Monday, February 23, 2009

Wow. I had no idea.

Longtime (and not-so-longtime) readers of this blog know I have had great fun taking potshots at CNN's Rick Sanchez, mostly on the basis that he is an intellectual lightweight a-la-Miller Redfield and a shill for the Left.

But I had no idea he was evil. And no, not in the loosely-thrown-around way that the Right often uses the word. Truly, big-time Chappaquiddick Ted-level evil.

From an August 1991 article in the Miami News (emphasis mine):

Best known for his stint as a sometimes-melodramatic correspondent on
Channel 7's "Crime Check," [Now CNN-anchor Rick] Sanchez continues his work on the station's evening and late newscasts while awaiting a September 13 court date on misdemeanor drunk-driving charges. Though the results of one test show the newsman's blood-alcohol level was .15 -slightly over the legal .10 limit - the test was
performed after Sanchez left the scene of the accident. In January Sanchez told New Times he had consumed no alcohol the night of the accident. His attorney,Richard Essen, now says the anchorman returned home and had "a couple of drinks to calm his nerves" before returning to the scene. Essen doubts that Sanchez's DUI charge will ever come to trial. "I think the results of the blood tests will be thrown out," the lawyer says. "If the results of the blood tests are
suppressed, then there is no evidence against him at all. The state cannot
proceed."

Meanwhile, after two months in a coma, [Sanchez's victim] Smuzinick has regained consciousness and is making slow improvement. His right side remains largely paralyzed due to massive brain damage, but he can move his left arm and leg and sometimes hold his head upright. Using hand signals, he can answer yes or no to simple questions. Doctors last Friday removed a feeding tube from his trachea, and
Smuzinick can now eat liquid foods.


This guy has the audacity to call out Hannity for running a commercial for Robert Allen Stanford's company before anybody suspected any funny business was going on?

I will no longer be watching Rick Sanchez' show or mentioning him lightheartedly on these pages. Evil must be opposed.

CNN: Enough drunk-drivers and meth/sex fiends to fill up an episode of Springer AND COPS.

[H/T commenters on NewsBusters.]

Say it ain't Soho!

... Or Paris either, for that matter.

I hadn't been in this particular fast-food joint but once since the remodeling, and then I had been in a hurry, so I didn't fully appreciate how truly awful it is.

Driving by, I had noticed they've replaced the roof with a sort of baby-poop-brown metal, and they dismantled the kidplay area entirely. They didn't seem to know what to do with the fenced-in outdoor area anymore, so they placed a red movie-rental machine in it and left it that way for a long time.

This morning I had a coupon for a free iced mocha, so I decided to grab a couple of to-go sausage biscuits for breakfast while I was there.

The first thing I noticed as I drove up was that the red movie machine now had company. The former playground was now filled with little too-tall dinette sets, the kind at which black-clad, beret-wearing faguets eat baguets, gulp cheap wine, smoke cigarettes, and say things like "neuf" and "mu" and "Life, she is Sheet!" while they recover from a long night of snapping their fingers at black & white movies with subtitles.

Stepping into the place, I took a moment to really take in the atmosphere, and it made me grimace.

Imagine if so-called architect Philip Johnson designed an obstacle course/Habitrail for desperately trend-chasing Hipster Doofii. And, just because he COULD, when working out the color scheme, he drew his inspiration from various dark nuggets of poop.

It seeks to be jaded for the sake of being jaded. Picture Janeanne Garofolo as a fast-food place. The kind of place that makes you wonder "Why must I be so tormented by the sad clown of life?" and you're not being ironic or making fun of the French.

The kind of atmosphere that prohibits being happy while eating a meal there.

Can a design scheme be a psychic vampire? I wondered to myself.

My coupon was good for a free iced mocha, hot mocha, cappucino, or latte. I presented it to the cashier, picked an iced mocha, and ordered two sausage biscuits to go.

The coupon bewildered the cashier. She stretched her arms up, the way a yawning golden lioness arches her back when getting up from a nap, got a confused look on her face, and called her manager over.

"I don't know how to do this!" she exclaimed in a near-panic.

The manager verified that I wanted an iced mocha and entered it into the cash register. Somewhere between there and the mocha machine, the two of them vetoed my drink selection and decided that I really wanted a hot mocha.

I saw them making it and wondered when they were going to put the ice cubes in. They didn't. But at this point, I just wanted to escape the place before it sapped every ounce of happiness out of me like a swarm of Harry Potter's dementors.

