Protesters called for President Bush to be impeached at his Fourth of July speech at Monticello. The president responded to the cries with a comment on the freedom of speech. Nice deflection on his part.
One hundred fifty demonstrators opposing Bush's policies on the war in Iraq, also lined path of the president's motorcade to Thomas Jefferson's home.
Actress, Christian music superstar and Republican, Heidi Montag together with Daily Barf, wish you a tits-out, no drama, bi-partisan HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!
Everything about this is so goddamn funny to me! Someone or ones in Orlando vandalized 60 city vehicles with colorful anti-Obama graffiti. The absurdity of "Obama smokes crack!" alone is amazing but those "business cards", wow! Besides the on-point "McCain: For War, Old/Needs New Thinking" and the incoherently racist, "Obama should you be the president? I don't think so Hows about a 40 see you in the hood." there is the, "How About Them Gators"-touch of home and the theological pause, "Remember The Golden Rule". Football and Jesus; somebody's keeping it real in Central Florida!
Postcards from the Edge is where I post ridiculous email forwards I receive from my family. This installment reeks of bad, bad '90s humor. Got any good jokes about navy blue dresses?!
I got something to say!. . . about lowering the price of oil through offshore drilling. There isn't a single economist who says the price of gas will drop anytime soon if we begin drilling of the coast of the U.S.. Even conservative economists say its flawed logic:
"There is no question it would take quiet a bit of time for this to come to the market," said Max Schulz, an energy analyst for the Manhattan Institute. "But it was the same argument that was used any time over the past ten years, that it would take too much time for this stuff to have an effect... Having a couple million extra barrels on the world market would eventually help ease those markets."
If we begin building the infrastructure needed for offshore drilling today, the oil from these wells wouldn't make it to market for another decade, which does nothing for the $5 per gallon projections on the horizon, later this summer.
What will drastically lower the price of gas, and QUICKLY, is tighter regulation of the oil futures market, specifically cracking down on futures speculators who've been pumping money into the market, inflating the price of fuel. Yesterday in Washington, lawmakers continued to place the high-gas-price blame with investment banks, pension and hedge fund managers who are making huge profits off soaring gas prices.
Experts agree that reigning in speculators, who have increased their share of oil futures contracts on the Nymex to 71 percent this year, up from 37 percent in 2000, could decrease the price of a barrel of oil as much as 50% within a month!
Open up off-shore oil reserves now and see marginally larger supply on the market a DECADE from now or reign in speculators and see a 50% decrease in the price of oil in 30 DAYS -- it doesn't seem like a difficult decision.
John McCain's idea to offer $300 million to anyone "who can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology." typifies the archaic brand crazy that this man brings. "All of our country's problems can be solved with a little old-fashioned ingenuity! Why, this nation of tinkerers must unite and fight our dependence on foreign oil! It reminds me of the Great War . . . remember the Alamo!" With policies like this, basically a Publisher's Clearing House offer to reform energy in the U.S., my grandmother might as well be running for president. YiaYia for president!
Diana Vreeland had such a way of speaking:
And yelling!:
With plutocracy's vengeful return and news that now it takes three times more dough to be one of the country's 400 wealthiest than it did just 15 years ago, has there been a time since the '80s when the universe more needed a book detailing the finer points of being very, very, disgustingly rich? I thinketh not. Bridging the ever-growing gap between the very rich and the rest of us, The Official Filthy Rich Handbook is available in stores this week.
Subtitled "How the Other .0001% Lives", the hoity paperback imparts advice on problems that 99.9999% of us can only daydream of. Imagine The Official Preppy Handbook twenty years older, a few tax brackets higher and blinged beyond recognition. The art direction of The Official Filthy Rich Handbook may be a direct lift of the original '80s classic, but the similarities end there. While TOPH extolled the virtues of pink and green, this handbook tackles more timely issues like selecting the right plastic surgery for yourself and the kids. A marked difference between the two is in the approach. TOPH is ostensibly written as a tongue in cheek "handbook" for those already in the know. One gets a sense from the Amazon excerpt alone that The Official Filthy Rich Handbook is more of a jokey primer for the newly-super-rich (and the rest of us) than a self-deprecating satire for founding members of the .0001% club.
Final verdict: The Official Filthy Rich Handbook makes for excellent, exclusive, super-premium bathroom reading.
