Torturing the pontiff: Just a few minutes of political ramblings, then back to your regularly scheduled programming (or lack thereof). And I do mean rambling, since I haven't thought these issues out entirely.

The press is abuzz over two big stories these days. First, George W. Bush thinks it's ok to "interpret"the Geneva Conventions sacred Article 3, which states, basically, torture is a no-no, in his own unique way. He'd like it to evolve, so to speak, to allow for rough treatment of those prisoners who have information we need to stop terrorist acts. Protect American citizens etc. Now you can define torture however you like and still leave room, I think, for blasting rock & roll music, leaving lights on extra bright, making them sit on floors colder than doctor's examination tables and even the occasional slap in the face (provided it be done in a haughty and defensive manner and is followed by a CIA agent running to his room to call mother). But John McCain and Colin Powell are afraid that if we allow Wet Willies on jihadists it'll give Iran or others the cover they need to give Atomic Wedgies and Swirlies to our troops taken prisoner. America ought to lead by example and all that. Beautiful sentiment.

Changing gears for a second, the other hot topic this week is the Pope ticking off a number of the Islamic persuasion by suggesting (say it ain't so) that Islam has a history of violence in the name of promoting the faith and converting the heathen masses. I know, I know. I didn't expect any kind of overreaction either, but some have argued that perhaps Pope Benedict ought to check his own religion's history, then bow and scrape his way to Mecca or face the divine sword of Allah, peace be upon him. Others are trying to defend Benedict by interpreting his words in umpteen different ways, insisting he meant no offense and it just sort of slipped out. Didn't even know you guys were listening.

Both of these debates raise the same point regarding the deference we pay to our Islamist counterparts. For some reason we keep expecting our shining American/Western example of justice and fairness, tarnished though it may occasionally be, to matter one iota to our enemies in Iran, Iraq or anywhere else. Our "torture" techniques might be worthy of criticism, but do you really think it'll matter to those who consider beheadings reasonable treatment? These people do not require us to lower our standards of behavior first. They're already so far below our worst standards, only a moral imbecile could possibly claim the lines are getting blurred. Pretending to be appalled by Bush's attempt at a looser interpretation of the Geneva Conventions (avert your eyes from this sacred text if you know what's good for you and you've seen Raider Of The Lost Ark) without a caveat so fucking big Michael Moore would mistake it for lunch is nonsense in high heels.

At the same time, I don't often rush to the defend statements made by anyone in a hat that funny and I won't start now. Even if he's right, do we really need the extra heat right now. No. But please spare me the indignation coming from the "Arab Street" right now. "We are not violent, and I'll cut your tongue out if you say it again." This is laughable, but does anyone think that if only Pope Benedict would hold his tongue these kinds of ridiculous threats would disappear? They abound these days, and yet every time it happens the press rushes to pick nits over whatever some Westerner said or did to provoke them. I don't care if the College of Cardinals did a drive-by "pressed ham" through the streets of Tehran, get the hell over it you self-righteous, overly sensitive, excuse making jerkoffs.

Maybe we should go the other way with it and just have Bush and Cheney start saying "The bombing will begin in five minutes" and all kinds of other ridiculous shit to provoke the hell out of the Middle East. They're going to be offended no matter what we say, they're going to kill and brutalize anyone they get their hands on with or without Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, so what does it really matter. And the smallest fraction of Europe is going to side with us no matter what, if Tony Blair is really such a Bush lap dog, while the rest are just as determined to find evil at the root of whatever we do. Why waste all the energy trying to "set an example for the world."

Like giving advice: that which is never taken, shouldn't be offered.

NFL Picks? Oye, como va, Tito! The Open isn't even finished yet! And I don't even have the teams straight from the last division reshuffle. Herewith some bits of wisdom from the guy not paying attention.

Pittsburgh: Don't even think about it. Last year was a fluke. Look for Big Ben to be a little less Terry Bradshaw, a little more Bubby Brister this year.

Legacy QBs: Manning's going to finally have that huge, breakout year they've always talked about. Problem is, Eli's going to have it. Peyton will be relaxing at home again in January.

T.O. Watch: Week 2, he brings explosives on the team flight to the first baway game. Spends next 11 games in Gitmo.

Big Bust: Anna Nicole Smith. And the Patriots will follow their MLB counterparts into a slump.

Won't Read This Anywhere Else Dept.: A well-known network football analyst, by week 6, uses the words "Arizona" and "Cinderella" in the same sentence.

For what it's worth, fellas. Now, tennis:

Took Eno Jr. to the tennis courts this afternoon to work on some basics. (He gets the standard kick serve, but he's still working on the American twist.) Actually, I'm glad to see him getting it over the net. When he gets a good hit he calls himself "Little Rafa." He was very sad to see Nadal lose, but he likes Roddick's chances. Can you believe that shit? If he didn't have my exact ears, I'd suspect the milkman.

I don't see any of them beating Federer this year.

