Thursday, November 29, 2007

This is why Australia is much, much cooler than the U.S.

We here at Pregnant Cornbread would like to offer our congratulations to the new environment minister for the Australian government, Peter Garrett, lead singer of seminal 80s rock band Midnight Oil. Seriously, how cool is that? We've got crap celebrities in politics, and the Aussies have got freaking Peter Garrett.

On a personal note, this is really thrilling news: I practically worshipped Midnight Oil when I was younger man, and they were in fact the first rock concert I attended (if you don't count the "Mama's and the Papa's" reunion show I saw at the San Diego Wild Animal Park when I was 6). When I was in high school I wrote a fan letter to the band, and their manager wrote me back a TWO PAGE letter, responding to points in my letter, talking about the group, etc. Crazy. So, anyway, this is just completely nifty news, and my hat is off to Peter Garrett, member of Parliament since 2004, and now minister for the environment.

Cool.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Breaking News: Mitt Romney would not appoint a Mormon to the Cabinet if elected President

It's news of a somewhat unsurprising variety that Willard "Mitt" Romney, former Governor of Taxachusetts and a guy who appointed a judge who subsequently released a prisoner who subsequently murdered some people (what, seriously, is this like a requirement of governors of Massachusetts?), has come out and apparently admitted that he would not appoint a Muslim to the cabinet if he was elected President. Now, as usual, Mitt ducks the real reason for this ("I'm a Republican, what do you think?" would be the correct answer) and instead comes up with the laughably sloppy explanation “based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population.”

So, Mitt is on record as believing that a group's members should only be allowed to hold a cabinet-level position if they amount to a given percentage of the US population?

Interestingly enough, there are apparently between 6 and 7 million Muslims in the United States. (Admittedly, this is a difficult number to quantify.) According to Mitt Romney, this is not a sufficient percentage to give someone any authority within the executive branch. By the same token, however, there are 5.5 million Mormons in the United States.

Thus, by his own words, we can conclude that Mitt Romney would not appoint a Mormon to the cabinet. Sheesh, what a bigot.

Oprah's favorite fridge: Are you kidding me with this stuff?

Let's see: in America, we've got a problem with obesity. People eat too much food, watch too much TV, and get too little exercise. With that in mind, the geniuses at the LG Corporation have come up with the item guaranteed to get people off their couches, and into the...kitchen. Yes, you got it--it's a fridge with a built-in TV/DVD! Yay! Honestly, I don't even know what to say about this. Have we truly fallen this far as a culture (note: anytime anyone begins a sentence like that, the answer is always going to be "yes") that we have to literally have a TV in front of us at all times? Are we incapable of thinking for ourselves during that crucial 2 minute segment of our day when we get up from the TV during a commercial to go into the kitchen to get something out of the fridge?

Even more depressing is that National Arbiter of Good Taste and Sensibility Oprah Winfrey has named this fridge one of her "Favorite Things" for 2007, so it's guaranteed to get a big boost in sales for the holiday season. At a mere $3,800, why not buy two? You could even put one in your living room, so that your couch-to-fridge time is lessened. If you can put it a few steps from the couch, it might even be possible to NEVER be away from the TV. At such bargain basement prices, you could also locate one in your bedroom. With the superb picture of the built-in DVD, late-night snacks have never been so entertaining!



America: Worst. Superpower. Ever.

My least favorite bit of journalistic laziness

I have a sense that the technology of the day gives rise to certain instances of public laziness, and I cannot help but feel as though I have a sacred duty to correct this. Or, more accurately, to write things describing how much hatred I feel in my heart for their usage. When I was growing up in the 1980s, it was routine for people--usually my peers, at occasions like high school graduations--to begin their speeches with the cliched saying, "Webster's defines ______ as..." That ______ was usually something like "success" or "graduation" or whatever. It was annoying, trite, and everything else.

However, now that we've entered a day and age in which we can comfortably leave things like dictionaries and encyclopedias behind on the dust-covered bookshelves of bygone era, we have to confront glaring new instances of cliches working themselves like boring beetles into the prose of journalists.

