whopundit

2005-08-31T13:04:00.000-05:00

Holy Crap
Look, ma!

Marc Hogan in New York Times

Garage Rock Meets Garage Critics

...Pitchfork steps up to the plate with a rigorous rating system, serious (if idiosyncratic) critical standards and a roster of 40 or so talented young writers.

In a current review of "Love Kraft," by the Super Furry Animals, the writer, Marc Hogan, gives the record an 8.5 - so precise, those rockists - and in his rave goes over the top and stays there to very nice effect.

"Whatever its etymology, Love Kraft is a utopian epic, a sweeping musical argument for love in the time of Fallujah," he writes. "In that sense, it's vintage S.F.A., with even its departures underscoring the band's long-established strengths. The leftist politics are less overt, but just as potent; the compositions more focused, but still mad as a Lewis Carroll hatter; the pop more rockin', yet probably more accessible to noobs."

Whatever noobs are. Maybe a smaller, cuddlier version of newbies?

But then, that is part of the point. The Web is a place where tribe is built and serviced by likeminded folks who thrive on the insiderness of it all. There is a common language, common values and a belief that whatever obsession is being serviced, it is the right one to have.

2005-06-22T10:43:00.000-05:00

The Illinois-based editors of Whopundit have come into possession of a rough draft of Senator Durbin's recently read apology. Okay, we didn't come into possession of it. We found it in the garbage outside the Senator's Chicago offices while were looking for old banana peels that we could freeze-dry and smoke. A 6th-grader told us it can get you really high. Does anyone know if that's true?

Oh, anyway, here's the document:

Dick Durbin's Apology: Rough Draft #1

"Dear Members of Congress and my fellow Americans:

"The other day I said that the treatment of some prisoners at Guantamo Bay was bad. And then I read from an FBI report in which an agent recounted what he or she saw there. And then I said you would never think that this was something that Americans could do to prisoners. I also said that this sounded like the treatment that terrible regimes did to their prisoners, not something that an American could do. Do you follow me so far? (Or do you think otherwise? Are you not shocked by what I read?) I also said, regrettably, that this sounded like the sort of treatment of prisoners you would expect of some terrible regime like the Soviets, Pol Pot, or, again, regrettably, Nazis.

"So, now I've come to my apology.

"I'm sorry that all those people who got upset are so upset. To each of you upset, I say now: I'm sorry that the American educational system has so completely failed you in your ability to understand a nuanced point, much less be able to spell or define the word nuance. I'm also sorry for your inability to comprehend why whoever okayed this prisoner treatment made terrible decisions to allow America to squander the moral ideals we, supposedly, hold. That would be from the Civics classes you slept through, Chucklehead.

"In the future, starting right now, I promise to work my hardest to figure cut a way to pull America out of this morass of utter stupidity. I'll work harder to increase the reasoning ability of Americans, because a house with this kind of mental deficiency cannot stand.

"Okay, now was that too fast for you nincompoops? Do you need me to say it again slower?"

-- Fritz

2005-05-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

See This Movie
Funny Ha Ha

marnie: i don't -- i don't know -- it's hard -- i don't know what i would say. it's hard to know.

mitchell: well, if it's not hypothetical then? marnie, i --

marnie: ok, ok, no no no, i mean, you're, i, i'm not, uh, i think, i mean i'm having a great time tonight and i hope we can do this again, but i think, not because of you but for reasons pertaining to, uh, me, think it's not a good idea for me to --

mitchell: ok.

marnie: ...see you romantically at this juncture.

mitchell: no no no, heh, that's fine.

marnie: i'm sorry.

mitchell: no, jeez, don't apologize, because i think you actually handled that very well and i apologize for putting you in a -- an awkward, uh, position, heh, again. you know it's --

marnie: no no no.

mitchell: ...promise it's the last time i'll ask.

website here

- m

2005-02-25T15:32:00.000-06:00

The Question Must Be Asked

An interesting win-win proposal was raised in this week's Jonathan Alter Newsweek column about Miller and Cooper's travails with Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald and the who-finked-Valerie-Plame-and-Joe-Wilson question.