Ah wine, that mysterious elixir. Ben Franklin tells us, “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” Theologian he wasn't, but I think Ben "I invented America and electricity." Franklin is on to something with this is whole God and wine scenario. Those imbibers over at Hamilton Design must have been drinking the same Kool-Aid when they cast those arcane Seven Deadlies in glass, creating a collection of incredible wine glasses that range from the communal challis to one of Lil' Jon's crunk cups.
So yeah, drink up because you're totally going to Hell.
Ugh, it's Monday, but there is good news today; historians see little chance for Old Man McCain to win the presidency! Yay!
Historians belonging to both parties offered a litany of historical comparisons that give little hope to the Republican. Several saw Barack Obama’s prospects as the most promising for a Democrat since Roosevelt trounced Hoover in 1932.
“This should be an overwhelming Democratic victory,” said Allan Lichtman, an American University presidential historian who ran in a Maryland Democratic senatorial primary in 2006. Lichtman, whose forecasting model has correctly predicted the last six presidential popular vote winners, predicts that this year, “Republicans face what have always been insurmountable historical odds.” His system gives McCain a score on par with Jimmy Carter’s in 1980.
“McCain shouldn’t win it,” said presidential historian Joan Hoff, a professor at Montana State University and former president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency. She compared McCain’s prospects to those of Hubert Humphrey, whose 1968 loss to Richard Nixon resulted in large part from the unpopularity of sitting Democratic president Lyndon Johnson.
“It is one of the worst political environments for the party in power since World War II,” added Alan Abramowitz, a professor of public opinion and the presidency at Emory University. His forecasting model — which factors in gross domestic product, whether a party has completed two terms in the White House and net presidential approval rating — gives McCain about the same odds as Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Carter in 1980 — both of whom were handily defeated in elections that returned the presidency to the previously out-of-power party. “It would be a pretty stunning upset if McCain won,” Abramowitz said.
Ohs noes, Cindy! Looks like you won't get to be White House Barbie after all!
Oh hellzzz yes.
Not that it will go anywhere.
Douchelodeon! These guys are pushing 40!
It's Friday, fuck shit up!
Yeah, you're not imagining things that's S. Darko, as in Samantha Darko, "Sparkle Motion" prima donna and bratty younger sister of Donnie. "Now 17", Samantha is the protag. of the sequel to the college-cult-classic "Donnie Darko", the movie that first thrust a baby Jake Gyllenhaal into the hearts, minds (and other places) of millennial girls and gay boys. Sigh . . .
S. Darko's IMDb synopsis reads like a recipe for a flop:
"S. Darko takes place in the summer of 1995, seven years after the original film. It follows Donnie Darko's younger sister, Samantha (Daveigh Chase), who, in the wake of his death, has found herself at age 17 with a broken family, mired in feelings of insignificance. She and her best friend Corey (Evigan) set off on a road trip to Hollywood in a bid to 'make it big', but their journey is cut short when their car breaks down unexpectedly, leaving them stranded in a small desert town. When a meteorite happens to crash-land nearby, Samantha is plagued by bizarre visions telling of the universe's end and it appears that their breakdown was part of some grander plan. She must face her own demons and, in doing so, save the world and herself."
Barfaroni, it's like Britney's 90-minutes big screen blooper reel, Crossroads, meets Heroes, but worse.
The dramatic conclusion to the most-hyped primary season since . . . u ever?
Rousing, stirring, inspiring; if he doesn't win, it'll make a sensational HBO movie.
An emoticon seemed fitting.
Yves Saint-Laurent, a man who was without a doubt one of the most influential and ground breaking designers of the 20th century, has died. As visionary as he was private, the mark he left on fashion, commerce and what it means to be part of the creative arts is immeasurable. For more on Saint-Laurent, Daily Barf highly recommends The Beautiful Fall. YSL: May his memory be eternal.
You know how it sometimes feels the media is forcing you to think an act is really popular? My friends and I used to laugh at how The Donnas were hyped as THE NEXT BIG THING every single year between 2000 and 2005 yet we knew nary a Donnas fan. I've felt that way about Chelsea Handler for a long time. She seemed funny enough, but undeserving of the umpteen TV vehicles she's been given to jump start her career. "The Chelsea Handler Show", "Comedy Central Stand-Up", "In The MotherHood", "Girls Behaving Badly" -- all Handler-led shows that never caught on. The fact that she's dating Ted Harbert, president and CEO of the Comcast Entertainment Group, might in part explain all of the opportunities she's been given -- talent or none, you can't deny the girl is smart.