My least favorite example of this is when writers cite the number of Google hits a give phrase returns as an example of the cache that term holds in the public consciousness. Even though I usually enjoy his writing, Slate.com's Tim Noah is today's exemplar of this annoying tendency. In an article on the credulity of CNN's Larrry King, he writes,

Then again, this is the same Larry King who regularly plays host on Larry King Live to psychics, mediums, and UFO enthusiasts; who peppered his former USA Today column with insights like "The revamped Beverly Hills Hotel is just beautiful" and "Aren't those Save the Children ties the prettiest around?"; and who, when his name is paired on Google with the word credulous, yields 73,800 hits.
Ok, a few things. First of all, that's factually wrong. I googled "Larry King credulous," and came back with 10,700 hits.

Second of all--and, yes, I know I'm taking what is essentially a throw away comment by Noah and writing way too much about it...but isn't that the entire point of blogging?--that's not how Google searches work. All searching for a combination of words does (unless you put the entire phrase in quotation marks, which is not what Noah did) is find any page on which all those words occurs. If I write something like the following sentence, "Larry King's show on CNN is one of the best I've ever seen, and nobody, from my lovely wife to my credulous, moronic neighbor, believes otherwise," it will show up (perhaps as soon as this afternoon) in a Google search for "Larry King credulous."

Here's an example of how much utility you can really get from using Google as a sounding board for the cultural zeitgeist. If I google my name and the phrase "dating Mandy Moore," I wind up with 69,300 hits. ("Dating Beyoncé Knowles" yields only 16,300 hits--sorry, Beyoncé!) Holy cow! If I google my name and the phrase "impregnated Salma Hayek," I get 10,800 hits. Yow! If I google my name and "hit 714 home runs," I get over 250,000 hits. And, since I clearly am not dating Mandy Moore, have not impregnated Salma Hayek, and am not Babe Ruth, there are clearly limits to this business of calculating our culture's fevered intensity for information (although clearly many people are interested in the identity of people who have impregnated Salma Hayek) by arriving at the number of Google hits for whatever particular phrase floats your boat.

Next up, a fascinating rant in which I express my disgust for people who write/say "jive" when they mean "jibe." Fun!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Fred Thompson is stealing his act from Bartles & Jaymes

Big time Hollywood Fred Thompson, former Laziest Senator of All Time (R-TN) and current candidate for president from the Party-That-Hates-Actors-Until-They-Run-As-Republicans party, has released a new down-home, folksy advertisement for the tee vee in which he aw shucks his way into the hearts of anti-immigrant voters across the country. Or New Hampshire, whatever. Watching it, though, I couldn't help but be reminded of some other folksy, down home characters from the TV who wanted to do nothing more than offer up some refreshment: the pitchmen from those classic Bartles & Jaymes winecooler ads in the 80s. So, for the benefit of humanity, here's Fred's ad, followed by the dearly departed Bartles & Jaymes guys.





It's exactly the same! The same speech patterns, the same mannerisms, even the same "thanks for your support" ending, more or less. The only difference, of course, is that one commercial is attempting to sell us a shoddily produced, sickly sweet product that only appeals to the young and ignorant, and the other is advertising a wine cooler.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Turnabout is fair play, aka, A-Rod gets his

Is there any justice more poetic than Alex Rodriguez, who acted like a total jerk by upstaging the final game of the World Series to announce he was bolting from his contract with the Yankees, getting knocked off the top of the sports pages on the day he announces his new contract with the Yankees by the story of Barry Bonds' indictment?

Will George W. Bush commute Barry Bonds' sentence if he's found guilty?

Yesterday, the guy with the biggest head this side of Tim Russert, Barry Bonds, was indicted by a federal grand jury of five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice, coincidentally, the same charges faced by Dick Cheney's erstwhile chief of staff, Scooter Libby. However, after Libby's conviction, Bush commuted his sentence. Here's how CNN described it at the time

President Bush on Monday spared I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from prison, commuting the former White House aide's 30-month prison term.

A conviction remains on Scooter Libby's record, and he must still pay a $250,000 fine.

The prison time was imposed after a federal court convicted Libby of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators in the probe of the leak of the name of a CIA operative.

...

