Boyd

I'm opening a jazz club in some cool downtown somewhere. I'll call it The Loneliest Monk.

Terry Teachout has compiled a list of jazz offerings on You Tube. It's in the right hand column of his site.

Check out his post and article from today's WSJ.

For your viewing pleasure. Enjoy while you can. This has Napster written all over it.



Update: He's found quite a bit more than jazz. It's all good.

Baseball schedule changed. We're playing on Friday night instead of Saturday. Hope to be at Converge now. Still have a game on 10/7 so I don't think I can make FreedomNet. Y'all have fun though. Ya heard.

So sayeth Oliver Stone. I'm actually somewhat OK with this. You make a cost/benefit and you decide we can afford to lose X number of Americans annually to terrorism. Just like what we do with the speed limit. If we don't do this then we spend ridiculous amounts of money due to the law of diminishing returns and these ridiculous amounts lead to all sorts of game playing by people trying to get a piece of the pie.

My problem though is that this sentiment assumes that terrorists will continue to attack us conventionally by blowing up an airliner here or there or by shooting up a bus. If you take them at their word, they intend to destroy the West and thanks to the wonders of technology they draw closer everyday to having this ability. Or at least the ability to kill a whole bunch more people than they have been able to in the past. This is a different animal than the IRA or the Basques.

AP:

The new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq said in an audio message posted on a Web site Thursday that more than 4,000 foreign insurgent fighters have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

In the message, the speaker also called for explosives experts and nuclear scientists to join his group's holy war against the West.

"The field of jihad (holy war) can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them," said the speaker.

You know they have some OSHA violations going on. Maybe we could try regulating them out of business like we do with US companies. Pull out the Marines. Send in the bureaucrats.

How about this? We all love lottery winners, right? Take 10 people of different walks from all over the country and give them $1,000,000 each. It's theirs to do with whatever they want. Follow them around for a year. Whoever has the most money at the end wins $10,000,000.

It'd be like Brewster's Millions crossed with the World Series of Poker. Some of them couldn't help but lose. Some of them would parlay the cash into fab new careers.

Klein:

Instead of rewarding its loyal voters with the limited government they were promised, the Republican Party has decided to increase its voter base by offering the stale ideas of big government liberalism.

Update: You know, if you're going to be accused of being willing to sell citizens to the Taliban in order to get Haliburton stock up a point, you might as well go all the way and advocate a conservative principle or two once in a while. They can't hate you any more.

They call it perhaps 'the greatest attack ad of all time.'

A highlight:

Brad Miller spent your money to study the masturbation habits of old men.

Update: I wondered about the somewhat off-topic comment from Nathan Tabor on this post. Seems to be part of a pattern.

Colbert kills me. Must be weird though being interviewed by someone playing a part.

The Big Lead:

Q: In one of your most memorable appearances on The Sports Reporters, you got into a tiff with Mike Lupica and Mitch Albom when you said sports was just ‘entertainment.’ Lupica told you to go work on ‘Entertainment Tonight.’ You haven’t appeared with either of them since. Have the three of you kissed and made up?

I don’t have a problem with Mitch Albom. Lupica is an insecure, mean-spirited busybody. He’s upset because I put a clown suit on him on that show and in a follow-up column I wrote for ESPN. His little disingenuous overreaction to an opinion I’d stated previously on the show was staged to try to put me in a bad light. I guess no one had ever informed Mike that the E in ESPN stood for Entertainment. The Little Fella probably won’t let the producer (Joe Valerio) have me back on the show again. That’s cool. They’re mostly upset that I wouldn’t participate in their Barry Bonds witch hunt and help them single Bonds out as the creator of steroids. Lupica doesn’t like to be disagreed with, and he’s spoken so abusively to that producer for years that the producer probably doesn’t realize people are allowed to disagree with Lupica. I enjoyed my time on the show. But if the price of admission is stepping to Lupica’s drum, I’m more than happy to go without.

I'd go without too. I used to love The Sports Reporters. Looked forward to it every Sunday for years. But Lupica began to wear and these days, if he's on, the TV goes off.

