Nathan's hot dogging

In an interview with Barbara Walters, former New York City Mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said that if elected president, he would have no problem allowing his wife Judith Giuliani to sit in on cabinet meetings, "If she wanted to. If they were relevant to something that she was interested in. I mean that would be something that I'd be very, very comfortable with," he said.
- ABC

Here's a lovely picture of Judith, ready to assume cabinet duty. Oh, wait, sorry, that's Rudy.

Actually, the former Judith Nathan always seemed a little skeevy to me. No wonder Giuliani's son wants nothing to do with her.

When the whole Rudy-Judi story broke a few years ago, she was living in an apartment building two blocks away from mine, and the tabloids and TV crews were camped outside it for days looking to get pictures of the mayor's mistress. She would walk her dog about five times a day, one of the cameramen told me, and absolutely loved the attention.

Meanwhile, the mayor's wife, Donna Hanover, was being devastated and humiliated as Rudy announced he was filing for divorce during a live TV press conference. Classy.

Tough but fair

That's me. I just finished filling out my Zagat's NYC restaurant survey, as I do every year, guaranteeing a free copy of the book when it comes out, and allowing me to take a few digs at places where I have been underwhelmed.

However, York Grill did very nicely by me, helped by memories of the delicious dinner I had there last night (ravioli stuffed with goat cheese - yumm. I'm getting hungry just thinking of it again).

An important Passover reminder to my Jewish readers

"We are warning our people not to eat anything with hemp products if they follow the practice of kitniyot on Pessah," said Israel's Green Leaf Party spokeswoman Michelle Levine. "We are considering announcing a ban on everything containing hemp just to be on the safe side. We are going with the rabbis on this. People should remove all cannabis and hemp from their homes."
- Jerusalem Post

That's a shame.

Those wet tee-shirt contests ARE distracting

Spring Break May Delay War Funds

- The Politico

Mwahaha (evil laugh)

I just don't get the whole fascination with American Idol. It's an amazingly huge pop culture phenomenon, the highest-rated show on television these days, no less - but I have never seen an episode all the way through. Seriously, not one.

I've never really liked any of the singers or even the songs they sing. I mean Clay Aiken? Come on, people. Anyway, the point is, I just don't get the whole hubbub.

But any time I see a story about Simon Cowell, the mastermind behind the show, I have to chuckle at a little inadvertent and deliciously evil encounter I had with him a few years ago.

A friend at the company I worked for at the time asked me to help out at the Daytime Emmy Awards, which were airing that year from Radio City Music Hall.

So at about 6 pm on the night of the live broadcast (ironically, the Daytime Emmys air at night), I'm waiting for my folks who were going to join the parade of Daytime people and other celebs. They were all coming from a pre-show dinner at the Hilton on Sixth Avenue and crossing over to Radio City (which is on the other side of Sixth if you're not familiar with that part of midtown) where the broadcast would be emanating from.

The city shut down Sixth Ave. for a few hours, and that always goes over real well, and the Emmy people had a long-ass red carpet literally running from a side door at the Hilton, where the stars would exit, walk east on 53rd Street, and cross Sixth to the front door of Radio City at 52nd.

Well, I'm standing there waiting for my people, and watching the soap stars and the talk show folks and the game show hosts parade along, and there were probably a few thousand fans lined up along 53rd, squealing every time they saw a recognizable face, flashing their little cameras, crying for autographs. Oy.

All of a sudden this woman with a very English accent sidles up to me and says, “How do I get a guest onto the carpet?” Now, remember, I was not an official there, had never been to a Daytime Emmy Show in my life, was pretty bemused by the whole thing – although the open bar party at the Waldorf later that night was pretty damn sweet, I have to admit – so I was the wrong person to ask. But I was in a tux and had a little laminate around my neck, so I guess I looked like I knew what I was doing.

But I also must have looked at her a little suspiciously, so then she pulled me extremely close to her – as if she was about to divulge a national security secret - and whispered very imperiously in my ear, “I have Simon Cowell in the limo over there. He's presenting tonight.” And now she did a discrete but important neck nod toward a limo parked on 53rd.

