myopiclunacy.com

with Rachel Maddow. No, not just because she’s hot in a “Bull Dyke” sorta way (her words, not mine). No, because of interviews like this:

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Not only is she a progressive cable news talk show host with roots in Air America. Not only is her list of academic achievements longer than Britney Spears’ medical file. No - she is also secure enough in her beliefs to invite her idealogical opposites on and, when pressed by them trying to take a dig or blast through their talking points she is able to engage in robust debate without trying to outtalk them or scream over them. That’s hot.

Did you see David Frum (conservative columnist who said McCain’s campaign is toast and all but conceded the race) trying to blame her for the lack of serious political discourse on important issues? I sure hope he does that on every other network and cable news show that booked him. You know - the ones that show SNL clips or have talking-point-armed parrots on or even someone like Jeanne Moos tracking down Obama Girl
Jeanne Moos tracking down Obama Girl.

IMO Rachel does better than Olbermann (who brings on a bunch of like minded people to just reinforce his points) and Hardball (because he’s just screaming) and especially better than anything on Fox. Plus anyone who can visibly enjoy debating Pat Buchanan is ok in my book.

Long Live Maddow.

Popularity: 1% [?]

It’s happening again

All of the models bar one have this thing cuting right through southern Louisiana. Sure they’ve made progress in fixing things up, but a Cat 4 Hurricane may undo it all in one night. 150+ mph winds sustained - gusts up to 200. So it’s pretty classless that a guy like Michael Moore, a clown with some film making talent and unfortunately a voice in politics, to go on TV and say something as callous as this:

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven,” Moore said. “To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River.”

I mean, come on! You sit there and accuse Republicans of being out of touch with the common man and then you start cracking jokes on what a Hurricane will do to the GOP convention? When a bunch of people who just started putting their lives back together are faced with another life-changing event? What a tool this guy is - someone should send his ass to New Orleans and have him try to survive in the toxic water and inhumane post-storm conditions.

Keith Olbermann should bear some blame for not calling out Moore on this either. I understand being a left-wing pundit, but if you’re gonna call out Dubya and McCain you have to call out Moore too, or you’re no better than Hannity and O’Reilly.

Apparently some Democratic congressman was caught saying the same thing on a plane flight, but the quality of the youtube video seems a bit dubious.

but yeah … Michael Moore needs to take a long vacation to Kinshasa or Kamchatka or something and leave the idiotic political statements to Cindy McCain.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Hahaha - heard this on on Olbermann’s show:

One of the most amusing typos of the season turned up for awhile overnight in a major Associated Press dispatch. Some in the liberal blogosphere, who have often criticized Sen. Joe Lieberman — the Democrat turned Independent who has endorsed John McCain — found it all too apt.

The typo, in an article on the upcoming vice presidential picks due from McCain and Barack Obama and written by one of the top AP political scribes, Nedra Pickler, was soon corrected but can still be found viewed via Google at numerous news sites early this morning.

After focusing on Obama, the article discusses several possible McCain picks, and relates, “His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.”

AP Accidentally Calls Lieberman A Prick

SUUUURE it was a typo. Who was the editor? Al Franken? Just another example of the Associated Press going to the darkside. Stay on the high road, AP!

Popularity: 3% [?]

…a little help
NBC Nightly News - The news team was in Kabul this week and followed me around to several of our projects. It is supposed to be on the NBC Nightly News Friday the 13th if you get a chance to see it.

Here it is


Stasek

Download it here

Popularity: 4% [?]

I don’t feel bad for crushing hard on self-glossed “bull dyke lesbian” Rachel Maddow. Even when trying her best to look like a dude, her beautiful face only enhances her sharp brain - even if I think she leans left a bit too much. But don’t take it from me - she’s even turning gay guys on:

I know I’m probably breaking some sort of gay male covenant, but I have the world’s biggest crush on Rachel Maddow. I first caught wind of the openly gay political pundit as she went toe to toe with Pat Buchanan over health care, rankling the socially conservative blowhard so much that he basically just started saying “socialist!” over and over, much to Maddow’s delight. MSNBC noticed too — now way it’s a coincidence the network has transformed the duo into a political odd couple, appearing together on Hardball, The Verdict and Countdown with Keith Olbermann, which she will be guest hosting tonight at 8pm EST.

She’s getting better as an on air host and I think she’d do great on her own show - especially with a Pat Buchanan type trying to blow smoke - since she knows her shit:

Maddow, a Rhodes Scholar who holds a doctorate of philosophy in political science from Oxford, began her career as an activist focusing on HIV and AIDS issues affecting prisoners. She hosted a local-radio talk show in Northhampton, Massachusetts, before joining Air America when it opened it doors in 2004. She’s hosted her eponymous weekday radio show ever since. To get a quick feel for her show, catch her mocking U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. She started appearing as a talking head on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, LOGO and in January of this year MSNBC brought her on board as a political analyst. Ever since there’s been significant buzz that the liberal-leaning network is considering giving Maddow a show of her own, with many Daily Kos readers speculating that tonight’s guest hosting gig is essentially an on-air audition.