Whitlock's not bad. Original takes once in a while. He's right on Scoop. Scoop is no Ralph Wiley.

Salon interview with Esther Perel:

Her advice is refreshingly counterintuitive: Communicate less with our spouses about the minutiae of daily life and speak more with the language of our bodies and our secret desires. Pursue interests outside of work, marriage and the family. Open up about our fantasy lives. Flirt and play with both our spouses and others.

Let's just hope that while we're being mysterious and not communicating that someone remembers to pick up the kids.

Slivinski:

...Republicans are learning the wrong lessons from their victories. Right now, the message they're receiving is that voters are peachy with how things are going on the Hill.

It took a lot of years to get to Republican control of Congress. It's taken not many years for them to forget where they came from.

Fergie:

Record sales are on the mark
Cuz thats about the time the rumors start
Where all the people talking out their ass
Well, someone gotta school ya cause ya got no class
Well I've paid my dues
I'm a seasoned dame
So why you gotta throw salt in my game
You hide behind the computer screens so that you dont have to be seen
How could a person be so mean

The response. The evidence.

Via Lex, da po' boy on MNF:

Imagine 70,000 people on one city block, on one special day, all there for one purpose. Imagine over $100 million going into bringing those people together. Imagine a Super Bowl atmosphere, complete with the media frenzy and global interest in what is happening on that day on that block.

Sounds magical, doesn’t it?

Now, imagine that the city block the masses have come to is in Gentilly, or Mid-City, or Lakeview, or the 9th Ward, or New Orleans East. Imagine that they are not there to sit in a comfortable seat and watch grown men play a game on artificial grass, but have come together to be part of the action and participate in the rebuilding of that neighborhood. Imagine how much work could get done.

Yeah, I know. I don’t believe in magic either.

It's a silly game. No doubt. ESPN and the NFL have overhyped it. No doubt. Not much will be different for NO in the morning. No doubt.

However, there's a reason you can get 70,000 people out to watch a football game where you can't get them out to rebuild a neighborhood. Self-interest.

It is what it is. No need to bemoan the fact. It has always been thus and always will. It's why capitalism destroys collectivism. Proper motivation can only be sustained when folks have a stake.

Emotion is a risky thing. If the Falcons are smart, they'll count on overpursuit.

The reason the Falcons are having success running the ball is because the defensive linemen they've played have been worried about their knees. Why do you think Denver can turn a sixth round back into an MVP? Alex Gibbs is an evil man and it is inconceivable as to why the NFL allows blocking below the waist in any circumstance.

Tonight I suspect the New Orleans D will play like it's the Superbowl and take the injury settlements if it comes to that.

CNN:

U.S. intelligence officials said Saturday they could not confirm the report suggesting that bin Laden might be dead.

The leaked information was first published in a French regional newspaper Saturday. The article said that a French foreign intelligence document dated September 21 quoted a "usually reliable source" as saying that Saudi Arabian authorities were trying to confirm reports that bin Laden died of an acute case of typhoid in Pakistan August 23.

Just when the Democrats thought November was a lock. They've got six weeks to get out the idea that Karl Rove has had OBL on ice for the last five years.

And using the French to break the story? Is there no limit to this man's genius?

Reuters:

"But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now," Clinton said when asked whether he had failed to fully anticipate bin Laden's danger. "They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed."

It's easy to forget how hyper-sensitive the Clinton team was/is about how they're perceived. Imagine how they'd have handled the whole Plame deal. Colin Powell might be washing cars somewhere now.

Krauthammer:

The pope gives offense and the Mujaheddin Shura Council in Iraq declares that it "will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose the 'jizya' (head) tax, then the only thing acceptable is conversion or the sword." This to protest the accusation that Islam might be spread by the sword.

These folks are too serious. Get over yourselves. You're like thirteen year-old goths.

Instead, be like Ayaan Hirsi Ali (wouldn't hurt you either people of the West).

Will on one of the bravest women in the world:

Having experienced life circumscribed by tribal and religious communities (as a girl she suffered the genital mutilation called female circumcision), she is a fierce partisan of individualism against collectivism.