In a written statement commuting the prison sentence, issued hours after Monday's ruling, Bush called the sentence "excessive," and suggested that Libby will pay a big enough price for his conviction.
Ok, fair enough. Libby was found guilty on four counts, and was sentenced to a 30 month prison term. So that sets the bar at what Bush considers to be unfair and excessive for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Now let's turn our attention to Barry Bonds. Here's how Michael McCann of Sports Illustrated describes the charges against Bonds.
However a conviction would be described, Bonds would face up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each of three perjury charges, and 10 years and a $250,000 fine for an obstruction of justice charge. He would be facing serious time.
Ok, so we've got Libby sentenced to 30 months for perjury and obstruction of justice, and Bonds facing a potential 35 years in prison for the same charges. Leaving aside for the moment the greater question of whether a guy who took steroids should get a longer prison sentence than a guy who conspired to leak the identity of a covert CIA operative and then cover it up, I think it's a fair question: if Bonds is found guilty and sentenced to more than 30 months in prison, would George Bush support commuting his sentence?

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Out of touch liberal president increases federal regulations and ignores flyover country

Oh, excuse me. That's what the headline would be if a Democratic president had proposed the REGULATIONS that President Bush proposed this morning in an effort to improve congestion at our nation's airports. Take it away, ABC News:

Hoping to alleviate a chaotic holiday travel season, the White House announced Thursday that the military would open air space for commercial airlines over the five day holiday period.

"The U.S. military is going to make more air space available for civilian airliners this holiday season by opening up a Thanksgiving express lane," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

Additionally, Perino said compensation to passengers bumped from overbooked flights would double the previous compensation, currently $400 or $800, depending on the extent of the inconvenience.
Well, let's talk about this "Thanksgiving express lane!" I live in Portland, OR, and love the idea of improved air space between me and my wife's family in San Diego, or between me and my brother in New York. Certainly these regulations extend to those of us out West, right, Mr. President?!?
These openings concern mainly the East Coast Navy airspace off the Virginia Capes and Jacksonville, Fla., and will occur only during Thanksgiving weekend, from Wednesday, Nov. 21 to the morning of Monday, Nov. 26.
Oh. Of course, if it was a Democrat proposing this, you can bet that he or she would be excoriated for ignoring the needs and wishes of the good folks in "flyover" country, and would be heavily criticized for focusing only on the East Coast (pssst: where all the liberals live).

But since it is a Republican president, the article does not mention that these policies are new REGULATIONS (a word the President himself used in his talk this morning), instead labeling the policies as "assistance" (which they no doubt are, which is kind of the whole point about regulations) for travelers.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

FEMA "rap for kids" really goes off the rails

Hey, kids--you know what's hip? RAP MUSIC! That's right! It's the thing that those crazy, wacky teenagers are doing, what with the crazy pants and the big boomboxes and the hipping and the hopping. And do you know what else is really cool? Rapping about public policy! Thankfully, the "hep cats" down at the Federal Emergency Management Authority, aka FEMA, aka FEMA 2000, aka Femaster Jay, aka Lucious Lightfoot FEMAboobimo, have put out a pretty dope rap to explain to the kids just what it is that makes managing emergencies such a gas. Check out these "phat" lyrics:

Disaster . . . it can happen anywhere,
But we've got a few tips, so you can be prepared
For floods, tornadoes, or even a 'quake,
You've got to be ready - so your heart don't break.
Disaster prep is your responsibility
And mitigation is important to our agency.


Wait, wha? Miti-what? Is it me, or does that last line veer from "lame, trite rhymes about emergencies" to "weird wonky stuff that nobody really cares about?" And, man, it goes off the rails FAST. I can almost picture the board meeting, wherein some "square" upper management guy was like "ahem, well, the rap music my kids listen to talks only about "hos" and "bitches" and "getting in some buster's grill." Shouldn't we have something in here about our important work with mitigation, especially as it relates to certain public-private ventures we have established with various community stakeholders?"

Finally, here's the "wack" graphics they use for the page. Far out, daddy-o! Because nothing--and I mean nothing--says "cool" as much as putting a "z" at the end of a word that normally has an "s" at the end of it. That's crazy!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Hey, Latvia--SUCK IT!!!!