For the ladies, I'd love to see Jelena pull off the upset. She's spitting out seeds like she's eating watermelon. And honestly, Sharapova's not an order of magnitude better than the pair of seeded Russians Jelena's already sent packing. Getting past Henin will be the harder match.

As for Mauresmo, I don't know. I'm the guy, after all, who thought she'd fold up like a cheap lawn chair at Wimby. I still think the right player can jangle her nerves pretty easily. Maybe Jelena's the one.

Picks, you can't handle the picks: Proving once again there's always room on the bandwagon for one more.

Division winners:

AFC North: Pittsburgh: Don't wake up, please don't wake up.

AFC South: Indy: Now this is the year.

AFC East: Miami: Tom who?

AFC West: Kansas City: Mediocrity triumphs (with a great running back and improved defense).

Wildcards: Cincy, New England

NFC North: Minnesota: I knowChicago is the darling today, but I just want to stab myself when I see Brian Griese's name and Minny should improve more than the others.

NFC South: Carolina: I'm a homer twice in one post! They're the easy chalk pick though.

NFC East: Dallas: That team has always thrived on controversy and this is Bill's year to deliver.

NFC West: Seattle: Cupcake division+same running back+ same QB+ something to prove=a romp through the regular season (and another post-season disappointment).

Wildcards: Philly, Tampa Bay

Super Bowl

Miami vs. Carolina: Panthers win their first Super Bowl!

First T. O. disciplinary action

Week 1 if you count The Tuna keeping him on the bench the first quarter for being a pain all summer, otherwise Week 5 when he dances on Philly's 50 yard line and gets fined for taunting.

First coach to be fired

Parcells, after the first quarter of Week 1. He's rehired by the second half, though, and tells everyone he was in the locker room "taking an Owens."

First QB benched

Aaron Brooks, as the next Jeff George era begins in Oakland.

Biggest bust

Washington: Joe Gibbs is wishing he'd stayed in NASCAR.

Biggest boom

Tampa Bay: Nobody's talking about them since Carolina's so heavily favored, but they'll be second in the division ahead of Atlanta and Chris Simms will finally prove he belongs in the NFL.

Are you ready for some prognostications?:

The NFL season kicks off on its most hallowed and storied evening, yes Thursday night...anyway, here are my picks:

1. Conference Winners and Wildcards:

NFC East: Eagles 12-4
NFC South: Carolina 10-6
NFC West: Rams 10-6
NFC North: Chicago 11-5
Wildcards: Cowboys 10-6, Seattle 9-7

AFC East: New England, 11-5
AFC South: Colts, 10-6
AFC West: Denver, 10-6
AFC North: Cincinnati, 12-4
Wildcards: Miami, 10-6, Pittsburgh 10-6

2. Superbowl match-up and winner.

Cincinnati vs. Eagles. Eagles win their first Superbowl!!!

3. Week of the first T.O. disciplinary action

Week 5 -- after he only racks up 25 catches for 2 TDs and say, 200 yards he goes on a tantrum, Bledsoe cries, and T.O. gets a 1-game suspension.

4. First coach to get fired and when?

Brian Billick, week 9, after Baltimore scores 90 pts through 8 games and the "Offensive Genius" label can be removed from Billick, and just leave him with "Offensive".

5. Reggie Bush -- boom or bust?

Minor boom. The city will love him, he'll do all the right things, but you can only expect so much behind that team's line...

6. First QB to get benched.

I'd say Kitna, but they have nothing behind him. So, let's say Phillip Rivers is a major major disappointment in San Diego, and the team has to face the fact that they made a huge mistake in letting Brees go, who is having a very good (if not great) year for the 'Aints...

7. Team to most spectacularly fail to meet consensus pre-season expectations.

Giants. Eli Manning is no regular season Peyton.

8. Team to most spectacularly exceed consensus pre-season expectations.

Rams. They have the firepower to win in that division and their team isn't so awful defensively.

Agassi: But before we get to him, let's pause a moment to appreciate MRS. Agassi -- hoofah. She is looking fine these days -- a little make-up, some blowdrying -- and wow. Age is "serving" her well -- harhar.

Anyway, I made myself watch the entire match against "Bombs over Baghdatis". First off, the Cypriot played better and yet worse than expected. He showed really solid groundstrokes and his shot selection was decent. His first serve is also very good. Yet, as Johnny Mac said last night, he was playing a bit lazy (or maybe it's his conditioning) and wasn't taking the extra step a lot of the time to get to the ball which would result in half-assed "gets" at times. Moreover, he had a woeful second serve -- he was only winning around 35% of his points of the 2nd serve**, which is simply not going to do it against the premiere return man of the ages (still). Ultimately it may have been his cramps that did him in -- which is no excuse when you're 21 and playing a guy who is 36 (!)

Agassi was a gamer. He did what he had to do, although he nearly blew it up 3-0 in the 4th and then gets broken twice to lose the set (this with the entire stadium save 5 screaming for you [did I mention the hot wife??]). His serves were nice and flat, his pacing and selection of his groundstrokes kept Bag-boy off his game just enough to flatten the edge of age and power. Andre did not show any ill effects of his back, but then again, it was only the second round. He's playing better tennis than expected, and perhaps rightfully so given that it's his swansong. I have to admit I was a little upset when it looked like he might lose. I wanted him gone in the first round, or else to make it to the finals. Losing in the 4th round just has no poetry about it.