"[Novak] has told CNN that he will walk off the set if he is asked about it."

Now I can't think of one decent reason for a guest not to ask this doddering a-hole this question. You might not get asked back, but aren't they going to cancel this cesspool of a show anyway? Maybe if you ask it really rudely and point your finger (it is Crossfire, after all, and no one will think you especially rude), he might just retire!

--Fritz

2005-02-25T15:00:00.000-06:00

Can Sex Ever Be A Part of a Legitimate Story

I've been reading a little more on Gannon/Guckert. Apparently the CW in more legit circles confirms that, in fact, this is no biggie and anyone who thinks about it is probably looking at thinly veiled homophobia.

Maybe I'm weird here, but I still think there's a big difference between men having sex with men, and men having sex with men for money. Isn't Gannon/Guckert's preferential treatment--e.g. his perpetual day pass plan--and his past/present/future as a prostitute at least a little bit interesting? Aren't you curious as to how he came to be involved in GOPUSA/Talon and got such a sweet gig just like that? What if it was as a result of some form of blackmail? What if Gannon/Guckert were more inclined to favor Islamofascism than just good ol' Texas-style fascism? Man, that would have sucked that he has that mid-to-high level White House "connection," eh?

Can sex never be cause for interest in a story without being salacious? What if sex is the motivator of the actors involved in the story, and drives a story about something, but is not a mere distraction? What if George Bush has an affair with another world leader's wife, or another world leader (hey, it worked for Caesar)? And what if this launches us toward a military engagement? Or toward peace? Wouldn't that be interesting?

Here in Chicago, a plugged-in developer got a sweetheart deal in which he pays exactly no taxes or utilities on his rental of a facility based in the city's spanking new Millennium Park (which debuted in 2004). Oh, and he also impregnated one of the officials who approved this sweetheart deal. Isn't that interesting? Wouldn't you like to know how this plugged-in developer came to plug into this official? What if I told you that this developer was a prostitute with no discernable developing experience (which he's not, as far as I know)? Wouldn't that make you, oh, I don't know, even MORE interested in this story even though there's nothing gay about it?

Maybe this isn't a big deal in Washington because everyone there, on both sides of the aisle, 1) is already married to each other, 2) has affairs with everyone else, and 3) hires prostitutes like it's going of style. A former(?) prostitute, now affiliated with a highly partisan faux-news website, and with no discernible writing experience (much less journalistic) gets to sit in the press room everyday and ask highly partisan questions every once in a while. How'd he come to get this sweetheart gig? Beats me.

Golly, now that's a snoozer.
--Fritz

2005-02-14T09:53:00.000-06:00

No THAT'S Interesting

This is a serious wow! I mean, I know that no one ever got poor playing to the stupidity of the American public, and all, but what about the American press. Should they really be so stupid?

Should someone have, y'know, noticed that two photographs of nuclear facilities in two countries thousands of miles apart are, in fact, of the same thing before publishing it? Or, perhaps, this is just proof that there is a nefarious Kim-Ayatollah architect link not unlike the nefarious Osama-Saddam sous chef link. To war! I wonder if that's the same photo of the Iraqi "nuclear facility" too.
Fritz

2005-02-08T11:42:00.000-06:00

Sentencing

Folks, please note that this is not satire. This is a real answer to what I believe is an America needs, and it's damned simple to explain. I propose capital punishment for the most heinous white collar crimes.

Now, I'd probably be more supportive of my own proposal if I thought capital punishment were ever really a good idea, or if it really did act as a deterrent to people contemplating committing crime, or if I could be assured that, y'know, it was being implemented fairly, and that no innocent people were in danger of murder by chimpanzee governors and their troglodytic counsel.

If all this were possible to ignore, or if you believe that executing criminals does truly scare people from committing crimes, or if you simply don't care one way or the other and want revenge, then what could be bad or harmful about executing executives who steal fortunes, manipulate markets, bilk stockholders, shuffle debts and profits, illegally ship jobs overseas, accept bribes, and the like?

