Swift Terror

You can get Dennis Miller archives? Deosn't that involve a subscription fee?

RFK Jr called Glenn Beck a fascist and corporate toadie during the Live Earth concert. Glenn is outspoken as not buying into the man-made, iminent disaster global warming hysteria. Glenn had Jr on his CNN show and asked him what the definition of fascism was. Jr responded "the American Heritage dictionary definition is government controlled by corporate power". Now the real American Heritage dictionary definition of fascism: NOUN: 1. often Fascism a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government. 2. Oppressive, dictatorial control. I happened to see Mission Impossible 2 the other day. It is both a great movie and a terrible movie. It's terrible because of its title. The movie has nothing to do with the television series upon which it is based--it is in fact a disgrace to connect it to that series. It is nothing like the TV series. It's great because it is an entertaining, flashy film experience. The music is great, John Woo directs with flair and style. Movies are supposed to be entertaining and as long as you push the words "mission impossible" from your mind, MI2 is fantastic. We need more movies like this. This movie was supposed to usher in a new era of action film and in a limited way it has, but not nearly enough in my opinion. Now, I still want diversity in movies, dramas etc. Take Prince of the City for example. You don't know anything about this movie but it is an adult, interesting movie, well written and well acted. I suggest giving it a look sometime when you have 2 hours to kill. It's a perfect example of interesting vs. entertaining. It's not exciting. We need more MI2.

Wow indeed. Man, Mrs. kkk obviously had a button pushed. I don't blame her, even though I'm not big on having a pet right now. Watching an animal pee or take a dump in my house is not on my want list. I know, that's an overreaction and I'll probably get a pet one day when we have a family, but not now man. I happened to turn on Rome when a caller was pissed at him for ragging on Vick, claiming bigotry is behind all the condemnation of Vick. I don't know, seems to me like hanging and electrocuting dogs might be on more than a few people's pet peeve list and they're likely to get real mad at anyone who does this, whatever their color.

Speaking of losing MLB teams, our (Reds) owner gave a press conference yesterday about the Narron firing. Actually, he didn't say much, it was the GM who did most of the talking. But the interesting thing was, the owner said "we're still committed to putting a contender on the field". This is significant because last year during his initial conference when he bought the Reds, he emphatically used the word "chamionship" in saying "my mission is to put together a championship team on the field". So it's "contender" now, not "championship". Oh, things are going to swell for the Reds. So there are similarities between the Pirates and Reds and fan discontent.

There was a show on in the late 70s/early 80s called "That's Incredible". It featured people from around the world who did strange things, like had 5 inch fingernails or something, or who performed some kind of stunt. It was hosted by John Davidson and some chick with the last name Crosby or something. Now I was a young teenager taking all this in and I remember a couple of people from the show. One guy from India, the full Hindoo deal, was on and he was referred to as the "Yogi ----", I don't remember the second part. This guy was over 6 feet tall and would contort and twist himself into this little clear plexiglass box that was something like 3 ft by 3 ft. They even put a lid on the box. He wore nothing but those diaper looking things and this guy was a TV cult hero for a brief period. This other guy was a specialist at jumping over cars as they drove toward him. Hey, don't ask me, this is what passed for talent back in the day. This guy would stand in the road and a car would be driven at a specified speed directly towards him. He would get a running start and leap up, letting the car speed under him and then he would land safely. One time he did hit his foot on the upper part of the windshield, that was the only time I saw him screw up. The car was a Ferrari 308 (the Magnum PI Ferrari). I always wondered what became of these two guys. I can't imagine where your career goes after jumping over cars on TV or squeezing into a little box. I recently fixed up a old 10-speed bike. I got nice cushy handle bar wraps, a new gel seat cover, new tires, special bike chain lubricant/cleaner, and even got a new chain thing on the back wheel, the one with the french name that controls the "speed" changes (I was expecting that to be expensive, but it was only 13 bucks). Now, I'll ride the thing around my neighborhood, which luckily is a pretty large area of winding streets, but I aint taking it out on the actual roadways. I know how drivers react to bikers and I'm not going anywhere near them. 99% of drivers see a biker on the road and they go into full adversarial mode. They get angry--how dare this guy get in my way! I'll admit to getting impatient and a bit teed off when I have to slow to 10mph, waiting to get around a biker.