I guess she thought the fans – who, let's face it, were really there to see Erica Kane and Regis and Kelly and the like – were going to tear Simon's clothes off or something. This was before Idol became as mega as it is now, but it was somewhat big - and already pretty annoying to me.

And, again, you have to picture this: the car was on 53rd between 6th and 7th - literally about 15 feet from the beginning of the red carpet at the side door of the Hilton. I had to bite my tongue to stop from saying, “Hmm, well, why not just walk him right there to the start of the red carpet where every other fucking person is coming in?”

Instead I whispered discretely back, “Ok, get the car over to 54th, and let him off over there by the side of the Equitable Building (I didn't even know if it was really the Equitable, by the way, but it sounded official) and then walk him through that right-of-way between the two buildings.”

She immediately ran back to the limo, which I then watched go slowly - verrrry slowly - westward on 53rd in bumper to bumper traffic. The driver had to actually keep going west, over to 8th Ave (since 7th runs downtown) so he could then go that one block up to 54th and come back east. Simon was pretty much stuck for about half hour in a car that was basically just going a long way around the block in what was now crazy backed-up rush-hour traffic (especially with 6th being shut down by this point, plunging the whole area into gridlock central).

I finally saw Simon and his handler looking a tad frazzled and walking down the alleyway next to the Hilton - less than 20 feet from where they had started out more than half an hour earlier. I made sure I was busy looking at something in the opposite direction.

Good times.

Look for the one-armed man

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales dashed out of a Chicago news conference this afternoon in just two and a half minutes, ducking questions about how his office gave U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald a subpar rating.

Gonzales, who increasingly faces calls for his resignation, was here to promote a new ad campaign and had planned a 15-minute press availability. He left after taking just three questions over a firing scandal consuming his administration."
- Chicago Tribune

Toby can probably get us out of Iraq faster too

Yet another living being apparently smarter than George Bush:

"A Calvert woman claims her 2-year-old golden retriever saved her life Friday by giving her the canine version of the Heimlich maneuver.

“The doctor said I probably wouldn’t be here without Toby,” said Debbie Parkhurst, 45, a jewelry artist who lives near Rising Sun High School with her husband, Kevin, and their two dogs. “I keep looking at him and saying ‘You’re amazing.’”

Parkhurst said she was home alone with the dogs Friday afternoon when she decided to snack on an apple.

Suddenly, she said, a chunk of the fruit became wedged in her windpipe.

“It was lodged pretty tight because I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I tried to do the thing where you lean over a chair and give yourself the Heimlich, but it didn’t work.”

Parkhurst said she then began beating her chest, an action that might have attracted Toby’s attention.

“The next think I know, Toby’s up on his hind feet and he’s got his front paws on my shoulders,” she recalled. “He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest.”

Toby’s jumping apparently managed to dislodge the apple from Parkhurst’s windpipe."

Thank god it was her dog and not Boy George with her. You may recall our president famously choked on a pretzel and passed out a few years ago.

I have friends who are more famous

"The E! Network has acquired the U.S. rights to the hit British reality show Katie & Peter. The show follows supermodel, columnist and actress Katie Price (also known as “Jordan”) and her husband, musician Peter Andre, as they juggle their careers with family life. The couple met on the UK show I'm a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! and quickly became tabloid fodder. Their own show followed suit."
- B&C

Huh? What? Who?

Shouldn't you actually be, er, a celebrity to get a celebrity reality show?

One of these things is not like the others

If you ever doubt the contempt the media feels toward the American public, take a look sometimes at the U.S. editions of the weekly news magazines compared to their international versions and the stories deemed most important.

Case in point, this week, the cover story in Time's American version is "Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public Schools," no doubt an offshoot of the five or six Jesus stories the mag seems to do every year (like "Historical Jesus," "What We Know About Jesus," and my personal favorite - "Jesus H. Christ that hurt! Why do they call it the funny bone?")

Meanwhile, the European, Asian and South Pacific editions of the magazine each feature a cover on the potential loss of Afghanistan to Islamic fundamentalists.

I guess there was no new Britney news this week to dangle in front of the U.S. audience.