But here’s why she’s da bomb:

Too often, women on cable news are portrayed as shrill harpies or fluffy eye candy by their male counterparts, but the genius of Maddow’s style is that she goes on the air with nothing to prove, whether she’s blowing Tucker Carlson’s mind (what there is of it, at least), pointing out that in the Democratic Party controlled Congress is still only passing “Republican and Joe Lieberman-inspired amendments” or handing Joe Scarborough his balls on a silver platter — which, you know, she really ought to get an award for doing.

The real reason Rachel makes my heart skip a beat, though, is that she isn’t trying to ditch her identity as a woman, a lesbian or an activist to play with the big boys; she brings these parts of her to the table like her own personal arsenals.

Exactly. One of the things I hate about cable news babes is that they’re too gussied up and too fake. I get the sense that most of them are just pretty girls there to read the prompter (e.g E. D. Hill) and make goo-goo eyes to the camera. And God help them if they have to press a politicion on his spin. But Rachel, while personable and funny, is still hardcore when it comes to the issues. She’s all over Youtube just giving it to right wing knuckleheads like Joe Scarborough and Tucker Carlson. Plus the woman wears no earrings - how hot is that?

Rachel Maddow - today’s BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD! And hot.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Bowtie Revolution is over. Orville Reddenbocker is gone and his son is MIA. Mr. Peanut hasn’t made any new commercials. and now Tucker Carson
has been canned:

The seemingly lone conservative at MSNBC is out of the anchor chair, at least for now. The Associated Press reports that Tucker Carlson’s “Tucker” show on that cable news network has been cancelled. He’ll reportedly be replaced by NBC firebrand David Gregory. Gregory’s show, Race for the White House, begins one week from tonight at 6 p.m.

MSNBC says this and other changes the network is making are in response to the growing demand for more political news. (Gosh, it seems like that is all they do now besides all those prison reality shows and constant repeats of To Catch a Predator.) Other changes announced are that NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell will now permanently anchor one hour a day on MSNBC Monday through Friday and that Countdown With Keith Olbermann will rerun every night at 10 p.m.

Honestly - I don’t see what was so compelling about this guy. He doesn’t bring anything to the table other than his propensity to dress weird and have a conservative viewpoint on a non-conservative network. Anyone schmuck can do that. Perhaps one that dressed decently and brought interesting and thought provoking angles to each story instead of just being a conservative-talking-points parrot.

And, as the article points out, all MSNBC has other than politics is repeats of Dateline. What is the point of MSNBC? Is Microsoft really contributing? Other than Countdown with Keith Olbermann, there’s nothing that I would watch.

As far as the Bowtie Revolution, I guess there’s still Dhani Jones. He took his bowties overseas to play rugby!

Popularity: 4% [?]

I’ve found a goldmine of humor - and it’s called Fake Blogs - or more accurately NewsGroper. It’s Stephen Colbert meets DailyKos almost. I was reading The Miami Sports Blog and found out that Miami Heat center Shaq had a blog … well, a fake blog - where I uncovered this gem about his recent divorce:

Shaunie, I am sorry that this had to happen. But when a woman tries to keep secrets from Shaq, she must pay the consequences. When you were hiding that cash in the garbage pails behind the pool, I thought it was just part of our kinky Sopranos role-playing. But it turns out that you were really hiding cash from me, and now Shaq is broke.

It’s not all your fault, Shaunie. It doesn’t help that Shaq only allowed you to address him as “#32.” It was probably wrong of me to demand that you dress as a Nubian Queen to all of our dinner parties. What probably put you over the top was when Shaq made you repeat “The Royal Penis is clean, your Highness” after every time we made oral love.

Had me ROLLING. But they have tons of other fake blogs there too! People like Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani, Britney Spears, Vladimir Putin, Ann Coulter and Donald Trump. In fact MSNBC got in trouble, apparently, for taking these blogs seriously!:

IN a story that MSNBC.com ran last Friday on how the legal troubles of disgraced NFL star Michael Vick are dividing African-Americans, Web site editors apparently fell hook, line and sinker for a parody Web site that made up a quote from the Rev. Al Sharpton.

In the first version of the story that appeared on MSNBC.com, Sharpton was quoted as having written on his personal blog, “If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not. They would get his autograph, complimenting him on tightly spiraled passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.”

You have to read the story to understand just how shitty a job this MSNBC reporter did. I mean there was some pretty obvious hyperbole in there. How fucked up an opinion must you have of Sharpton that you’d accept this as truth? That you can’t distill nonsense from sense. That you don’t notice the names of the other fake bloggers on the site including Vladimir Fucking Putin!?! (that’s his real middle name) So what does MSNBC call it in their retraction? A hoax. Hah! - Fake Al Sharpton had a response locked and loaded:

I can assure you, I’m no hoax. When I said that Brett Favre was probably fighting dolphins against each other to the death with swords crudely attached by duct tape, it obviously wasn’t real; it was a METAPHOR. First of all, the adhesive in the tape wouldn’t hold up in salt water, and also, how many backyard saline pools have you ever swam in?

Fake Blogs RULE!

Popularity: 8% [?]