Well, lookee at us...Cincinnati has made the bigtime. The Wall Street Journal published an article about a regional backyard game called Cornhole. It's in the same genus as Jarts, badmitton, etc. WSJ excerpt: It is a fun game and goes well with beer. And it is a lot cheaper than golf.

What the fuck are the Eye-ranians so upset about? Gasoline costs about 40 cents over there. I turned away from Rome before Chyna came on. Did they mention the sex tape...

Many years ago Marge Schott, then owner of the Cincinnati Reds, made a remark about Adolf Hitler that got her in hot water and made the national news. She was roundly criticized as a racist. She said that Hitler, in the beginning of his rise to power in Germany "was not that bad" and that only later on did he become "bad" and go a little nuts. Fast forward to 2007 and an NPR essayist and Huffington blog columnist Peter Mehlman, says essentially the same thing. "Hitler meant well for the people of Germany" while he was going about trying to murder every jewish human on the planet. His point while saying this is that George Bush is worse than Hitler because George Bush doesn't mean well and Hitler at least did mean well. To use Mr. Mehlman's very hip and with-it writing style: Hmm. Ok. Umm. Yeah. At. Least. You. Wrote. For. Seinfeld. Well, I don't expect a media fire storm because this guy is essentially nobody. But imagine a Clear Channel essayist saying something similar about Clinton, Edwards or whoever. BTW, NPR officially describes him as an "essayist", not a liberal essayist, just an essayist. Yeah, he's very reasonable and level-headed. Conservatives think that Liberals are wrong. Liberals think that Conservatives are evil.

Cincinnati Reds manager Jerry Narron made a move in yesterday's afternoon game against the Oakland As that was just downright silly. Here's what happened: The Reds were behind by 2 runs (5 to 3) and Josh Hamilton was due up with nobody on base (it was the 8th or 9th inning). Hamilton has been a good player--he was the No. 1 draft pick several years ago and then had problems with drugs and now has gotten back on the straight and narrow. He is being called "The Natural" around Cincinnati because he excels in all 5 areas of the traditional baseball tools and because he kind of showed up after being off the map for several years, like the Roy Hobbs character. So we have Hamilton due up and Narron decides to pull him in favor of Juan Castro. Castro is hitting .167 and Hamilton had homered earlier in the game. Part of the rationale was that Castro had success against the pitcher. What success? He was 1 for 1. Seven years ago. Another thing Narron said was that Hamilton hitting a home run still left you down a run and he wanted Castro to get a hit and be a spark plug. Yeah, god forbid Hamilton hits a home run. Now I'm not going to freak out and call for him to be immediately fired, but that was just weird logic in my opinion.

A normally reasonable and level-headed local talk show host in Cincinnati, Mike MCconnell, put his foot in his mouth this morning. He was railing against various news headlines that read basically "Putin surprises Bush with offer", (about a alternate site in Europe for the missile defense shield that Putin has been angry over). Mike was claiming that was misleading and that it was actually Bush's idea, not Putin's. Well, I looked into the story and it WAS Putin's idea, based on what I read in the articles shown below. I emailed his show (he's read my emails on the air before) but so far he hasn't addressed the issue. I pretty sure he won't return to the topic to correct himself--it was too large a gaffe to admit to. Most listeners will never know he was wrong. I'm guessing this is how hosts deal with a situation when they go out on a limb on an issue and they're wrong--IGNORE IT. sfgate article: From the caycompass (Ap story):

Every black man is Wilbon's boy.

There will be an open auction in France in September to sell off parts of the famous Concord airplane. I'm sure 99.9% of the parts will be out of my price range, but I'd love to get my hands on an emblem or maybe something from the instrument panel. Of course, I won't be in France in September, so this post is very rapidly becoming irrelevant. Yes, in fact it was irrelevant after the first word was typed, but there you go. And, in an attempt to rescue this post, here's a creepy anecdote regarding the Concord, or rather, the Russian version: Russia was developing its own version of the Concord the same time as France, known as "Concordia" (very original Russia). An early prototype crashed in a populated area and a part of the plane which had sheered off decapitated a child playing in his yard about a mile away from the crash. I wonder what that part would bring at auction?