Yawn

It's a blah, grey day in the city and that can only mean one thing - an extended lunch at my fav Irish pub with fish & chips and either some Guinness or Bloody Marys. I will make that command decision after surveying conditions on the scene.

Grease is the word

White Castle is offering a deep fried cheeseburger.

You know, for those times a regular cheeseburger isn't working fast enough to congeal your arteries.

Another winning Bush moment

In addition to firing those U.S. Attorneys who were moving too aggressively in prosecuting corrupt Republicans, the Washington Post is reporting that the Bush White House interfered with a prosecutor who was going after the big tobacco companies.

The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.

(snip)

Sharon Y. Eubanks said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.

So, to recap, Bush is against fighting global warming, wants creationism taught in the schools instead of evolution, has got us into a bloody civil war in Iraq, let a great American city drown - and, oh yeah, for good measure, is in the pocket of the cancer makers.

It's almost like you can consider an issue, see what position Bush and his team takes, and then know the opposite position will be the honorable and correct one.


Truly, the Worst President in History.

Hot air on the right

Yet another reminder about the difference between the two political parties is in the area of global warming, a subject just about every serious scientist agrees is a real phenomenon and one that's exacerbated by man-made actions.

Al Gore (former veep and the guy who actually won the popular vote in the 2000 elections by some 600,000 ballots but Boy George got the presidency awarded to him thanks to his brother's shenanigans in Florida and his daddy's friends on the Supreme Court and a new dark age swept America) is testifying about global warming today before Congress.

And, of course, some of the Republicans are using the hearings to belittle concerns about global warming as a real and serious threat to Earth's future:

"Global warming science is uneven and evolving," said Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Barton questioned evidence presented in Gore's hit film, "An Inconvenient Truth," and said measures Gore was recommending to curb carbon emissions "fail the common sense test -- they provide little benefit at a huge cost."

(snip)

In the afternoon, Gore is scheduled to cross Capitol Hill to appear before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The normally low-profile committee is borrowing a larger hearing room from the Senate Appropriations Committee to squeeze in activists, VIPs and reporters.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), senior Republican on that panel, once called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people."

And meanwhile, Gannett is reporting how the GOP side of a bipartisan committee set up to explore global warming was filled:

House Republican Leader John Boehner would have appointed Rep. Wayne Gilchrest to the bipartisan Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming -- but only if the Maryland Republican would say humans are not causing climate change, Gilchrest said.

"I said, 'John, I can't do that,' " Gilchrest, R-1st-Md., said in an interview. "He said, 'Come on. Do me a favor. I want to help you here.' "

Gilchrest didn't make the committee. Neither did other Republican moderates or science-minded members, whose guidance centrist GOP members usually seek on the issue.”

Lovely.

I heart this stuff

This has been floating around the last few days, and would usually disappear within a few hours for some legal reason, so who knows if these links will even work by the time you click on them, but here is some of the chaos that was apparently going on during the filming of I Heart Huckabees, a movie I've never seen, although it's been on the movie stations a zillion times.

These outtakes of the F-word laden angry, vitriolic exchanges between Lily Tomlin and director David Russell are more entertaining than the movie itself ever looked. Russell even goes to the C-word at one point!

In the first video, the fun really gets going about halfway through, when Russell totally loses it and starts throwing things. And, yes, in the second video, that's Dustin Hoffman, a notoriously difficult actor, actually being the calm one.

Good times.

Lily Tomlin fights with David O. Russell
Uploaded by omgfrank

Hmm, tough call - Google or this guy?

For some bizarre reason, Kevin Federline, Britney Spear's ex, now has his own branded search engine, Search With Kevin, which can be installed as a toolbar on your computer, and also allows you the chance to win "prizes," like going to his birthday party.

Because, you know, when you're searching for, say, a quote from Churchill, at the same time you no doubt want to be looking at a picture of the guy who Britney Spears found too trashy.

Oh good, she's on the market again

Uma Thurman and hotelier Andre Balazs have ended their three-year, on-again, off-again relationship, a source close to the actress tells PEOPLE.

