I was wanting to upgrade my printer and decided, instead, to get a printer/scanner/copier. I got a great deal at Circuit City. It was an HP and it was only $60!! I always do well with HP products and this seems like it will work perfectly to suit my needs. So, yay for me to get to take advantage of Circuit City’s bankruptcy!

I guess I’m like many of these other folks that have tapered off their blogging after the election. And considering my blog was never completely political, I guess that’s a little odd. I was trying to keep the blog running as a way for me to make sure I keep writing and, possibly, get myself motivated to start looking to do freelance writing.

I think my tapering off is a combo of the post election burnout and my new day job sucking out my creativity. So, I’ll do a proper post this weekend. Maybe.

Why is it that the few shows on network TV that I actually really like are on so late (well, 10pm)?

Besides Boston Legal, another show I’m always as season behind with is Brothers & Sisters. I love B&S so much. Great stories, great, smart writing, and the actors & actresses are so well cast. Like Boston Legal, it fully deserves every award it’s won. I’m just getting around to watching Season 2.

Speaking of picking up on shows late, I finally got around to watching that show Mad Men that everyone in the world has watched except me. I enjoy that too and need to find season 2 online or hope they put it back up on On Demand.

I will leave with clips of B&S:

Mad Men opening credits:

and Simpsons parody of Mad Men:

First, apparently, Fox is canceling MadTV. I never liked MadTV, but know many people who love it. I didn’t even know it was still on.

Next, the wingnuts are still going on about Obama’s birth certificate and citizenship. I don’t have the time to detail each of their theories, but you’d think by now they’d take a break and just prepare for the next elections. In poking around for information on the latest case by this Leo Donofrio, I came upon several left/progressive leaning blogs about the situation (’cause the other right wing nut job sites are full of racial, hate-filled slurs about this case). The best of them was from Yes To Democracy. The comments there are good to read there too (except for Ted, who keeps posting this 90 minute video on every blog that mentions Donofrio). The last comment by Georgetown JD says:

The Cult has now concluded that Berg screwed up his case, so they’re jumping off that Titanic and into the life boat helmed by none other than retired attorney, tournament poker-playing, Constitutional expert Leo Donofrio. Not happy about the reception that his legal theory received in the New Jersey court (the court that informed him that he is misreading New Jersey law and no, we’re not going to stop the election), it seems that some old fashioned retribution is in order:

“JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGED BY LEO DONOFRIO IN NJ SUPERIOR COURT APPELLATE DIVISION – OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE ALLEGED AGAINST JUDGE JACK M. SABATINO IN ACTION CHALLENGING ELIGIBILITY OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES FOR 2008 ELECTION.”

Ya know what this means, doncha? FRAUD!!!!!!!! New Jersey is going to swap out the case file and send a fake file to SCOTUS: “I am very concerned that if the United States Supreme Court requests the official records of the case from the NJ Appellate Division, a fraudulent case file – not including all relevant documents – will be forwarded to the SCOTUS and thereby the case now pending might be jeopardized.” Holy cow dung!

While it is generally accepted in the legal community that judicial misconduct allegations should be kept confidential — for obvious reasons — Leo is going to share his allegations with the whole world. So bookmark that oilforimmigration blog so you don’t miss all the juicy details. “A copy of the official complaint – by way of a New Jersey Supreme Court generated form – will be uploaded to this blog shortly.

Some other places to do some reading up on this case, Whack Job Scenario: SCOTUS to Decide Election from the All Spin Zone blog, a thread on Democratic Underground discussing the All Spin Zone post, Richard Dawkins forum and Justices to Consider Cert Petition on Citizenship from Dispatches from the Culture Wars.

The facts (that these guys are all still ignoring, by continuing to yell for Obama to produce his birth certificate):
• The State of Hawaii has once again issued verification of Obama’s birth in Hawaii, making him a U.S. citizen.

• FactCheck.org also says that the Hawaiian birth certificate released by the Obama campaign is authentic.

• In October, a U.S. federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging Obama’s eligibility for the presidency because he was either born in Kenya or is a citizen of Indonesia. (Yeah, it just keeps getting better.) By the way, the attorney who filed the suit is Philip Berg, who professes “that most mentally ill people are in fact not mentally ill, but are in fact possessed by evil spirits…. I believe that between 70 and 80 percent of all who live display ‘abnormal behavior’ at one time or another and that in most of those cases an invading spirit of evil is the cause.”

And finally, Snopes has debunked all this birth certificate hogwash.

Of course, the facts are never enough for these people. And I find it weirdly ironic that they’re so concerned about the Constitution now and didn’t seem to care about the Bush administration trampling all over it for these past 8 years.

So, I’ll leave my visitors with those posts to read at their perusal. But it basically sounds like this case will go down the toilet with the others.

