, super-wealthy minority. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
10:13:56 AM
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PLEASE NOTICE THE PARAGRAPH WHEREIN THESE DESPERATE AMERICANS APPEALED TO AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES FOR HELP. TO NO AVAIL. AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES WHO HAVED REAPED RECORD PROFITS YET CONTINUED GOUGING THIS YEAR. AMERICAN OIL COMPANIES WHO ARE PURSUING OWNERSHIP AND / OR CONTROL OF THE IRAQI OIL FIELDS. (RATIONALIZE THAT)
THANK YOU PRESIDENT CHAVEZ. THANK YOU FOR HELPING THE POOR OF THIS THE RICHEST NATION ON EARTH, WHEN WE NEGLECTED TO HELP THEM OURSELVES.
Politics or Not, Bronx Warmly Receives Venezuelan Heating Oil . NEW YORK -- A green Citgo tanker truck chugged up a hill with a grim view of tenement buildings, elevated subways and treeless sidewalks to deliver Venezuelan heating oil, a "humanitarian" gift from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. By Michelle Garcia. [washingtonpost.com - washingtonpost.com - elections, campaigns, government and politics news and headlines.]
9:49:14 AM
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Washington Ignores Bush’s Evite. The Washington Post reports that, at yesterday’s speech for the Council on Foreign Relations, President Bush had trouble filling the room:
Only a few hundred members showed up for the hastily organized event at a Washington hotel and empty chairs were removed from the back of the ballroom before Bush arrived.
It wasn’t for lack of effort. We were forwarded this desperate plea the Council sent out late Tuesday, asking people who were planning on coming to bring a friend:
Bush broke Council traditional by refusing to accept questions after his speech. Apparently, most people aren’t that excited about being used as a presidential prop. This may explain why Bush has preferred giving his speeches in front of military audiences, who are required to attend.
[Think Progress]
9:43:57 AM
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Marty Kaplan: Corruption Do's & Don'ts. House Speaker Dennis Hastert wants members "to understand the nuances of House rules," said his spokesman, explaining why Hastert proposed ethics training sessions to a members-only meeting of the House Republican Caucus.
Great idea. If executive privilege isn't a problem, maybe they can subpoena the manual that Harriet Meier worked up for that post-Libby-indictment refresher course that Karl Rove & Co were forced to endure.
The key to the House rules, as Hastert's flack emphasized, is subtlety.
A PAC contribution is always more nuanced than a Rolls Royce. A golf trip to Scotland is more nuanced than a yacht on a Potomac, which is more nuanced than a Capitol-convenient lobbyist's hospitality suite with extra bedrooms, which is more subtle than Jeff Gannon/Guckert.
Holding a vote open for an extra hour is more nuanced than threatening a primary challenge against a member, which is more nuanced than bribing him with campaign contributions.
Sneaking last-minute midnight provisions on behalf of lobbyists into thousand-page bills is more nuanced than sneaking them in during conference committe, which is more nuanced than letting defense contractors into conference committee to write those provisions.
Trading K Street access for K Street jobs is more nuanced than gerrymandering a state in order to increase the number of Republican seats is more nuanced than using the FAA to chase down out-of-state legislators, which is more nuanced than money-laundering.
This subtlety thing is pretty subtle, I grant you; minding your quid's and quo's is hard work, as W might say. Which is why I'd recommend that Hastert boil it down into two siimple rules for his Caucus:
1. Don't get caught.
2. If Rule 1 fails, use as many of these words as possible: "full responsibility," "more time with my family," "Betty Ford clinic," "politics of personal destruction," "not gay," and "Jim Wright."
I'm sure the Speaker would be delighted to receive additional suggestions from citizens. [The Huffington Post | Full Blog Feed]
9:42:46 AM
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China Has Risen. Dealing with China's ascension to superpower status is the world's major macroeconomic and strategic challenge. [TomPaine.com]
9:39:32 AM
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© Copyright 2006 Patricia Thurston.
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