"And we don't tan well either"

As regular readers of Too Saucy know, I love the Jewish girls - but, er, they really shouldn't try to keep up with the drunken Irish on St. Pat's Day.

Apologies to the NYC Dept. of Sanitation which had to clean up a little present left on East 51st between 2nd and 3rd from my friend Sarah at about 2:30 this morning (looks like she had pizza for dinner).

"Careless and reckless"

Valerie Plame, the glamorous CIA operative whose identity was outed by White House skunks like Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby to punish her husband who was critical of the Iraq debacle, gave compelling testimony today before a House committee about how her career was ended thanks to the GOP's callousness.

"My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department," Plame testified. "I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained."

Plame, who could be played by Annette Benning in a movie, was, of course, just another piece of collateral damage in the Bush administration's ongoing war against democracy - just like those fired U.S. Attorneys who were dumped because they were either prosecuting corrupt Republicans or refusing to falsely charge innocent Democrats with crimes.

And just like the soldiers who have been grieviously injured in Bush's war, only to be shipped home to rot in rat-infested moldy hospital rooms.

Once again, the true colors of the right-wingers who claim to love the country so much are on display for all to see. It's not pretty.

Look, a new shiny object to get the press all distracted

I'm sure it's just an amazing coinky dink that as the Bush administration is coming under increasing pressure for its latest scandal, the firings of the US Attorneys, a transcript has been released in which 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confesses to a whole bunch of other crimes, including killing journalist Daniel Pearl, plotting to blow up Big Ben in London, and assassinate former presidents Carter and Clinton.

Nothing suspicious at the timing of this at all.

Of course, this guy's been "interrogated" in Gitmo for the last several years, so by this point he's probably also confessed to designing the levees in New Orleans, creating ABC's According to Jim, and inventing Ugg boots.

By the way, I can't tell if he looks more like porn legend Ron Jeremy or Artie Lange from the Stern show.

Remember when a slice used to be tied to the price of a subway ride?

Even for New York, this is crazy. Restauranteur Nino Selimaj is selling a $1,000 pizza:

"The pizza will be added to the menu at "Nino's Bellisima," one of Selimaj's six restaurants in the city. Forget traditional cheese and pizza sauce, the record-priced pie will be topped with creme fraiche, chives, eight ounces of four different kinds of Petrossian caviar, four ounces of thinly sliced Maine lobster tail, salmon roe, and a little bit of spice with wasabi.

And unlike your typical pizza, this one won't be cooked, after all, that would spoil the fish. The 12-inch pie is sliced into four pieces, which comes to $250 per slice."

I for one refuse to pay more than $600 for my pizza.

“Get laid, get...”

One of my You Tube excursions brought me to this clip of the inimitable Neil Diamond singing “Sweet Caroline,” which was always a popular bar song at a great dive I used to frequent a few years ago on Second Ave in the fashionable Upper East Side (now, sadly, the place is a tapas restaurant of all things).

When they played it, usually about 2 am on a Friday night, the crowd would always chant along, “So good, so good, so good,” and, of course, “Get laid, get fucked” at the appropriate places. Good times.

I don't think he's lip-syncing in the clip, that's not the CD version, it's an off-kilter picture/soundtrack timing thing - often the case with the old TV clips found on You Tube - but one thing is clear in the close-ups: Neil is high as a kite. (In the segue between the two songs, he even makes a crack about clearing his sinuses. Ah, network TV in the 70s; now we just have Paula Abdul).

The pink sparkly jumpsuit is pretty funny too.

Gobble

Are you allowed only one drunken night a week? I've never heard that rule, but I had cocktails with my friend Sarah at Rudy's on Tuesday evening for a little blowing-off-steam-after-a-long-day and she said that's the civilized thing.

Of course, this is the same girl who invited me for Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago and didn't know you have to defrost a turkey something like three days in advance. She started about noon on Thanksgiving day. Let's just say there was a lot of wine, potatoes and Ellio's frozen pizza consumed that night.

At Rudy's she managed to piss off the entire bar (and that's a tough bar to piss people off in) by playing a song on the jukebox about 8 times in a row. (Tom Petty, "Freefalling" - oy). I thought we were going to get killed.