I'm not talking about Martha Stewart-sized crimes of tens of thousands of dollars. That's petty theft, frankly, and she seems to have gotten the business end of a relatively easy case to prosecute against a big old celebrity name, and insider trading isn't what I'm after anyway.

No, what I'm talking about are the shysters like WorldCom's Ebbers and Tyco' Kozlowski and Skilling and Kenny Boy over at Enron. Ebbers was intimately involved in a fraud of $11 billion. Enron's flimflammery resulted in thousands of employees being conned out of their retirements, and power customers in California no doubt died due to a falsified power outage (This is not hard to believe, as people die due to power outages all the time from lost A/C, traffic accidents, etc.). These are real lives lost due to corporate actions, undertaken in the most extreme of bad faith. Can you name one reason why these folks who engineered these bad faith policies, upon being convicted of crimes, deserve anything besides the Christian wrath of a governor or, if it's the Feds, the president himself? Using the arguments of the pro-death penalty crowd (this is payback for harming people, and, besides, it will act to deter followers from purusing the same bad actions), quite simply, I can see none.

--Fritz

2005-02-01T17:29:00.000-06:00

Jesus Christ!

If you want to read a really depressing story, have at this doozy.

Basically, teachers don't want to teach evolution because the dumb-as-rocks parents of dumb-as-post pupils think that it's wrong, though they just loved Jurassic Park 2 and have worn out the VHS tape of it. It's probably only a matter of time before kids have to know that evolution is demonic to pass their No Child Left Behind tests (remember, you can't spell "No Child Left Behind" without "Left Behind"

Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life:

"For political reasons nobody will do a survey among randomly selected public school children and parents to ask just what is being taught in science classes."

Maybe it's time to find that sort of thing out, eh?

--Fritz

2005-01-21T13:33:00.000-06:00

Howard Stern Victorious

Does this mean that Dr. Rice's kid gets the FCC chairman job? Is that how this works? It's been so long that I forget the way we do these things.

--Fritz

2005-01-18T17:09:00.000-06:00

This Just In: Condi Rice Thinks She Still Has Integrity!

A testy exchange from today's hearings, with Ms. Rice getting hot under the collar when Senator Boxer "suggested that in 2003 Rice contradicted President Bush's comments on illicit Iraqi weapons, then contradicted her own positions in her remarks today."

"Senator, I'm happy to continue the discussion, but I'd like to do it in such a way that it does not impugn my integrity,"

Where is that danged integrity, anyway? Maybe she needs to join her husb... I mean, the president in looking under his desk and behind the curtains in the Oval Office. I mean, if the WMDs aren't there, maybe that danged integrity is.

--Fritz

2005-01-18T14:35:00.000-06:00

Tuesdays With Brooksy

I love hearing what conservative commentators like David Brooks and Robert Novak think about what the Democratic congressional strategy should be or how to pick a DNC chairman, don't you?

They're full of advice about how Dems can build support and strength, and, lo and behold, it's to be whiter-shade-of-pale Republican toadies. Now, when the re-education camps crank up on Thursday afternoon, they'll probably right. Getting in line is probably the best way to keep those toothpicks out of your eyes and make the Ludovico treatment stop.

But until that time, while I can, I have a word of advice to Dave and Bob about how to operate their Levitra-needing selves. Eat shit and die.

--Fritz

2005-01-18T13:43:00.000-06:00

A Wee Tip From Your Uncle Fritz

Here's my plan for the next four years, kiddo. Whenever these pricks says something, assume that the opposite is true, because in all likelihood they're lying to your face. You'll be closer to the truth on everything.

When they say black is white, assume that black is, in fact, black.

When they say up is down, don't listen to them. Up is up.

When their math comes up with 2+2=5, know that it equals four.