And I’ll post some videos of some more out there stories:

best lines from Plan 9 from Outer Space:

Killer Klowns from Outer Space:

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure with the Future Council

Cinderella

Hakuna Matata

I was very late jumping on the Alec Baldwin wagon. I’d heard his name, but never really paid attention to him until he did his guest appearance on Friends and on Will & Grace. And now I see what all the fuss is about. I watch 30 Rock loyally, for many reasons besides Alec. His character on there is great and now I’ve started following Alec’s articles on HuffPost. He had a nice one yesterday about Hillary as Obama’s Secretary of State:

Hoping Hillary Says Yes.
Sitting less than ten feet from Hillary Clinton at an RFK Memorial event in New York this week, I was overwhelmed by the presence and power the woman carries with her wherever she goes. Charming and poised as she was inundated by admirers, I could not help but think how hard it was, in some sense, to vote for Obama over Senator Clinton. I was momentarily overcome thinking how I wish both of them could have won.

I’ll leave with Alec Baldwin clips:

30 Rock

On meeting Sarah Palin:

See the rest of the article above.

This week from Netflix, I got the latest season of Boston Legal, which is now in its last season. I love Boston Legal and never get to watch it during the normal airing since it’s on past my bedtime.

I did get a boost out of my cynicism after Obama’s election, but I think my general cynicism about the way media works still lives. I think that ABC doesn’t like having a show like Boston Legal that’s actually 1) intelligent and 2) isn’t scared to really legitimately criticize the government. Part of me thinks these may reasons why ABC wants to be rid of BL. I don’t think BL will become irrelevant though after the Bush years. That was my thought initially for why it might be getting cancelled, but I’m sure more material would come up for them to do good cases on.

If I’m not mistaken, Boston Legal has seemed to get more and more critical of the current political climate. James Spader’s character, Alan Shore, really stands out as one of those rare lawyers that is actually in it for the true good will of his clients and the society at large, while really attacking the injustice in the politics of today. He always gets cases that are dead on with what’s going on in the news at the time. I just watched an episode where Alan Shore had the opportunity, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, to represent a mentally handicapped man being sentenced to death for allegedly raping a child. In his argument, he ended up going off on the US Supreme Court and how they really are following their own ideology rather than actual justice. Here’s his speech:

This current election:

On euthanasia:

And here are few more clips of this important and necessary show.:

On prescription drugs:

Jerry Esponson’s character:

I’m sure we’ll get at least a few more Bushisms as Bush ends his terms and, maybe we’ll get more after he leaves. There was a funny article on 23/6 this week, Bush has two regrets; We provide the other 37. Their list,

A Quick List Of Stuff George Bush Should Regret
(Off The Tops Of Our Heads)

1. His existence
2. His decision to go into politics
3. Not learning how to better run oil companies so he wouldn’t have to go into politics
4. His decision to run for president
5. His decision to run for a second term as president
6. Every word spoken into a microphone since January 20th, 2001
7. That time in 2001 when he shouted at Dick Cheney, “You know what, screw it. You run the country if you’re so smart!”
8. Ignoring the way Alberto Gonzales was always saying, “Geneva Convention, Schmeneva Schmonvention!”
9. Those times when he let Donald Rumsfeld make decisions
10. Revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative. Not cool!
11. That time when he said “Osama, Saddam. What’s the damn difference?”
12. Letting the country fall into economic ruin
13. Not getting Scooter Libby to take the fall for some more stuff
14. That “wait for this to blow over” position on Katrina
15. Not learning how to keep from smirking while addressing the nation about certain issues, such as Katrina
16. Not figuring out how to control the weather to keep Katrina from happening
17. Not giving more people hilarious nicknames, like “Turd Blossom”
18. That “Iraq” kerfuffle
19. Not giving more speeches in front of banners that read, “Danger: Under Construction” or “Not Finished” or “This Mission is going to take at least six or seven years, if we’re lucky!”
20. Saying, “all right Harriet, you’ve talked me into it.”
21. Never really savoring the good moments.
22. Giving up alcohol
23. Giving up coke
24. Going back on coke
25. Giving it up again
26. Betting Cheney $1,000 they’d lose in 2004
27. Not getting to know Terri Schiavo better
28. Not constantly losing wars
29. Beating Dad’s “years in office” record.
30. Thinking, what the heck, it’s just a pretzel
31. Not flipping the bird more often at Cindy Sheehan from behind the tinted windows of his passing limo
32. Not taking it as a bad sign that Karl Rove has a forked tongue
33. Responding to a report titled “Osama Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside The United States” by repeating the title in a mocking, high-pitched voice that made Cheney laugh real hard
34. Not saying, “Brownie, we should sit down for a performance review in the next week or so”
35. Not calling it, “No Super-Gifted Child Left Behind”
36. Those twenty or twenty-five times when he should have offered his resignation but decided to “wait it out”
37. Not doing more to avoid the inevitable indictments sure to come next February once they start finding out about “the real bad stuff”

I will leave with video clips of my favorite Bush-isms:

And a video of Stephen Colbert roasting Bush:

I heard something about this last week and am just getting around to finding some speculative stories about it. The rumor (I’m gathering that it’s still just a rumor) is that Chris Matthews is planning to re-establish PA residency and run as a Democrat against Arlen Specter in 2010.