So I always take her proclamations with a grain of salt. Also, with St. Pat's Day coming up, I believe there's an exemption to this alleged one-night rule. Anyway, it's on a Saturday, which doesn't really seem like it's the same week.

Thank you.

You know your refrigerator is turned down too cold when..

...the bottles of Guinness in it freeze! Oy.

Sorry for the basically nonexistent posting today, but I was on a deadline, and, frankly, have also been enjoying watching, out of the corner of my eye, the wheels continue to come off this joke of a presidency.

From the debacle of the Iraq war, probably the worst U.S. foreign policy disaster in the last hundred years, to the shameful treatment of injured vets at Walter Reed, from the screw up of recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina, to the ingrained corruption evident in the Republican party (as seen by “Duke” Cunningham, Tom DeLay, etc.) – and now we have the burgeoning U.S. Attorneys scandal.

The only amazing thing to me is that Boy George is somehow still above 20 percent in the polls.

Just who are these clowns who still support him?

Didn't Asimov already take care of this?

An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea. The Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007.
- BBC

I hope we're still going to be allowed to make them clean the damn house and have the female robots dress slutty.

A bleg

I just learned a new blog-related word today: bleg.

It's when blog writers put out a call for their readers to help them in some way (it's a tongue-in-cheek combination of blog and beg).

Usually, it's done to get additional information or perhaps a picture on the topic the blogger is writing about.

That seems sort of lazy to me. Instead, I will issue a bleg for sleazy personal gain: any cute, tall single girls out there? I'm in a tall mode these days, for some reason, so if you're at least 5'11" or have a cute friend who is, drop me a note at manhattan123@gmail.com.

Thank you.

It's like when the Nazis fled to South America after World War II

Halliburton, the energy company that Dick Cheney used to run - and from which he still receives delayed compensation that has made him a millionaire many times over - is moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai.

That's the country Michael Jackson camped out in to escape the grief he was getting during those child molestation charges, and which he no doubt would have stayed in if he was found guilty in that sham trial.

The Arab nation obviously has practice in sheltering wealthy fugitives, so when Cheney finally flees this country for his war crimes, he will find a welcoming home there too.

You know you're not in Manhattan when...

...you have dinner for two, with five drinks (three of them mine), two apps, two entrees and one dessert - and the bill is under a hundred bucks.

I spent a few days in suburbia, in Long island with an ex (I'm weak, weak, weak) and we went to dinner on Saturday, and, as usual, the prices always amaze.

And the Island isn't even particularly cheap, compared to the rest of America, but when you're used to Manhattan prices, it's quite delightful.

I hear the siren call

Now that I'm on the mailing list for the fabulous Venetian, where I stayed when I was out in Las Vegas a few months ago, I keep getting emails with their special rates.

There's a special for next week that's looking very tempting, especially since it's about 30 degrees outside right now. But, then again, next weekend is St. Patrick's Day, a fun time in the city, so I might have to wait another month or so.

See, I'm not such a derelict - I don't have to gamble. I will pass on the special.

Ok, it's so I can drink, but still.

The age of Bush

America, once again, is showing its Puritan roots, whose traditional fear of sex and the human body is being carried on today in the Bush era by religious rightwing nuts. Three 16-year-old girls have been suspended for saying the word "vagina" during a high school reading from the acclaimed play, "The Vagina Monologues."

The principal, Rich Leprine, said on Tuesday that the girls were told not to use the word because young children could be in the audience, but that they used it anyway after agreeing not to.

“When a student is told by faculty members not to present specified material because of the composition of the audience and they agree to do so, it is expected that the commitment will be honored and the directive will be followed,” Mr. Leprine said in a written statement. “When a student chooses not to follow that directive, consequences follow.”

This is what the religious nuts have done to this country.

The word "vagina," to them, is considered, what, dirty? Shameful? Obscene?

Vagina - not the "C" word, the "P" word, the "T" word, the "B" word, the "R" word - but the clinical term for a part of the body, said in the context of an award-winning, off-Broadway play.

Unbelievable.