--Fritz

2005-01-07T14:03:00.000-06:00

Tucker's Out

The big news in mediaville is that Tucker Carlson, the schoolboyish host of the infuriating-slash-boring "CNN: Crossfire" has been sacked.

Whopundit sources in CNN's Atlanta HQ and Chocolate City corridors have gained access to a top-secret memo on Tucker's replacement. Click here for the scoop.

--Fritz

2004-12-28T16:30:00.000-06:00

'A Keyes Family Christmastide'
Not just the name of a future Whopundit feature film

- marc

2004-12-14T17:12:00.000-06:00

Congratulations, Georgie Boy!

Ladies and gentleman: your Presidential Medal of Freedom winner:

Remember, you can't smell "the stench" without T-E-N-E-T.

--Fritz

2004-12-08T17:13:00.000-06:00

Breaking News!

Lou Dobbs is actually named Floppy-Jowl Orangutan-Hair. Or, at least, that's his Indian name. Only his native heritage could possibly explain why he's run at least one anti-illegal immigration story per day for as long as anyone can remember.

The weird thing is that his show is actually good otherwise. But, c'mon, how much longer can this go on?

--Fritz

2004-11-23T17:30:00.000-06:00

Or Does It End With a Whimper?

I wish that I could say, "Big Up Yo'self, Elisabeth!" considering Elisabeth Bumiller's skin-of-her-teeth victory in the NY Press's Wimblehack single-elimination tournament of the worst presidential pundits from sea to shining sea.

But unfortunately, the uninspiring win came on a bit of technicality: Howard Fineman, the hacktacular competition, forgot to show up. Maybe he read the photocopied league schedule wrong.

But regardless, as my high school baseball coach would have told me if we would have won more than two games: a win is a win is a win. May you get all that's coming to you, Elisabeth.

--Fritz

2004-11-23T09:55:00.001-06:00

Brooksy Just Won't Let It Go

Mr. David is apparently still pissed that his book isn't selling well:

So the Republican win may actually mean less one-party dominance. Which would conform to my general approach to life: that everything turns out to be the opposite from what you expect.

Let it go, man. Let it go.

--Fritz

2004-11-11T16:50:00.000-06:00

So it Is

Oh, Jesus.

P.S. dailykos/dailykos
P.P.S. Thank Kos!

--Fritz

2004-11-09T16:03:00.000-06:00

Why Don't You Come Here and Say It To Our Faces

I've been hearing a lot of blather coming from Republican quarters, talking 'bout how they represent the real 'Merica and how the Democrats are just a bunch of pansy-ass Upper West Siders and knock-kneed Hollywood types.

I dare you to come to true-blue Chicago and say that to our faces, ya hayseeds.

--Fritz

2004-11-09T13:39:00.000-06:00

I'm So Gonna Kick Your Ass... In Six Months!
Stay Here 'Til Then, 'M 'K?

From Fred Kaplan's invaluable War Stories column, yesterday:

It is no coincidence that the [Falluja] offensive was launched shortly after our own presidential election. Given President George W. Bush's rosy campaign rhetoric about freedom on the march and Vice President Dick Cheney's assurances that things in Iraq were going "surprisingly well," a sudden escalation of the war—especially if heavy casualties, American ones, ensued—might have dimmed their prospects at the polls.

Isn't this a, like, total abuse of power to favor a political impulse? If we needed to go in Falluja, and we did, then why wait and give the shithead insurgents time to plant boobytraps and perfect their ambush plans for when the pawns, oh, excuse me, American soldiers, finally arrive? Why did we wait so long?

--Fritz

2004-11-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

A Correction

A WaPo story sez the vaunted/derided youth vote was an even bigger turnout than Whopundit had been led to believe! Go on with your bad self, Jose Antonio Vargas, for this little CW-buster:

"Here's where it gets confusing: Because overall turnout was high, the percent of the youth vote was almost the same as 2000. But percentages can hide as much as they reveal. In figures used by CIRCLE, the youth vote in 2000 made up 16.4 percent of the total, translating to about 16.2 million votes. In 2004, the the youth vote made up 18.4 percent, translating to about 20.9 million votes. That's a jump of 4.6 million, says CIRCLE, and a jump in overall turnout, too. More than 51 percent of citizens ages 18 to 29 voted. In 2000, it was 42.3 percent."