I would have to come down on the "hate Paris" side of things. She is worthy of hatred. Let us contrast her with say, the Hanson brother sing duo. They were hated widely, but they didn't deserve it. They just produced music that many did not like. So what. They didn't behave badly. Paris, on the other hand, does behave badly and sets a lousy example of how to live. Such as conceit, arrogance, a demanded right of privilege, I'm better than you, etc. So I say, hate away.

Honda snubs greenie weenies... Sorry for the Tongans but it looks like it was the teenage dumbass' fault, not Ford.Their SUV was HIT by another vehicle, causing it to roll over. Doesn't sound like they attempting a normal turning manuever in the car. Give me the highest safety rated SUV and if it is hit in the side by another vehicle traveling at high speeds, it's going to go over more often than not.

I guess they are still losing money buy the bushelful, but then there's this:

There's nothing wrong with confidence and blowing your own horn every once in a while. In my May 31st entry, titled "The return of Phil Hendrie" I predicted that his new show would be commentary based and not a rehash of his old character-based comedy show. This article from yesterday, June 4th, covers Hendrie's return to radio later this month. My prediction from last week: I'll be checking out his show and will probably have to do so on the net. The show is airing 1am-4am EST. Looks like he is trying to move in on George Norry territory, sans the aliens.

No list of affiliates yet. I've been checking out the talk radio network FM web site from time to time and there aren't any details yet on stations. As soon as I find out/hear something I'll post it.

Yes, that would be a good time to look for a job. Try the LA Times, I hear they have a recent vacancy...

Wilbon refusing to critize Sheffield with any gusto was hilarious/pathetic. I'd love to see JA Adande replace him. You're looking for a new job? Do you still have the job you had a couple years ago, around the time of my wedding?

Hmm, I don't remember seeing a "Movieplex" section. I have time warner, maybe it's different in Pittsburgh. And don't the terrorists watch Batman movies. Didn't the Riddler try to mess with Gotham's water suppy? And didn't Liam Neeson's character try and do essentially the same thing with a psychotropic drug? Man, get off the airplanes, get with the times.

The coronation of LeBron James as the next MJ was consumated last night during a fourth quarter performance that ranks among the best pro athlete performances in history. (BTW Rome continues to have egg on his face for declaring that James is no MJ after game one.) Now, I'm basing this on descriptions by my local sports radio hosts, one of whom saw it live in Detroit, and by Mike Tirico, who I heard say "this is the best thing I've ever seen". The reason I have to rely on outside descriptions is because I, in a monumental act of stupidity, turned the game off with about 8 minutes to go in the fourth quarter. This was right at the time when James took over the game, playing one on five and winning. So I missed one of the great sports moments in history. I just hope ESPN classic replays tonight.

No wonder the Left loves Chavez. He's doing there what they want to do here.

Phil Hendrie has announced on his blog that he is returning to radio on June 25th. He has signed a deal with talk radio network FM. I haven't heard anything on how many/what stations he'll be on, but he'll certainly be syndicated. TRN has AM stations and I guess the FM is a new thing. I also have no idea what kind of show this will be. When he ended his radio show last year he said he was finished with not only radio but with the type of show he did (character-based satire). He said he was moving on to TV and movies (so much for that). Will he resurrect his old characters? My opinion is no. I'm betting that he will do commentary/politics infused with some satire. His blog has been nothing but politics with the occasional satire piece. He won't take callers--he hates talk radio callers. They are the very people he ridiculed and generally messed with on his old show. No, he'll try to invent some new type of talk show without callers and without his old characters.

Just got back from the Dentist where I was informed that I need to go back on 3 month visits in order to maintain my peridontal crap. That's when your gums recede. Fuck. Not that I care about going more often, but I will have to pay more due to more visits that the insurance will not cover. Dentistry has to be the best gig out there. Everybody's got a set of teeth. My friend Brad (a Pharmacist) has purposefully not gone to a dentist in many years. He insists he can take perfectly good care of his teeth himself. He rinses with Vodka, claiming it kills germs more effectively than the various mouthwashes available. I'm not kidding at all. I guess he's doing an ok job, I never known him to have any cavities.

Ah, I was thinking of Kristen Holt the whole time. I would have rather seen HER in the Leia outfit as opposed to the other chick, but that's just me.