Now THIS is a bad date

The man who was tied up, stabbed several times during sex, and watched as the woman he was with drank his blood is speaking only to ABC15.

Robert McDaniel, 43, spoke exclusively to us hours after having more than 150 stitches removed from across his body. McDaniel says he met 24-year-old Tiffany Sutton about a month ago and the two got together on Valentine's Day. While undressing, she asked if he was interested in "kinky" sex and being tied up.

McDaniel says he agreed and moments later, Sutton pulled out three knives with skulls on them and began slashing him. She also had a stethoscope and a Bible with her.

"You wouldn't expect this type of thing is going to happen during sex, but that's exactly what happened, she tied me up and just began the assault," McDaniel said.

McDaniel paints a horrific picture of bleeding from his back, arms, stomach and thigh while being chased by Sutton, who was armed with a pickaxe.

Minutes later, McDaniel says he passed out.

"I came to a few seconds later in the fetal position on the floor and she was behind me drinking my blood, even though I continued to try and get up again," he said. "I would walk and pass out, and when I would wake up, she would be drinking these wounds from my back."

Struggling to survive, he says Sutton then pulled out a book about the levels of hell and made him sign it, giving her "all of his earthly possessions and powers."

Sutton remains in jail on aggravated assault charges.

McDaniel said he doesn't want Sutton to go to jail, rather, a mental health facility.

As for Valentine's Day and sex, he says, they will never be the same.

Jeesus. And to think I get disgusted when they don't offer to buy a round of drinks.

What, Fran Drescher wasn't available?

Star Jones Reynolds has landed her own daily talk show - and she won't have to worry about Barbara Walters this time. Court TV said Wednesday it had hired Reynolds to run a show about criminal justice issues that intersect with the pop culture world. The show, which has no title yet, will likely start early this fall.
- AP

Because, ya know, the public doesn't find Star annoying at all, and, in fact, has been clamoring for her to be put back on TV.

Republican priorities

"If a President can be impeached for lying about a blow job then by God a Vice President should be impeached for setting in motion the forces that destroyed an intelligence network during a time of war. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter, Armitage, Bartlett, Matalin, and Fleischer need to be subpoenaed and marched before an investigative committee.
- Larrry Johnson, writing on TPM Cafe.

I couldn't have said it any better myself. In fact, I have said it myself. But, hey, I'm a commie pinko lefty - you expect me to say it.

But Johnson worked for the CIA during the Reagan administration, and the Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Counter Terrorism under Bush, Sr.

From what I understand, a lot of CIA people are furious at Boy George's crew for leaking the name of a covert officer to punish her husband.

The Mr. Boston Bartender's Guide?

News flash: "Bush twin to publish book for teens"

I'm sure it will be very intellectual, and not at all ghostwritten either.

Buh bye Scooter

When there's a political news story unfolding, you can actually watch the cable news stations with the sound off and get a sense of what's happened. There sure were a lot of gloomy faces and furrowed brows on Fox today when the news came down that "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's former henchman, was found guilty in the CIA leak case.

Any time there's bad news for Bush or the Republican party (election night in November, for example) Fox "news" personalities go into a major funk.

And now the man who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent, to punish her husband because he had the audacity to call the Bushies out on their lies that dragged us into the bloody Iraq war, has been busted.

Such a shame.

Of course, if there was real justice, Dark Overlord Cheney himself would be sharing a cell with his little buddy, Scooter.

Her boobs are nothing to brag about either

Compare and contrast

If you ever need to be reminded of the difference between the two political parties, consider how some of the leading lights of each spent this weekend.

In Selma, Ala., Senator Clinton and Sen. Obama each gave rousing speeches honoring the anniversary of the Civil Rights era marches in that town. The media, of course, likes to play up their ongoing competition – um, yeah, news flash, media: they are candidates, each trying to get as many votes as possible as they run for the Democratic nomination – no shit they're competing.