What happened to Whitney Houston? Seriously. I never saw it coming and I still can't get over it. To go from The Bodyguard to her 'reality' show with hubby Bobby? This has to be the all-time bait and switch.

Remember these guys? Having trouble? Go here and here.

So who won the contest?

These guys. Mainly this guy. Here are the pics of the spoils.

So why didn't our boys pull it out? Could be the discrepancy in video quality of the final challenge. The Vendetta kids made a movie with a plot and lighting. The G-Spot kids didn't.

Or it could be age discrimination. Our boys look like they have fifteen years on the champs.

TSG:

Now I'm wondering if I avoided "The Wire" because its central themes -- drugs, corruption, urban decay -- were realities that I simply wanted to ignore. Instead of being haunted by a show like this, it was easier and safer to skip it entirely. Most people feel this way, I'm guessing; it's the only conceivable reason why five times as many people would watch "The Sopranos" over a show that's better in every way.

Simmons is right. This show is better than The Sopranos. The Sopranos characters feel cartoonish after watching The Wire.

Why hasn't it caught on? Why haven't I watched it until now? Part of it might be the cop angle. I'm burned out on cop shows and I think they marketed it as a cop show for a long time. But it's so much more.

Clark:

"You don't know what you've got here," Morton said to me.

High Point is beginning to understand. Coltrane, born 80 years ago Saturday and, sadly, dead since 1967, is still an asset with vast marketing potential.

Better than Fantasia.

1. Government. Solution or problem?

2. Fellow man. Solution or problem?

3. Tupac or Biggie.

Because of this. This:

1: Do you like the look and the contents of your blog?

No, but I'm not really sure who to call to get this corrected.

2: Does your family know about your blog?

You mean the ones tied up in the basement or my family family?

3: Can you tell your friends about your blog? Do you consider it a private thing?

Definitely private. It's a good thing only I have access to the Internet.

4: Do you just read the blogs of those who comment on your blog? or you try to discover new blogs?

People who leave comments add value in that they discuss what I want to discuss. Whatever they publish is likely to be off-topic.

5: Did your blog positively affect your mind? Give an example.

More than alcohol.

6: What does the number of visitors to your blog mean? Do you use a traffic counter?

It's a measure of the increasing or decreasing good taste of blog readers.

7: Did you imagine how other bloggers look like?

How the hell kind of English that was?

8: Do you think blogging has any real benefit?

Judging from the barrels of cash I am continually forced to make room for, I'd say yes. To an extent.

9: Do you think that the Blogsphere is a stand alone community separated from the real world?

It's been done. It was called The Matrix. It had Cornell West.

10: Do some political blogs scare you? Do you avoid them?

Only the ones that are wrong.

11: Do you think that criticizing your blog is useful?

Useful to whom?

12: Have you ever thought about what happen to your blog in case you died?

My philosophy is that when I die, I'm not going to care what happens with this blog.

13: Which blogger had the greatest impression on you?

Eh.

14: Which blogger you think is the most similar to you?

I am a party of one, baby.

15: Name a song you want to listen to.

As in want to, but can't? Hmmm.

16: Ask five bloggers to answer these question on their blogs.

If I ever decide to burden someone with one of these, rest assured, the questions will be better.

I warned you off Dane Cook. Now allow me to turn you on to something good. Something very good that I am late to the party on. Very late.

The Wire.

When you first turn it on it's going to be confusing for about ten minutes. Tough it out. This show has the vibe that the The Sopranos had a few years back. The writing is incredible. The characters are complex. It's fast-paced. I can't believe I've been missing it.

This is good. Really good.

Here's the pic that started it all. See if you can spot the pair that caused the uproar.



Update: I'm so in awe of Clinton right now that I can't even tell you. The guy just turned 60 and he's got supple, young, twentyish, blogging feminists fighting to the death to defend their right to thrust their boobs out in front of him. The guy's wife, who he cheated on in the most public way in the history of the world, is still married to him and getting ready to take him back to the White House as First Man. I defy you to find me someone with better karma.

