Been kinda quiet 'round here today.

Here's a topic: Oxford's New List of Top Ten Irritating Phrases

1 - At the end of the day

2 - Fairly unique

3 - I personally

4 - At this moment in time

5 - With all due respect

6 - Absolutely

7 - It's a nightmare

8 - Shouldn't of

9 - 24/7

10 - It's not rocket science

I would add the words "basically" and "essentially" used at the beginning of an explanation. Either use is superfluous. They're placeholders, a more erudite "um" that many people somehow learned to tack on to the front of their statements.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:08 PM | Comments (342)
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Glad these are finally in.

Okaaaay. Two new projects with Feb 1 deadlines make Dave a dull boy.

1 jimmytheleg3 82
2 mesablue 81
3 Nodakdrunkhobos 80
3 Physics Geek 80
5 buzzion 78
5 Murph 78
5 buzzion 78 (oops)
8 7 That pigskin is kosher right? 77

...

20 DrewM. 69

What? You didn't want to know? Course you did.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:28 PM | Comments (24)
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And pretty much so is the Democratic Party, too.

But by all means let's keep ignoring a winning issue because some "moderates" want the NYT to like them. I mean, we have so many winning issues at the moment, we can afford to be choosy.

Posted by: Ace at 05:09 PM | Comments (198)
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Not really that funny, but not meant to be.

The #1 coming way to stop trolls? Ban all anonymity on the Internet whatsoever, as some countries have already done.

They're not advocating that-- they're just saying it will happen.

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 03:08 PM | Comments (86)
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No, they don't represent the whole of the movement. But they do represent a perpetually seething, decidedly countercultural aspect of the Gay Left that frankly gives the rest of us the shivering douchechills and sometimes makes us want to affirmatively just stick a thumb in their eyes (in political terms).

Not a rational response, that last part. But that is an effect of this ACT-UP type hatred.

Link Fixed.

Still Don't Represent Me [Gabe]: One of the anklebiters had this observation in comments:

I noticed Gabriel Malor with his previous thread said these individuals didn't "represent" him with their "tantrum" and all, but I didn't see a whole lot of, "These vicious shitheads belong behind bars."

It's a stupid accusation, but a fairly common one. For the record, I denounce these people and hope that they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I shouldn't have to say it, but as is often the case, it's easy to assume that a minority group is fairly represented by their loudest elements even though we know that is almost never the case. And, of course, you shouldn't assume that the Prop 8 protesters represent all gays or all gay marriage supporters (which includes a lot of straight people).

And you certainly shouldn't have expected me to support the protesters since I already wrote about how pointless, unhelpful, and objectionable they are. It should go without saying that I'm not a supporter of harassment. I'd rather not have to write about this gay shit every time a gay person says or does something evil in public, okay?

I also preemptively denounce anyone who kicks puppies, my neighbor who parks in the handicapped space without a tag, and Richard Simmons. If there's anything else completely obvious you would like me to denounce just so we can get it out of the way, feel free to let me know.

Yeah... [ace] Dumb and stridently so as usual, Christoph.

How Gabe was to know to precognitively denounce something that hadn't happened yet is beyond me.

Posted by: Ace at 01:54 PM | Comments (245)
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The Strangers. If we rate by how well the writer/director, crew, and actors achieved their intended purpose, it gets... well, I'll say three and a half stars.

Here's a short review: I am never scared by horror movies. And by "never," sure, I mean I sometimes jump at the pop-ups, but basically I view them as violent comedies. Not real comedies, but leaning towards the comic side of the drama/comedy axis. They're funhouse movies, by and large-- cheap thrills, cheap scares.

Now, here's what I did on this one: I turned it off. After an hour of nerve-wracking tension and plenty of scares, one scare about three quarters of the way through sent me jumping off the bed. At that point, I said, 'Well, that's it for me!" and turned it off.

I turn off bad movies all the time. But this isn't a bad movie. It's very good. And I didn't turn it off due to gore -- there's almost no gore in this. (Almost -- and what there is is pretty damn light for a horror movie. It's less bloody than a typical action movie.)

It's almost all just tension, anticipation, and then... the scares.

I'd had it with the scares. My spine was tingling, I had the creeps and heebie-jeebies, and I wanted to go to bed without nightmares. As it was it still took me an hour to get rid of the creepy-crawly goosebumps.

Here's the trailer. I thought this sonofabitch looked creepy as hell. For once, a horror trailer that actually isn't quite as good as the movie.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:31 PM | Comments (100)
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Constituent service.

Pea-brained Jersey City Councilman Steven Lipski swore off booze Sunday - two days after he was busted for urinating on a crowd of revelers at a Washington D.C. nightclub.

"I've resolved not to touch alcohol again," Lipski told reporters outside his home.

He called the incident "deeply humiliating, very embarrassing" and "troubling."
EARLIER: COUNCILMAN IS No. 1 THREAT AT D.C. CLUB

Still, the two-term Democrat refused to admit that he drunkenly relieved himself from the second-floor balcony of the 9:30 club Friday night.

"I can't comment on that," Lipski told Fox 5. "I'm going to continue to do all the good things, and I'm not going to let this overshadow me."

Lipski's vow to lay off the bottle came after he spent the weekend reassuring pals and contributors that it was a spilled drink - not No.1 - that got him in hot water.

"I spoke to one of his contributors this morning, and he's denying the whole thing," one source said yesterday.

"He's telling people he spilled a drink. It's ridiculous. He's already said he's not resigning. He's telling people that."

Thanks to intaglio. Incidentally, KevinM. sent me this tip yesterday, which I stupidly didn't post -- because his tip was to a NBC's NYC news site, which, of course, failed to note this guy's party. They are now noting it.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (81)
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Some initial thoughts at the corner.