That's right, bitches. So this big impressive healthcare study came out, comparing how various countries are doing at making sure that babies born don't go on to die soon thereafter, and guess what? We smoked your asses! That's right! Boo ya! Y'all thought you were sick stuff, but you just got thrown down by the good old US of A. LOL, Loserz!!! That'll teach you suckers--next time you try to roll, keep it down in your own league. Yeah, you heard me--stick to Lithuania and Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and some of the other 'stans. Ummm hmmm. Tell Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis to quit trying to run with the big dogs like George W! Maybe he should try to compete with someone like First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko of Belarus--that's more his style.

Wait, what's that? You don't believe me? Ok, fine, check this for yourself, fools. Here's the list right here.

Group A
- Japan 1.8 deaths per 1,000 live births
Group B
- Czech Rep 2 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Finland 2 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Iceland 2 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Norway 2 deaths per 1,000 live births
Group C
- Austria 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- France 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Germany 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Israel 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Italy 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Luxembourg 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Portugal 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Slovenia 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Spain 3 deaths per 1,000 live births
Group D
- Australia 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Belgium 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Canada 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Denmark 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Estonia 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Greece 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Ireland 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Lithuania 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Netherlands 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- New Zealand 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Switzerland 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
- United Kingdom 4 deaths per 1,000 live births
Group E
- Hungary 5 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Malta 5 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Poland 5 deaths per 1,000 live births
- Slovakia 5 deaths per 1,000 live births
- USA - 5 deaths per 1,000 live births
Group F
- Latvia 6 deaths per 1,000 live births


Yeah, that's right. Check the scoreboard, baby. You got schooled. You even got your own Group--Group F, for Failure. Meanwhile we're rolling up in Group E, for Exceptional. That's right. Us, Hungary, Malta, Poland (don't forget about them), and Slofreakinvakia. Game on.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Britney's brilliant lawyer tactic #547: Piss off the guy hearing your case

I won't bore you with the trials and tribulations of Ms. Britney Spears nee Alexander nee Federline, but the latest story about how she's allegedly "ducking drug tests" has one of the most brilliant legal tactics I've ever encountered. The basic idea of the story is this: Britney was ordered by the court to submit to random drug tests. She has been called 14 times, and had only gone to the lab to take the test 8 of those times. Federline's lawyer sees much skullduggery here, whereas Britney's lawyer says that the girl just missed the calls because she was asleep or in the midst of a Cheetoh-induced stupor. But here's where the story gets kind of awesome:

Spears has been called to the laboratory 14 times, but has failed to respond to eight of those calls, Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan told Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon Thursday morning.
...
Spears lawyer Anne Kiley argued the previous court order was unconstitutional and Spears didn't respond to the lab phone calls within an hour, as ordered by the court, because she was sleeping. Kiley asked that Spears be given six hours to respond to the laboratory phone requests.
...
Gordon said time wasn't the problem, noting Spears has lost telephone numbers and changed her telephone numbers. The commissioner then noted he has to wake up at 7:30 a.m. each morning.

Kiley interrupted: "You're not a pop star with a No. 1 album."

Oh, snap! OH NO SHE DI'INT!!!! Seriously, is this a smart tactic? I didn't go to law school, so I'm not familiar with the ins and outs and assorted intricacies of our legal system, but is it really a clever move to (a) interrupt the judge (or "court commissioner," whatever) and point out the fact that he's not a pop star with a Number 1 album? (And, technically, neither is Britney.)

It must be said, however, that this "with all due respect, sir, you're not a..." tactic is one that will not work for Federline's lawyer, unless the "seriously, though, Mr. Court Commissioner, you're not an unemployed, highly fertile, and frequently stoned backup dancer" move seems like a good one.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

"So, Dave, why don't you allow comments on your blog?"

Ok, this is a fairly common question, one that shows up in my email with some degree of regularity. And, for the most part, my answer is something like "well, if I did that, then the ___% of my day that I devote to blogging (some reading, some writing) would increase by a factor of 5 as I spent volumes of time sitting around responding to various comments about something I've said."

I'd have to answer charges from crazy Mitt Romney supporters (is there any other kind?) that I've insulted the Moroni Man himself; I'd have to respond to 9udy 11uliani fans that he's actually more than 9/11 and MARRYING HIS COUSIN AND STAYING MARRIED TO HER FOR 14 YEARS EVEN THOUGH THEY'RE COUSINS AND ISN'T THAT FREAKY; and I'd have to answer to the occasional Angelina Jolie or Tom Brady fan who wandered in here from God knows where and is now hot and bothered over me calling their chosen idol a selfish piece of narcissistic idiocy.

But, thanks to a recent post I did on swingers in Portland, I have a whole new reason. A few weeks back I did a short--and at the time I thought unimportant--post about the name change of a local skeezoid swing joint, one I drive past every day on the way to work. The name of the place is now "Angel's Sensuous Social Club," a name that I think--as I pointed out in my post--is pretty nasty. "Sensuous," for starters, is near the top of the "if you hear a guy use the word ______, run away" list that I will give to my daughter when she turns 16. But here's the thing--I have been deluged (not literally, figuratively) by people coming to this blog looking for the name of that swing club. There have been hundreds of them. From everywhere. Russia, India, Iran (yep), Gresham, Poulsbo, Manitoba, Dusseldorf, Vancouver (WA and BC), and points between. You name it, they want to know about the happenings at this swing club.

But--and I can't stress this enough--I have NO idea what goes on in there. I don't want to know. I won't listen if someone wants to tell me. So I fear that if I had comments up, the comments for that particular post would be full of nasty swingers talking to other nasty swingers about the nasty things they like to do whilst swinging. (It's not that I'm necessarily opposed to nasty things, just that...well, I've seen a few swingers in my day. Ugh. Say no more.)

So, short answer to the above question is: because I don't want my blog to be full of the comments of swingers telling each other which robes and lotions they'll be wearing to their next "party," and where their van conversion got that sweet shag carpeting, and god knows what else. So, no comments for the foreseeable future.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

FBI catches wind of devious "Falafel bomb" plot

ABC New's "The Blogger" website clues us into some genius maneuvers at the FBI for profiling terrorists: they're checking out the sale of falafel in California so that they can, uh, well, somehow or another, detect the presence of Iranian terrorists.

Hoping to catch Iranian terrorists in the United States, the FBI analyzed California grocery sales records to find patterns in the sales of Middle Eastern items, according to Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein.

The veteran national security writer reported that in 2005 and 2006, FBI agents "sifted through customer data collected by San Francisco-area grocery stores," with the idea that "a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents."
It's hard to know what to even say about this. I only hope that they aren't clued in to a second terrorist front, one far, far more sinister than the Iranians. And, the FBI will be devastated to hear that thanks to unusual dining habits, this group will be far more difficult to track. We know very little about them, but here's a photo of their reputed top agent.

Birth of a false meme: Hillary Clinton and driver's licenses

Much has been raised about Tim Russert's absurdly stupid "moderating" of the Democratic debate on October 30. Russert's standard tactic is to ask somebody a question and then, as if he was the Great Creskin himself, reveal that--gasp!--they said something slightly different about that subject 10 years ago! OMG!! His only interest is in the "gotcha" question, and it rapidly grows tiring, particularly when we have 10 debates before the first primary. But, as mentioned, his main focus in the past debate was to get Hillary Clinton to stumble over her words on a variety of issues--Social Security, the Charles Rangel tax plan, and of course New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's thoughts about extending driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Here's exactly what Russert asked Hillary Clinton:

Senator Clinton, Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer has proposed giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He told the Nashua, New Hampshire, Editorial Board it makes a lot of sense. Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license?
Note the actual question: "Why does it make a lot of sense to give an illegal immigrant a driver's license?" He was asking her to explain Governor Spitzer's thinking, and she did that. However, that is--no surprise--not how the national press is reporting on the debate. CNN's "Political Tracker," for example, reports the following:
At the end of a televised Democratic presidential debate last week, Hillary Rodham Clinton hedged on whether she supported a plan by her home state governor, New York's Eliot Spitzer, to issue licenses to illegal immigrants.
Of course, she was not actually asked "whether she supported" the plan, she was just asked for reasons why it might make sense.

My suggestion is this: continue to watch the news on this issue. Whether or not you support Hillary Clinton, you will notice that virtually every media outlet will claim that she was asked if she support Spitzer's plan. She was not--go back and read Russert's question. He asked why it would make sense to issue licenses to illegal immigrants. Now, as a friend of mine pointed out, Hillary's only fault here was not realizing the game that Russert was playing: he asked her why the plan made sense, but when he was actually asking was "do you support the plan?" The rest of the media was in on his game, but unfortunately, Clinton was not.

For reference, here are only a few of the many media sources who have already started reporting that Hillary was asked "if she supported" Spitzer's plan:

Opinion Journal
"Sen. Hillary Clinton was asked during a debate this week if she supported New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."

New York Daily News
"Both polls were done while Clinton was getting hammered over her less-than-clear answers in last week's Democratic debate, including on whether she supports Gov. Spitzer's driver's license plan and what she'd do to shore up Social Security."

Monday, November 5, 2007

Conservative Idiot of the Day: Rich Lowry of the National Review

The race for "biggest idiot in the conservative blogosphere" is something akin to the race between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets to see who can lose the most games this year: it's a race, but not something you want to see. There are so many worthy candidates for the honor that it becomes a chore to say all the names, much less go to the effort of actually visiting their blogs to witness the horror firsthand. Nevertheless, a special favorite of mine is National Review's "The Corner," which is home to a rotating cast of luminaries like Kathryn Jean "K-Lo" Lopez, Jonah Goldberg, John "J-Pod" Podhoretz, Byron "Superhair" York, and John "Crazy Racist Englishman who only talks about English things and how he's a racist" Derbyshire. In our race to find the thickest of these particular fools, however, we can't overlook the sheer genius of Rich Lowry, whose offering today shows that no matter how hard he tries, he just can't. quite. understand. the nuances of international policy. Everything, and I mean everything has to be shoehorned into his "it's teh evil Islam!!!!11!!!1!!" view of things. Witness his ramblings on Pervez Musharraf's dictatorial outrages in Pakistan:

The Pakistan situation is another sign that what we face is a global insurgency with many different fronts from Karachi to London. I'm not a big fan of the "world war" terminology because that cues people to think in terms of conventional powers arrayed against one another in a hot or cold war (although such conflicts obviously can have guerrilla wars within them). What we have now is pretty much entirely guerilla wars. Musharraf is fighting one that is probably going to get worse before it gets better.
Well, ok, that's complete rubbish. I know it's tempting to take Musharraf's word for it, and believe that his blatant seizure of power is something he's doing to strike back at those evil Al Qaeda guys (the same ones his own intelligence service, the ISI, has been rather blatant about helping). However, do take his word for it overlooks one key facts: everyone he's arrested since his imposition of martial law this weekend has been either a judge, a reporter, a lawyer, or some member of his political opposition.

I know it's tempting to view everything through the Rumsfeldian lens of "OMG we're surrounded by teh terror!" but in this case you run the risk of looking like an idiot, as Lowry does, when you confuse a petty dictatorial power grab for an earnest effort to combat terrorism.

The painful realization that you are growing old...

I realized something this morning, and it goes like this: you don't realize that you've spent the past year or so going to be bed at around 10 pm every night until your younger brother comes to town and you go to bars and do NOT go to bed until 2.30 am. Yow. Used to be I could bounce back from that in a day or so, but now...not so much. What the hell, age.

Friday, November 2, 2007

Classic Springsteen clip for a lazy Friday

Today's a relatively quiet day in Portland, so rather than bore readers with the minutiae of my personal life (I got a new wall in my bedroom! Yay!), I figured I'd post this classic clip of Bruce Springsteen surprising a bunch of passers-by in Copenhagen with a spontaneous performance of "The River." Bruce is my favorite singer ever, and "The River" is my favorite song of his, so it's a natural choice. Apparently the story here is that the guy in the yellow who's playing along with Bruce is a street performer in Copenhagen who plays Springsteen songs. Bruce, in town for a concert, saw him, and decided to join in for a duet. The dude manages to get some pretty good harmonies in on the chorus, so good on him.

Honestly, can you beat lyrics like

"But I remember us riding in her brother's car,
Her body tan and wet down at the reservoir,
At night on those banks I'd lie awake
And pull her close just to feel each breath she'd take.
Now those memories come back to haunt me,
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don't come true?
Or is it something worse..."

Answer: no, you cannot. The man is a genius.

(Also, note, the audio at first is full of excited Danes saying things in Danish, but rapidly improves as they chill out.)