Update II: Would anyone be against giving Clinton another crack at it? Maybe, as a people, we could cash in on some of that charm. He's a virtuoso and we have been woefully unappreciative.

Update III: Which is really the problem here. We have defied his karma to the point where we are being made to pay.

I watched this again last night. It couldn't possibly be as bad as it was the first time. Could it? Well, yeah. Worse even, because going in I had no expectations. Now I know the guy is a fraud. It's like the next generation of twenty somethings all decided to rebel and drive the rest of us crazy by liking an unfunny comedian. It's atonal music except that with atonal music you can make a career of it by getting some idiot government funded music school somewhere to make you a professor and pay your ignorant ass. With Dane Cook the joke is on y'all because you're paying to be there.

TSG on some contestant from Rock Star and Dane Cook:

There wasn't a more mesmerizing summer TV presence than Storm Large (not a stage name, she claimed), who looked like the cute sister from Heart crossed with Jennie Finch, only with Mark Madsen's personality from every 2003 Lakers game thrown in. If she ever reproduced with Dane Cook, their kid would just stomp around holding its arms in the air, screaming "yeahhhhhhhh!" and making weird hand gestures until its head exploded.

Update: 'But, Dave,' you say, 'it can't possibly be that bad.'

My reply to you? I dare you to watch this guy and laugh. If you do, make an argument. I'll listen and then cross you off the list of ever having to take you seriously again. This guy is a sorority girl comic. Cute and she'll laugh because she's had too much alcoholic punch and she thinks she's supposed to laugh.

What happens if Saddam is found not guilty?

CNN:

Questioning a Kurdish witness Thursday, Hussein said, "I wonder why this man wanted to meet with me, if I am a dictator?"

The judge interrupted: "You were not a dictator. People around you made you (look like) a dictator."

"Thank you," Hussein responded, bowing his head in respect.

The mind reels.

Scott Fowler of The Charlotte Observer has been trying to come up with a nickname for the Panthers defense a la Steel Curtain or Purple People Eaters.

How about The Sieve?

Update: Reading the article further, I notice that someone else has already nominated The Charlotte Sieve.

I'll try again. Depending on which way the running back goes with the ball, how about Gaping Hole Left or Gaping Hole Right.

Converge last year was well worth the time and effort. Unfortunately this year one of my kids' baseball teams has a game that day. As I am the coach, I am obliged to be there.

To anyone on the fence about whether to go or not, go. It's a fun and eclectic crowd and a chance to see the future first lady without having to pay $750 for a plate of lousy chicken.

To get your conservative groove on, there's this the week before.

As a tribute to the free market and capitalism everywhere, there's a charge for FreedomNet.

If the founder's blog was working, I might also plug Stenchorama.

Regarding the 2006 elections,

Ponnuru:

It would be worse for conservatives if Republicans actually gained seats. The Congressional wing of the party lost its reformist zeal years ago and has been trying to win elections based on pork and incumbency. An election victory would reward that strategy, leaving the congressmen even less interested in restraining spending, reforming government programs and revamping the tax code. Political incompetence and complacency, sporadic corruption and widespread cynicism: having paid a price for none of it, Republicans would indulge in more of the same.

This is the most compelling reason to be satisfied with a GOP defeat in November - they don't deserve to win.

Unfortunately this strategy hasn't helped Democrats. They've just bided their time since '94 waiting for the Republicans to screw up rather than remake themselves. Hopefully a defeat in November will spur Republicans to reinvent rather than retrench.

Saw Born Into Brothels last night. The film gives glimpses into the lives of eight kids whose mothers are prostitutes in Calcutta. The hook is that the western filmmaker, Zana Briski, who befriended the kids did so through photography. Her original assignment was to document the Red Light District. Unable to get the residents to open up to a white woman, she started teaching their kids how to take pictures. The kids had far fewer problems with access and some of their photos are stunning.

As you might imagine, as the film progresses the focus turns from the Red Light District to Briski's efforts to help these kids get out. It's almost a total failure. Culture, government bureaucracy, family, their own motivations, all conspire to keep the kids out of school and in a world, however brutal, that is familiar.