But especially consider what they were competing for in this case: to earn the votes of black Americans. And after their respective speeches, they joined up to march across the Selma Bridge, where blacks were beat by redneck cops four decades ago as they marched for the right simply to be treated as human beings,

Meanwhile, the Republican good ol' boys were being regaled at the Conservative Political Action Conference's annual gathering in Washington by right-wing scum bag Ann Coulter, who made the following lovely statement: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot, so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”

Perhaps even worse than this hate monger's words, was the crowd's reaction: laughter and applause. Later, Coulter was swarmed for autographs. Think about that for a minute. At a gathering of some of the GOP's biggest names, including three presidential candidates and Dick Cheney, one of the keynote speakers felt free to call someone a faggot - and was applauded by the crowd.

She was actually introduced on stage by Mitt Romney, who is running for the GOP nomination, and she endorsed him.

Later, Romney, Giuliani, and other Republican politicians had to renounce her words, and now she claims she was just “joking.”

But it's pretty telling that one party spends its weekend honoring the Civil Rights movement, while the other spews out hateful, mean-spirited diatribes.

And I think we know what side of that Selma bridge today's Republican party would be on.

As long as they don't do one with that annoying Can You Hear Me Now? guy

Winner for most unusual piece of development this pilot season goes to ABC, which has turned a series of quirky Geico commercials into an actual half-hour comedy project.

"Cavemen" will revolve around three pre-historic men who must battle prejudice as they attempt to live as normal thirtysomethings in modern Atlanta.

Project, from ABC TV Studio, is penned by Joe Lawson, an advertising copywriter who was behind the "Caveman" ads -- as well as other Geico commercials (think the cockney-speaking Geico gecko, and the reality TV spoof "Tiny House").
- Variety

Oy.

It's a cute commercial, but a weekly show? It's basically a one-joke premise: oh, look, a cavemen in modern surroundings.

(Actually, didn't SNL do a series of sketches years ago with Phil Hartman as the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer with the exact same premise?)

Oh well, I guess it can't be any worse than dreck like The King of Queens or Gilmore Girls.

Is Bush a Manchurian candidate?

Remember when the Bush administration rode into town and was determined to do everything different than those dirty hippies in the Clinton administration?

In addition to taking their eyes off the ball concerning terror – a Presidential Briefing titled "bin Laden Determined to Attack in U.S?" Ehh, ignore it – they have apparently also managed to screw up the situation with North Korea.

The Clinton administration had a deal with the Koreans that stopped them from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for food and oil aid. The Bushies were sure that deal was being ignored by the Koreans so they promptly scrapped it.

Ooops.

Hard as it is to believe, I know, it turns out they have fucked up yet again:

“For nearly five years, though, the Bush administration, based on intelligence estimates, has accused North Korea of also pursuing a secret, parallel path to a bomb, using enriched uranium. That accusation, first leveled in the fall of 2002, resulted in the rupture of an already tense relationship: The United States cut off oil supplies, and the North Koreans responded by throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb.

But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002.

“The question now is whether we would be in the position of having to get the North Koreans to give up a sizable arsenal if this had been handled differently,” a senior administration official said this week.”

So let me see if I have this straight: Clinton had got the Koreans to stop development of a nuclear weapons program. Bush was appointed President after losing the popular vote (I like to throw that fact in occasionally, just to remind everyone of how illegitimate this empty little suit of a man is) and proceeds to break the deal with the North Koreans, which spurs them to go ahead and actually develop nuclear weapons, which they tested a few months ago.

So to recap: Bush invades a country that did not have weapons of mass destruction, getting our troops caught in the middle of a bloody civil war now in its fourth year. Bush breaks off a working agreement with a madman dictator spurring him to develop nukes.

It's hard to believe any President could be so consistently incompetent. It almost seems like these foreign policy disasters are being done deliberately - as if Boy George is a Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed by some enemy power to eventually assume the U.S. Presidency and then proceed to destroy this country, its reputation and its resources.

Except, of course, he never served overseas in the military, so unless the brainwashing happened in the wilds of Alabama, where Bush almost served out the terms of his National Guard service, I don't know when it could have happened?


Wait a minute. In the 1970s, Bush Sr. was U.S. Ambassador to China (no less). Bush Jr. presumably visited him when he was there. During one of those visits, could he have.....?