But, it looks like she's finally hit her stride with her second E! talk show, "Chelsea Lately". It's out-lasted her first E! show and is a mighty bit funnier. The monologue and interview portions are still weak, but she excels in the middle segment as a modern Joan Rivers giving a biting run-down of celebrity gossip in a panel with 3 other personalities to play off of. She comes off as the hilarious bawdy girl at the end of the brunch table who's taken full advantage of the bottomless mimosa special and is letting her off-color comments flow as quick-and-easily as the champ and o.j. Good show.
On another note; The Donnas still suck.
The big news this week is former Bush press aide Scott McClellan's book What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. The 350-page text is an account of McClellan's tenure as the administration's media liaison which lasted from the early days of the war, including the depressingly hilarious "Mission Accomplished" Super Bowl™ spectacular or whatever that was, up until his 2006 resignation. McClellan, whose former job description included defending the war at all costs, now says, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary." In chapters with matter of fact names like, "Selling the War" , McClellan substantiates some widely speculated rumors about the workings of the Bush administration:
• McClellan describes Bush as a willing participant in treating his presidency as a permanent political campaign, run in large part by his top political adviser, Rove. Bush is depicted as an out-of-touch leader, operating in a political bubble, who has stubbornly refused to admit mistakes.• In another section, McClellan describes Bush as able to convince himself of his own spin and relates a phone call he overheard Bush having during the 2000 campaign, in which he said he could not remember whether he had used cocaine. "I remember thinking to myself, 'How can that be?' " he writes.
• The author describes Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as being deft at deflecting blame, and he calls Vice President Cheney "the magic man" who steered policy behind the scenes while leaving no fingerprints.
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on "propaganda" to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be "badly misguided."
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them -- and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
The video below has nothing to do with Scott McClellan but is a quick and far from private glimpse at the culture of lies and deception nurtured by the Bush administration.
If you were born between 1980 and 1995 you're a Millenial and, according to 60 Minutes, YOU'RE VERY DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH! Morley Safer and the gang say our priorities are different than those of generations' past. Friends and family come before career and we schedule work meetings around our yoga classes (ha!). We expect more for less and we'll walk if we don't get it (ha ha!).
A lot of what they say is over-blown, like the take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward jobs, but overall, they're right!
Apparently this guy was wounded in a gunfight in Harlem and he's texting, TEXTING from the stretcher. Amazing!
Heidi and Spence wish you a Happy Memorial Day.
I'm headed south. See ya!
HBO's "Recount", a comedic look at the 2000 Cheney/Rove-led coup d'etat that's landed us in the shit hole we're in now, premiers Sunday. "The eyes of the world have landed on ME!" -- Kitty Harris, your brand of crazy will never get old.
When it comes to art, my taste falls into two categories: pretty things masterfully created and "fuck you" art. In this environment of economic doom and gloom, Studio Job's Robber Baron series reconciles both. Not only are the pieces beautiful, but the era and sentiments they conjure reflect our current situation.
The bronze and gold gilt employed here are throw backs -- way back -- to the boom days of the 1920's stock market, an era in which the fortunes of a few were made on the backs of the many. When the market went bust in '29, "the many" lost what little they'd gained in the bull market. "The few" weathered far better, as they do. Over the breadline moans of "Times are glum and getting glummer." the Bougies belted a gin-soaked "Ain't we got fun!", which directly translates to, "Fuck you."
This Memorial Day weekend, while many in Middle-America struggle to stay in their homes and fuel their cars, the rich will gas-up theirs and travel to beach cottages, as they do, sputtering fumes that spell out "Fuck you."
After a long day of uncovering insights about Hispanic consumers at a New York ad agency, my friend and colleague, Eric goes home and becomes another person. In the privacy of his Manhattan apartment, before his lovingly souped-up PC, Eric slips on his headphones, fires up Ableton Live and transforms into one-man band, Scholars and Fellows.