Maybe it's still too soon, but it's hard to figure out how to think and feel about 9/11. Somewhat unfortunately, the whole thing is less Pearl Harbor than it is Columbine. With Pearl Harbor you had a formidable enemy attacking a military installation of strategic value. With 9/11 you've got petulant children striking out at symbols. Granted, it was a clever plan (for the amount of time it was workable) and an impressive display, but what was it beyond a made-for-television component of the neverending one-upmanship inherent in terror as a tactic? It was 'Hey man, watch this' and 'Why? Because it's there.'

The Islamic fundamentalists behind the attacks psychologically seem little different to me than the goth kids who shoot up their high schools from time to time. The event is the strategy. The place is the symbol of their oppression. They have no plan other than to demonstrate how disaffected they are in the coolest way they can imagine.

And the people caught up in it? Random. Completely and utterly random.

It's all very post-modern.

King:

The stupidity of the former University of North Carolina coaching staff that buried Willie Parker on the depth chart is on display every time he runs the ball. If you didn't play Parker, Tar Heel braintrust, you obviously had Walter Payton, Barry Sanders and O.J. Simpson ahead of him.

Garbaldi:

Brandon’s current problem began because Ms. Waverly, his social studies teacher, failed to answer one critical question: What was the point of the lesson she was teaching? One of the first observations I made as a teacher was that boys invariably ask this question, while girls seldom do. When a teacher assigns a paper or a project, girls will obediently flip their notebooks open and jot down the due date. Teachers love them. God loves them. Girls are calm and pleasant. They succeed through cooperation.

Boys will pin you to the wall like a moth. They want a rational explanation for everything. If unconvinced by your reasons—or if you don’t bother to offer any—they slouch contemptuously in their chairs, beat their pencils, or watch the squirrels outside the window.

It's really too bad that girls aren't physically stronger than boys. The world might be a really nice place to live if they were in charge. Everybody would get along and we'd all do what we're told. Until, of course, we all got older and a few of them learned to use the emotional instability of some of their brethren against them and learned to manipulate the spirit of cooperation to their own spiteful ends.

Aslan:

And because no centralized religious authority exists in Islam to determine whose opinion is sound and whose is not, Muslims can simply follow whichever fatwa they like best.

Welcome to the Islamic Reformation.

This may make our task seem more daunting at first, but on the other hand, it's quite an opportunity to make Osama and his ilk defend their antiquated views. From the article, it's clear that Muslims are seeking input from a variety of non-traditional sources. Perhaps the classical liberal thinkers among us will accept the challenge.

Peters:

We've got our hands full in the Middle East. Why alienate the Muslims of Indonesia or West Africa (or California)? A wise strategist seeks to divide his enemies, not to recruit for them. Some of the bigots out there might like to try to kill a billion Muslims, but I'm not signing up for their genocidal daydreams - nor will my fellow Americans.

Ultimately, our military actions can only buy time. The long overdue liberal reformation within the Islamic world can only be carried out by Muslims themselves. Those who believe in Islam with all their hearts will have to be the ones who defeat those who hijacked their faith.

Won't be long now. All you'll need is $148k a.k.a. e z payment plan.

My friend, John In Carolina, has been a pit bull on this Duke thing. I reserved judgment at first, but based on reading John everyday for months, I'm agreeing with him that this whole thing is a hoax and the way Nifong handled it and the N&O reported it was a travesty.

Now for the good part, John's impression of Ed Bradley.

TSG:

An e-mail from famed Hollywood producer Bob Ryan:

"Hey, Bill, I have a movie pitch for you, I want you to write it. Let's say there's this new football announcing team, and one of the guys has been allowed to contradict himself and make dumb proclamations for far too long, to the point that it's hard to take him seriously anymore, and then his network decided to team him up with someone who's conditioned from years and years of radio and TV work to challenge every dumb sports-related argument he hears. And these guys were forced to announce games together for the next 17 weeks. Is that something you might be interested in?"