I have a few thoughts on this rumor. First, I did get some optimism after seeing Barack Obama win the Presidency, but I think with someone like Arlen Specter that has been in the Senate forever and still has lots of respect in PA (I’m certainly not fond of him, especially since he’s become more chummy with Bush and because of his behavior while campaigning for McCain in PA). For anyone to unseat Arlen Specter seems like an upward battle.

Also, I know there are many excellent Democrats serving in other PA offices that might better serve us since they’ve been here to know our issues and needs.

So for now, we’ll see what happens, but of course, if it came down to Chris Matthews against Arlen Specter, I wouldn’t hesitate to do everything I could to get Chris Matthews elected.

I saw the story being discussed by Jason Linkins on Huffington Post today:

Specter V. Matthews: Potential Matchup Polled

It’s no wonder that Chris Matthews is making bold vows about wanting “to do everything I can to make [the Obama] Presidency work.” As it turns out, preliminary polls indicate that Matthews is going to be in need of some of that “Barack bounce,” if he wants to fulfill his longstanding dream of being elected to the United States Senate on the basis of his tireless protestations that he is the only person in America who truly understands the working class. According to a new poll from Public Policy Polling, Matthews has barely a pulse in a projected matchup with incumbent Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, trailing him 40-27%.

Of course, forty percent is really no great shakes for an incumbent who could end up getting targeted from the right for bruising primary battle similar to the one he endured in 2004. But as terrifying as it is to consider the prospect of Chris Matthews serving in the United States Senate, I’m sort of dying to see these two in a debate. Given Matthews propensity for recalling picayune moments of governmental history and Specter’s well-versed expertise in citing intensely obscure legal precedent, it would likely be the Death Race 2000 of political trivia contests.

I’ll leave with a video that Keith Olbermann referred me to last night. If you played old school Nintendo (which I still contend was the best version Nintendo!), you’d appreciate this. It’s Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt to the tune of the 2008 presidential election:

I don’t live in California, I’ve never been to California. But I’m puzzled about how Prop 8 was passed in California. In fact, I’m confused about any of these anti-gay marriage amendments can be passed. Seriously. How can 2 people in love getting married hurt anyone else’s marriage or life? I can’t really express well my disturbance about these ballot measures, but last night Keith Olbermann put most of my thoughts into words:

You can read the text of his words at the link above.

If you’re interested in protesting the Prop 8 verdict where you live, there are protests all across the country this Saturday. You can find more information here.

I don’t get sucked into all train wrecks the media gets worked up over. I really don’t care about Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan’s latest antics. They don’t have a chance of affecting my daily life and, I don’t know about Lindsay, but with Britney I’ve gotten to the point of feeling more pity for her than anything else.

Anyway, I love certain TV shows for their train wreck value…7th Heaven was a prime example, and that silly show this summer Secret Life of the American Teenager.

This year’s news has been full of stories that I’ve loved for their train wreck value. Late last year, earlier this year, I was sucked into following the story of the Bonnie & Clyde couple here in Philadelphia.

And this spring I was endlessly interested in following the story of the Texas Mormon compound. I’ve always had an interest in cults and the brainwashing that happens within them. This was a prime example to me.

I think the most train wreck worthy case this year has easily been Sarah Palin. Being that she and John McCain ran such an ugly, negative campaign that incited so much anger and hate, I think she deserves every single attack that’s been coming at her. McCain does deserve some slack too, but Sarah incited more of this hate and never did anything to try discouraging McCain’s supporters from flinging anti-Muslim, racist attacks on Obama. Also, according to the Daily Telegraph in London,

Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.

I truly appreciated that McCain tried calming down the hate speech at his rallies, but Sarah Palin did no such thing. And since the campaign ended on Tuesday, McCain has gone quietly into the night and was actually starting to seem like John McCain Version 2000, while Sarah Palin continued causing ruckus in the media.

As folks like Rachel Maddow, Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann have addressed, all these stories coming out about Palin now are troubling for a number of reasons. Most importantly, if these McCain insiders were so concerned about Sarah not knowing Africa was a continent and all these other things, why didn’t they come out with this information before the election ended and, of course, why was Sarah Palin chosen in the first place. The idea of this woman being so close to the White House scared the crap out of so many people and would have been incredibly dangerous.

I have completely gone off track with this, I was originally going to just make fun of Sarah Palin, but everything I said above gives my reasons why I think any of these jokes are justified. I think humor helps ease direness of any situation. I think that’s why it was so great (and important) having Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert around during these Bush years. They made a painful time in our nation’s history a bit less painful.

So, I will continue watching and enjoying the train wreck that is Sarah Palin. I just hope she keeps feeding the media.

I’ll leave with some funny Sarah Palin videos I found on YouTube: