Author: John

Questions, Questions, Questions

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Like Harold, I’ve been on vacation this week –on the New Jersey shore, where the weather is perfect and the surf is fine. Which accounts for the sparseness-osity of the postings around here lately.

Anyway, I’ve been wondering: how many houses does John McCain own? How many rooms in all these houses, total? How many houses does his wife own? How much does he typically pay for a haircut, and how much for a pair of shoes?

Also, is he technically senile?

On vacation, you know, I guess one’s thoughts tend to turn a tad philosophical.

Kevin Martin, champion of Net Neutrality?

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According to Freepress.net, Martin joins a “Bipartisan FCC Majority” to punish Comcast for its peer-to-peer blocking funny business, already discussed here lots of times.

Like everybody else, I’ll await the in depth analysis sure to come from Harold Feld.

But assuming that this is what it appears to be, I hereby congratulate Chairman Martin. As I reported here, I had a chance to talk to him at the reception following the FCC hearing in Boston. And I found him sympathetic to the point of view that net neutrality was about more than consumer rights, it was about preserving the Internet as an engine of democracy. I wouldn’t be surprised if that argument figured in the deliberations on this ruling. In any event, I’m cautiously optimistic.

Deep Thought about the New Yorker Cover

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So, the New Yorker mag has a cover depicting Barack & Michelle Obama in the White House, in which she’s Angela Davis with a bandolier and rifle, he’s an Indonesian Moslem, Osama Bin Ladin’s portrait is on the wall, and the American flag is burning in the fireplace. As I’m the 23,452,998th person to point out, the satire is a little weak because it’s not clear whether the Obamas are being mocked or if it’s the people who circulate the Manchurian Candidate emails about them.

Whatever. It’s a magazine cover. I was kinda annoyed by it at first, but now actually it makes me smile a little.

What I’m waiting for now is the New Yorker cover that does to St. John McCain what this cover does to St. Barack Obama. It would have to include McCain setting the aircraft carrier Forrestall on fire (& killing 134 sailors), making propaganda tapes for the North Vietnamese, deserting his first wife (disfigured in an accident) for a mega-wealthy heiress, and having senile dementia.

Shocking News! Rich People Cheat!

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Via Suburban Guerilla Suzie, to whom I was sent by a dog-barking surrogate Atrios, this little newsbite:

This will be a lot of fun, I think:

Hundreds of super-rich American tax cheats have, in effect, turned themselves in to the IRS after a bank computer technician in the tiny European country of Liechtenstein came forward with the names of US citizens who had set up secret accounts there, according to Washington lawyers investigating the scheme.

A good apetizer for the magnum opus essay I’m working on as a sequel to Harold’s recent Gods of the Marketplace story. Filthy-rich tax cheats with secret accounts in Liechtenstein, a brave young Licthensteinian data entry clerk convicted Licthensteinian fraud selling purloined bank records to German & British & American tax investigators, now in hiding with a new secret identity. . . trust me, it’s great stuff. Check it out.

Life imitates art: Shark Attack! edition

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Maybe this article from the Martha’s Vineyard Times Online won’t strike you as funny as it strikes me,

Edgartown prohibits swimming following shark sighting
Published: July 10, 2008 : 5:40 pm

Edgartown beach officials said a large shark identified as a great white was spotted off South Beach in Edgartown today. Edgartown park commissioners acted on the report and closed South Beach to swimming.

But then again, you probably don’t live on Martha’s Vineyard like I do, and you probably haven’t seen Jaws 45,356 times, like I have.

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The words seem oddly familiar. . .

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Dogbark Master had this “deep thought” up today:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I know I’ve heard that before. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. . .

Contrary to Wes Clark, I DO believe that getting shot down in an airplane does qualify one to be President of the United States

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I don’t watch TV, but even I know that Retired General Wesley Clark farted very loudly in the Church of St. John McBush McSame McCain two days ago when he opined that

“I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”

Au contraire, General Clark!

Heck, George Bush the first got shot down TWICE, and he was president, wasn’t he? JFK didn’t get shot down in a plane, but he got shot down in a boat, which is close enough. Jimmy Carter served in a submarine, which is a boat which gets sunk on purpose, Ronald Reagan acted like his horse had been shot out from underneath him, George W. Bush got grounded by the Texas Air National Guard for being a drunk coke-head, and Bill Clinton had Monica Lewinsky go down on *him*! I trust you see the pattern here.

By contrast, John Kerry’s Swift Boat Did not get sunk, which proves pretty conclusively, I think, that he was unqualified to be President (although I won’t go so far as to say he was a coward and traitor–let the reader form his or her own opinion, sez I). Digby, that hard-hearted commentator, is actually making fun of the whiney-ass titty-babies of the McCain camp and their perpetual hand-job crew in the so-called national so-called media for the little fainting spell they’re having over Wes Clark’s (horribly incorrect but nevertheless not incivil or disrespectful) opinion about the good senator’s unfortunate encounter with a heat-seeking missile as it relates to preparing one for the Oval Office, so to speak.

After the jump: But what about Admiral Stockdale?

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Jail……………………………….Break!

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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Amsterdam police say 15 camels, two zebras and an undetermined number of llamas and potbellied swine briefly escaped from a traveling Dutch circus after a giraffe kicked a hole in their cage.

Police spokesman Arnout Aben says the animals wandered in a group through a nearby neighborhood for several hours after their 5:30 a.m. breakout.

From a Associated Press wire story. I know I said I was boycotting AP, but when a story this big comes up, I think the public’s need to know trumps any moral quibbles about the fair use bastardy of our corporate overlords.