We may only realize the full potential of this scenario when the ratings begin to slip and the inevitable talk begins about shaking things up.

For the record, I'm disappointed in Kornheiser so far. Way, way too deferential to Theismann. What I wouldn't give for one night of Cosell. The shredding would be brutal. Theismann might not even realize what had happened until the next day when he reads it in the papers.

And to all the people who hated Cosell, that was fine, it was part of the fun, but don't push stuff like that too far. The world is a more interesting place with characters. Otherwise we end up with Katie Couric at the CBS Evening News - a woman so bland and overproduced that she can't even think of her own sign-off. Dan Rather may have been a fool, but at least he was fun.

Courage.

Baute has a snippet from a WSJ article yesterday that mentions a Burlington church and their struggle to define their mission. It appears that to grow as a church, some folks have decided that they must move away from the traditional church model toward something more 'purpose-driven.' However, as one might imagine this has the contrary effect of reducing membership, at least in the short run.

It's really the big-box effect, isn't it? You've got these mega-churches and their theatre seating and their bands and their casual dress and their modern sermons and it's appealing to folks inclined to go to church, especially young people. The regular churches are the mom-and-pops of the world caught in the middle between Lakewood and the low-cost, storefront guys.

Update: Here's the article. Worth the read.

I'm a sucker for HBO comedy specials. No commercials and foul language. What could be better? Oh, wait, I've got it - that it be funny. I watched the first fifteen minutes of this last night. Who were those people cheering? It was pathetic. The guy has nothing. N. O. T. H. I. N. G. He doesn't even tell jokes. He talks for a while. He walks around the stage. He stops. People go crazy. Dumbest thing I've seen in my life. Lying there, I wondered about other comics sitting at home watching this lame act and silently getting up to go find their handgun to end their misery. Why waste time trying to craft jokes or work on your delivery when Dane Cook has changed the very definition of humor?

Want an example? Of course you do.

The Super Finger or Su-Fi (pronounced su-fai) is a hand gesture. It consists of raising the middle finger, ring finger, and thumb on the same hand while lowering (or curling) the index and pinky fingers. Cook's website explains his idea behind the Su-Fi:

One night I did a bit on stage about 5 years ago at the Laugh Factory. I was talking about how the finger is lame now and it's lost its pizazz. I said I wanted to upgrade the finger and so from now on people should use both the ring finger coupled with the middle finger. I called it the SUPERFINGER (or SU-FI).

Isn't that just hysterical. If you're not falling on the floor laughing and screaming your head off, you are not Dane Cook's target market.

Pretty cool conversation at Cone's about concerts at the Greensboro Coliseum and pop music in general.

Got to the point where I was reminded of The Sugarhill Gang. Four seminal music moments in my life that I can think of: hearing AC/DC on the school bus going to junior high, hearing a friend's big sister blasting Rapper's Delight from her bedroom, listening to every Miles Davis record I could get my hands on at the music library in the basement of UNCG's old music school and my first time seeing Geezer Lake/Sans Sobriety at Somewhere Else Tavern.

Honorable mention: Stumbling upon Majosha at City Stage.

Loved it. I hope to someday live in a totalitarian United States or Great Britain where the government lies to its people about needless wars, unleashes biological weapons on them in order to blame terrorists and keep the population living in fear, kills people who possess copies of the Koran, bans music, tortures homosexuals, listens in on the everyday conversations of ordinary citizens and controls the media. I'd also like to keep Natalie Portman locked in a closet for a few months, but that's beside the point. Perhaps if we could live under said conditions, all this outrage in certain quarters wouldn't be going to waste.

Other recent movies viewed:

Larry the Cable Guy movie - Possibly the worst film I've ever seen and this from someone who has seen Larry in concert and laughed so hard it hurt.

Invincible - Hey, it's a sports movie where the underdog overcomes long odds and wins the girl. What's not to like?

Diary of a Mad Black Woman - Best movie I've seen in years. Has it all - humor, romance, deception, redemption. Great in every respect. If you're over thirty and you don't like this movie, you're an idiot.

Update: I looked up the reviews of DMBW. It appears the critics all are idiots.

Remember the good old days when motorcyclists rode Harley Davidsons to beer joints and terrorized whoever happened to be nearby? People got drunk. People got naked. People got into fights.

So today I'm riding around and what do I spy? Motorcycles lined up at the local Starbucks. The whole middle aged gaggle (you can't call them a gang now can you) of them were outside under umbrellas sipping their caramel mocha lattes or whatever the hell it is Hell's Angels order when they stop in at the coffee shop.

David Boyd Rule of Life Number Nine - Baby Boomers ruin everything.

AP:

Iraqi and coalition forces have arrested the second most senior figure in al-Qaida in Iraq, Iraq's national security adviser announced on Sunday, saying the group now suffered from a "serious leadership crisis."

Title: al Qaeda Number 2
Position Type: Full-Time. Eligible for benefits if you survive after six months.
Company Name: AQ, Inc.
Location: Baghdad
Salary: Come on now, brother. Money's not really the important thing here, is it?
Date Posted: September 3, 2006
Experience: Butchering women and children essential. Hijacking or blowing up commercial airliners a plus, but will train the right candidate.
Desired Education Level: The dumber the better. Religious schooling in a mud hut in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion with an emphasis on monkey bars while wearing a ninja mask is the ideal.

Reuters:

Al Qaeda called on non-Muslims especially in the United States to convert to Islam and abandon their 'misguided' ways or else suffer, according to a video tape posted on a Web site on Saturday.

Don't know about you, but that does it for moi. I like to avoid suffering when possible.

From Simmons's latest column:



Here's what he had to say about it:

After I posted my YouTube column back in June, a few readers were outraged that I didn't include the Tommy Seebach Band's video for "Apache," which I had never seen before and have now watched about 375 times in the past 12 weeks. It's fantastic. It's epic. It's otherworldly. I never thought Journey's "Separate Ways" video could be topped, but "Apache" simply blows it away. I can't even calibrate it for the Unintentional Comedy Scale because it's impossible to believe that everyone involved was serious, but since the video was filmed in the late-'70s, when things like this consistently happened, we have to assume that, yes, everyone in the video was serious. And if that's true, then I'm giving this a 119 out of 100 on the UC Scale.

(Note: There's an excellent chance that you will watch this three times in a row, then find yourself unable to get the chorus out of your head for about 72 hours. Know this going in.)

Kind of a shame what we did to the Indians. They could probably handle getting beat and all, but for us to have parlayed that victory into Tommy Seebach...

Update: Never mind. It's even worse. Tommy Seebach was Danish. Dear lord, to be mocked by white people in the 70s in the US would have been bad enough, but to be mocked by the Danes? No wonder the Muslims were so mad.

Tierney:

Stone and Parker told me they'd previously seen the G.O.P. as a relief from the big-government liberals, particularly the ones preaching to America from Hollywood. "We see these people lying, cheating, whoring," Stone said. "They're our friends, but seriously, they're not people you want to listen to."

The religious right used to be a better alternative, Parker said. "The Republicans didn't want the government to run your life, because Jesus should. That was really part of their thing: less government, more Jesus. Now it's like, how about more government and Jesus?"

Kind of a shame that the libertarians can't get it together. However, it's the nature of the beast. Easier to argue for giving grammy her meds than it is to extol the virtues of personal responsibility.

Busybodies are just kryptonite to everyone who wants to be left alone. It may seem counterintuitive, but take Barbara Walters and the points in a cage match against Sam Elliott. Sam may start out strong, but Barbara is tenacious.

TSG:

...especially the part when the Southern belles painted their favorite player's uniform number on their bodies before the first home game.

You know you'll click that.

AP:

Greece used a sizzling stretch of shooting across the middle two quarters to turn a 12-point deficit into a 14-point lead, and beat the Americans 101-95 Friday in the semifinals of the FIBA World Championship.

You'd think an NBA GM might glance at international competition from time to time where our all-stars get their butts handed to them, Coach K or no Coach K, and decide that he might have a fairly decent chance to win an NBA championship by assembling a team that can shoot.