By then, trying to straighten out the mess would have been as futile as a quarter-pounder trying to pound quarters flat with a cotton ball.

So I paid my $2.12, gathered up my breakfast, and left, deciding I wouldn't be returning very often. And if I DID, well, that's what drive-through windows are for.

But the bad thing is, St. Patrick's Day is coming up. That means it's the season for those minty green shakes that taste like childhood. I hope the decor doesn't suck all the joy out of those too.

Besides, I have another coupon.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Sockpuppets?

I've noticed that on Rick Sanchez' show, a few twitterers are overrepresented. Their comments appear over and over, and are not particularly insightful or "airworthy." They get airtime anyway.

And conservative/libertarian tweets are few and far between. Since the show stopped running direct texts in favor of tweets, I have managed to get exactly one through.

Why is this? And do we really need to see "Oh, Rick! You and Barack R SO smart and make me moist!" run four times in an hour, when conservative/libertarian opinions don't appear anytime during that hour? Are we stupid enough to believe NOBODY sent an intelligent, right-leaning tweet to the show during that time?

So I took a look at their Twitter pages. They seem to have almost no opinions that do not reference Rick Sanchez, and they wallow in adulation of both Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama.

curious1966. Freakyfran. bethbangert. upsetAtUSA.

Can someone with a little more technosavvy than me do me a favor and see if any or all of these come from the same ISP address, and if that ISP is located in either CNN headquarters or the Obama campaign?

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Question: Why do the car makes just go away?

In the auto bailout, it seems several car makes (mostly GMs) will simply cease to exist.

Why doesn't the government buy these lines and use them exclusively for 5 years to replace the entire federal automobile fleet, including government limos and mailtrucks which are apparently currently manufactured by someone ashamed to put their corporate logo on them.

The government could start an entire company with these pieces of different companies, sort of like the "bad bank" model. It could have Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, Saturn, even the old Plymouth, Oldsmobile and Geo lines under one banner. Call it the American Motor Company (Sorry, Chrysler, you don't use, you lose).

At the end of five years, sell the company back into the private sector.

Hey, it beats just throwing money at the companies without gaining anything for the taxpayer, like the current plan.

Wanna see? Wanna SEE? Huh? HUH???

My comment scrolls across the bottom of Rick Sanchez' screen beginning at 0:53 YouTube time.



BTW, "$$" in this case means "money," not "dollars," because THAT would be Idiocracy-style less gooder grammar.

I think the comment ran once before this, but I didn't catch the time.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Phoning it in.

Didn't plan to post today. Am sick. Have had slight fever for a few days, and this morning a thousand scorpions are dancing the Batusi in my throat.

But I got word I got a message from my Queen City friend and wanted to see what he said, so as long as I'm here . . .

Monday, February 9, 2009

If the government really WAS in a cash crunch . . .

. . . wouldn't Obama immediately pardon everyone in prison for simple marijuana possession,or currently being prosecuted for it?

How much money would that free up?

While he's at it, how about a pre-emptive pardon for Michael Phelps and that David After Dentist kid, too?

The Unfairness Doctrine rears its ugly head.

Debbie Stabenow and the Fairness Doctrine
According to the Politico, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, is the latest politician who wants to rein in conservative talk radio by bringing back something called "The Fairness Doctrine."
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/1452835/debbie_stabenow_and_the_fairness_doctrine.html

1. There's a solution already out there: come up with a better alternative.

2. The Fairness Doctrine insists there are only two sides to every story.

Borg Queen Obama does his best Gir impression.

WashTimes piece on Obama's doom talk here.

Satan just got . . .

. . . a new musical addition to his arsenal of torture devices in Hell.

Lukas Foss dead.

Lukas Foss is to music what Peter Keating is to architecture.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

In case any minions have missed my Twitter updates . . .

... just wanted to let you know I have not fallen off the face of the Earth.

But it DOES seem like I've fallen into a Groundhog Day/Star Trek TNG: Cause & Effect type time loop.

While Groundhog Day WAS one of the days, this one started on Rwanda's Democracy Day.

That was the day after my power went off, and every day since then I wake up, have no power, try unsuccessfully to find out why it's off and when it will be restored, go back to bed, and start over again the next day.

In the Star Trek time loop, they escaped only when they figured out how to keep everybody from dying. I hope my time loop isn't the opposite of that one.

[UPDATE:] Apparently, writing this blog post was the trigger that threw me out of the loop. My power came back on later that day, two hours into my tenth day w/o power.