But c'mon, is that really so confusing as to require the after-election pack to feast on young people's continuing alleged apathy, even when they increased turnout and were quite active? Or is this more a case of old journalists sticking to their baby-boom reared instinct that no generation can ever be as politically atuned as theirs?

Young people got out the vote AND voted for Kerry AND saved Latin. What did you ever do?

--Fritz

2004-11-05T14:13:00.000-06:00

Trend-setters

I've noticed at least two trends following this past Tuesday night, or, well, erm, actually Wednesday afternoon.

The first is an attempt to unfairly blame a lack of "youth vote" for Kerry's loss. Usually this is in the form of chalking up Kerry's loss to a just-didn't-turn-out throwing up of hands. Sometimes this is based on a cursory look at the unchanged voter-percentage statistics: in 2000, 17% of voters were in this 18-29 demo; in 2004, again, it's 17%. However, there were 15 million more voters in 2004 than in 2000, meaning that there were 2.5 million more of these young voters this election year. That's no small number. And when you consider that a significant number of these voters registered in the very first election of their lives (if it's their first election, these voters were not "returning voters" and were not on rolls before, as most older voters likely are, and had to registered from scratch), this is even less reason for the old trope that young people are hopelessly apathetic and nihilistic. In fact, I believe that this young generation is just the opposite. It is full of vigor and ready to tackle the issues that face our country: they voted Kerry. The nihilists are all of the old people who abandoned the Democratic party and voted Bush because they're convinced that he makes us safe. That's bullshit, straight up, and we young people know it.

Other times, as with this Wolf Blitzer Reports piece, it comes in the form of simple misreading and horribly unprofessional jumbling of facts. The reporter Brian Todd says, in a throwaway line from a piece about the admittedly inept celebrity endorsement game, "Even the credit celebrities get for attracting new voters may be negligible. For all of P. Diddy's 'Vote or Die' rhetoric targeting the youth vote, only 17 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 29 actually went to the polls this year, the same percentage as in 2000."

What he means is that only 17% of all voters were between 18 and 29, same as in 2000. But whatever. This was a chance to take a potshot at both celebrity and young people who likely don't watch CNN anyway, and they took it truth be damned.

The other trend I've noticed is a rather hostile attitude from Republicans or at least Bush supporters toward those who advocated against the president. The essence of this is that of "Bush won, you suck."

Eric Alterman's "Altercation" blog on MSNBC broke down their angry emails into three categories: "the CAPS LOCK crew," " bible thumpers/value voters who were overjoyed that biblical values were finally coming back into vogue," and " the simply indignant."

Richard Roeper, who expressed himself not in the thumbs-up-thumbs-down dualist format that is his customary to his television job, but rather in the big-city-tabloid column format that is his primary employment, gave 50 reasons to vote against Bush. On Wednesday, his inbox, too, felt the brunt of the victorious in their gloating. "Your party lost, bitch. Get used to it," was, frankly, the most coherent of his letters.

Now, I have a question. Republicans have again sent a president to the White House, and control both house of congress. What on Earth are they still so angry about?

My Psych 101 analysis is that, for the most part, Republicans believe most strongly in not being Democrats. They obviously don't care about fiscal conservativism or empiricism, which at some point, seemed to be important to them. So what are Republicans all about then? What does their mandate mean (besides, of course, hating Democrats, fags, Michael Moore, abortions and Massachusetts)? I have no clue. But I'm sure it ain't gonna be pretty.

--Fritz

2004-11-04T13:44:00.000-06:00

What Would Jesus Do?

How much you wanna bet this guy voted for Bush absentee in Ohio?

--Fritz

2004-11-02T07:15:00.000-06:00

Just Voted

Feels good.

We shall overcome.