As Scholars and Fellows, Eric makes music, lots of it. Music that is catchy, very very catchy. Whether waxing poetic about why love sucks, (which landed him a Valentine's Day gig at Studio B) or penning songs about conversations he overhears, Scholars and Fellows churns out likeable ditties that make you want to sing and dance.
Scholars and Fellows' latest execution is a mellow but upbeat and literally sweet testament to one of Eric's greatest passions, ice cream. Eric is such an ice cream fanatic that he regularly eschews a conventional lunch for a fruit-flavored Häagen-Dazs pint. Before you prejudge his music by this dodgy nutritional habit, click the Scholars and Fellows logo below and listen to "You Can't Live off Ice Cream".
Waaaaaaaay back in the early days of 2007, I worked for an anti-aging company that provided bio-identical hormone replacement therapy to wealthy Baby Boomers, allowing them to live, as our slogan went, 'longer, healthier and happier lives'. The queen GILF of the anti-aging industry is Suzanne Somers. As such, her every cougar-like move, book release and speaking engagement became mandatory study material for those of us working in this field of quackery. Though she claims to be Botox®, collagen and face lift-free, the "Three's Company"/"Step By Step"/HSN star has been injecting hormones derived from plant proteins that exactly mimic those produced by our bodies when we are in our physical and sexual prime into her body since the mid-90s. At 62, S.S. has the energy, sex drive, memory and metabolism of a 15 year old boy -- and who doesn't want that?!
Eh, apparently not many people which is why, in addition to heavy drug use, embezzlement and finally an out-right raiding of what was left of the company's assets by the CEO, our little shop of anti-aging horrors went under.
What I am left with, besides lots of promotional shirts that I wear to the gym and ridiculous stories about people in their 70s with the muscle mass of NBA players, is an encyclopedic knowledge and appreciation for Suzanne Somersanalia. Seeing her face brings me back to the days when I'd happily watch her HSN shows, waiting for her to make mention of bio-identical hormone replacement therapy because surely, SURELY, every time that phrase was uttered by the queen of Somersize, millions of dollars would pour out of the sky and into my bank account -- at least that's what the company's owners had us believing.
I feel qualified in introducing the following clip in which Tracey Ullman "takes on" Suzanne Somers as a spot-on impersonation of the aging yet Ageless TV star.
And the second, related, clip is pretty funny, too.
Remember that whole electability argument Hillary Clinton was making?
Yeah, it was kind of important.
Thanks Matt and electoral-vote.com
The best thing I've seen all week.
Oliver Stone is set to release "W", his account of the life of our cowboy president, George W. Bush, later this year. Though the script isn't complete and key players like Dick Cheney still haven't been cast, details of the movie are surfacing -- details that are both titillating and sickening. I know I will see "W", but I don't know how I'll feel when I leave the theater. Will there be a sense of vindication? : "See, I told you all along that he was an idiot?!" Anger? : "God, he still pisses me off!" or Nostalgia : "Wow, we somehow survived that together."
Here are some highlights from the new Entertainment Weekly article on the movie:
TALES FROM THE SCRIPT
Stone and co-writer Stanley Weiser are still polishing the W script. Judging from an early draft, though, the movie will be darkly funny — at Bush's expense. Highlights:
Oedipal Wreck After his father is elected president, Bush tells Laura, ''I'll never get out of Poppy's shadow.... I wish he'd LOST.... No matter what I do, it's never going to be good enough.''
Tough Talker Bush, 26, drunk-drives his car onto the lawn of his parents' D.C. home, and challenges his dad to a fight, ''Let's go mano a mano! Right here. Right now!'' Then, in 2003, when France fails to back the U.S. on its invasion of Iraq, Bush says of French president Jacques Chirac, ''I'd like to stuff a plate of freedom fries down that slick piece of s---'s throat.''
Practical Joker During a prep meeting on Iraq, Bush playfully locks Colin Powell out of the room. He then steals a mint from Condoleezza Rice and tells Paul Wolfowitz to trim his ear hair.
Man of Faith In 1999, Bush confesses to a televangelist, ''The truth is, I really don't want to run [for president].... But I feel that God wants me to do this, and I must do it. I MUST.''
Brother in Arms In a 2003 sit-down with Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, Bush explains that he has given up sweets since the beginning of the Iraq war. ''This is my personal sacrifice to show support for our troops,'' he says.