Some on both sides of this debate seem a bit taken with improbable assumptions.

Libertarians/social liberals sometimes insist that all we need to do is ditch the values program of the conservative agenda and then we start winning. This is asserted time and time again, even when, say, Prop 8 wins in socially-liberal California. Oddly, it is asserted that running on a plank that commands 53% support even in a socially-liberal state is a losing proposition.

I'm going to single out Ryan Sager as Johnny Nonsensical One-Note on this point, because he keeps writing the same column over and over, with the same massive hole in logic that is never filled.

It's clear that Ryan Sager is a libertarian/social liberal -- he never tires of informing us so -- and it is therefore quite clear that he'd prefer a dream party that perfectly tracked his own policy impulses. What he always seeks to prove, however, and always fails at so doing, is that it is electorally plausible to follow his prescriptions.

Apparently the GOP can rebuild its popularity first and foremost by exchanging a position that commands 53% of support from even a socially-liberal state for one that commands 47%.

Usually it is suggested that "we are losing the youth vote," which fails to note that 1) we have always lost the youth vote, and 2) the youth vote becomes less and less liberal as it ceases to be the youth vote. Even if we assume this youth-vote-committed-to-gay-marriage is a long-term and irreversible trend -- that is to say, that these young gay marriage enthusiasts will continue being just as enthusiastic about gay marriage even as they age -- it's utterly unclear why we should abandon a plank that commands 53% support in the here and now and jump on a bandwagon that will command 55% support 20 years from now.

Can't we wait until it's a majority position before embracing it, Ryan?

I guess we can't. Gotta get on that train before all the seats are taken.

On the other side -- and I'll only hit this briefly, as every two years social cons hear plenty about how awful they are; they hardly need more of this when Ryan Sager is cranking out the same column every other week -- is that social cons often mistake their dominance in conservative circles for dominance in the broader public. And that their agenda, while attracting an awful lot of votes, also loses a lot of votes. In the net, it gains more votes than it loses -- but calibration is needed to ensure it gets enough net votes that it can actually ever become part of a governing platform.

One terrible thing is the loss of all "RINOs" from the Northeast and Northwest. I'm as annoyed by RINOs as the next guy, but there are RINOs and there are RINOs. Christopher Shays was a RINO -- but a good one, because there was no conceivable way to have anything but a RINO representing his district, other than a liberal Democrat. In such situations, RINOs should be celebrated. A Republican In Name Only is a preferable solution to Not Even a Republican in Name Only.

On the other hand, there are people like Elizabeth Dole who had significant freedom to pursue a conservative agenda, if she so chose, but consistently chose not to. She had to be bullied, for example, into voting against amnesty and for drilling, positions that found favor with 70% or so of the national electorate and undoubtedly even more in conservative-tilting North Carolina. I suppose I'd rather have a RINO than a Democrat in conservative-leaning states, but I am flabbergasted that we keep having only this choice.

We have few RINOs left at all, and we'll miss them. It's too late now to say "Support RINOs in liberal-leaning states; they're the best we can hope for," but it's something to keep in mind next cycle, I suppose. We'll have to put up moderate candidates to even have a shot at some of the swing districts Democrats have lately swept us in. It's important to remember politics is the art of the possible.

Posted by: Ace at 10:51 AM | Comments (329)
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I hope Mr. Campaign Finance Reform enjoys the FEC intrusive anal probing of every dime he raised while Obama's books get nothing more than a quick skimming.

The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.

Victory has its privileges.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:50 AM | Comments (46)
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Shocking I know but it appears an empty suited product of the Chicago machine doesn't have much respect for the traditions of our country.

The White House is annoyed that the Obama camp leaked details of yesterday's courtesy call between President Bush and Obama. The Obama camp says, hey, it's just business.

What the White House appears to be angry about: notions, in the press, that President Bush suggested that assistance to the auto industry would be contingent upon Congressional reconsideration of the Columbian trade agreement.

Not so, says the White House. They're accusing the Obama transition team of leaking a one-sided account of the meeting. Publicly, the Obama campaign is mum.

Well, surprise. The Obama team has a communications strategy. And surprise: it's favorable to Obama and not favorable to President Bush. And surprise: the Obama economic team considers the perilous state of the auto industry to be the most pressing issue right now. And surprise: passing the trade agreement is something Bush really wants to get done before the end of his term -- he spoke about it during his radio address on Saturday.

("What we did was hardly hardball," an Obama aide says)

Look, I know at this level politics isn't beanbag but there are some niceties that need to be observed on occasion.

One of the most amazing things about this country is the absolute ordinariness of the transfer of power between administrations. That doesn't happen simply because the laws say they should but because as a nation it is one of the most (if not the most) cherished value we hold.

A friendly or even orderly transfer of power isn't necessary (see Truman to Eisenhower for one example) but honoring the symbolism and appearances gives life to the values we hold dear. Hopefully, President-Elect Obama and his team will learn that now that they aren't campaigning for the job anymore, they need to grow up and realize not ever occasion is appropriate time to further their communications strategy.

And for anyone who wants to excuse this breach of etiquette as simply 'everyone does it' consider one person who doesn't do it...President George W. Bush. For 8 years he has come under all kinds of personal attacks and not just from loony Code Pink types but from supposed adults like the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Did he ever return the insults in kind? Not that I've seen. So no, not everyone plays fast and loose with the conventions of a democracy simply to further their personal goals.

Bush wanted to be "a uniter, not a divider" and to "change the tone" of the capitol. He managed the latter simply but cutting out the childish squawking we heard from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue during his predecessor's administration. Looks like those days are done.

BTW- I guess this means my personal honeymoon with Team Bary is over....no foreplay and not even remotely 16.2 minutes of lovin'.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:25 AM | Comments (120)
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