Good luck Andre.

**In honor of Eno's love for DFW, here's a footnote: For more on the perils on having a crappy second serve, see Hingis, Martina##. She got CUH-rushed last night by a middling opponent who capitalized on Martina's namby-pamby service game.

##Here's a footnote to a footnote: Funny (not laugh out loud) coincidence how Hingis and Baghdatis were both 8th seeds getting knocked out by no-seeds.

Paging Dr. Razor: I doubt you missed this piece from the NYT Sunday supplement -- David Foster Wallace on Roger Federer. Thoroughly endnoted, too. In fact, you'll be delighted to hear, the endnotes have footnotes. Typical DFW sentence:

There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner...until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side...and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands.

Ellipses in the original, mind you. If you hack your way through the post-modernist version of the whichy thickets, he makes some keen (if perhaps debatable) observations -- on a variety of subjects. For example:

Wimbledon is strange. Verily it is the game’s Mecca, the cathedral of tennis; but it would be easier to sustain the appropriate level of on-site veneration if the tournament weren’t so intent on reminding you over and over that it’s the cathedral of tennis.

And:

It wasn’t that Ivan Lendl was an immortally great tennis player. He was simply the first top pro to demonstrate what heavy topspin and raw power could achieve from the baseline. And, most important, the achievement was replicable, just like the composite racket.

And:

The generic power-baseline game is not boring — certainly not compared with the two-second points of old-time serve-and-volley or the moon-ball tedium of classic baseline attrition. But it is somewhat static and limited; it is not, as pundits have publicly feared for years, the evolutionary endpoint of tennis. The player who’s shown this to be true is Roger Federer. And he’s shown it from within the modern game.

I'd love to read a ten-page article by him on any of these pronouncements, though I can't see tolerating that level of self-indulgence through any of his longer works. Anyhow, if you didn't see it, do.

For the record, I am not nearly this delusionsal when it comes to golf. Razor, put down any heavy, blunt objects before reading.

I'll try to post my nominee for the best ever later.

The PGA: Piss off, I'm working. Besides, you should be watching it. Phil and Tiger are being streamed at PGA.com.

Seriously, I'll try to post some thoughts later in case anyone's interested, but this week is pretty busy for me. Suffice to say that golf's Fourth Major (read red-headed stepchild) is foten my favorite and this year it could be huge.

The Foiled Attacks: I noted the press conference with the Home Secretary this morning, and one of the questioners asked whether the UK should be considered on a war footing now with the Islamic culture. His response:

'We are involved in a long, wide and deep struggle against very evil people.

'This is not a case of one civilization against the other, of one religion against the other, but of terrorists who want to use evil methods. This threat is common to us all,' he warned.

Okay fine -- I mean sure -- yes, that's essentially true. We all accept the tried-and-true response that not ALL Islamic peoples want to kill the Western World. But shouldn't we accept that very much ALL of the logistic, monetary and personnel support comes from Islamic countries? Some governments like Iran are open in their support of terrorists. Others, like Syria are tolerant while acting like they condemn them. Others still like Pakistan are allied with our fight on terror only by virtue of the military junta governing the country.

So, what do we do? We can't pull and Iraq on every nation, and god knows, looking of what a mess the place is, we wouldn't be any better off (and it can't help but tickle so many of the French that Iraq was the LAST place we should have invaded -- Saddam was only minorly interested in supporting terrorism in the UK and US -- he really preferred to terrorize his own people and was a nice buffer against Iran -- but i digress) if we did.

It's time for a unified approach. It's "us" vs. "them". "Us" is the obvious nations: U.S., U.K., Australia. It includes usually the Russians and the Canadians. But it MUST now include the Spaniards, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Serbs, the Greek, the Swedes and the whole of South and Central America (they haven't tasted the pain yet, but they someday will). No more fucking around -- no more pandering to the electorate by pretending to oppose GWB. If the Europeans think they can avoid more of the same by keeping a low profile and denouncing Cowboy Imperialism at every turn, they are sorely fucking mistaken.

The Spanish got bombed AFTER they pulled out of Iraq. The French are on the verge of a civil war (certainly culturally if not politically) with their Islamic "guests" and we've already seen what a dog's breakfast the Scandinavians have made of their homogenity. Enough. Pick a side and go full bore. Root out the terrorists, tighten your immigration (or at least for god's sake enforce your laws), and buckle down. The world is not going back to a once-a-decade hijacking to prove a point. It's a war, no way around it.

Brilliant analysis from Kos: Re: the foiled London terrorist plot:

You have to wonder what exactly are the benefits of hitching yourself to George W. It's like when you consider making an investment or major purchase. You look at the pros and the cons. We all know what the cons are: your people become a target for terrorists, and you breed your own terrorist cells. So, what are the benefits? Ummmmm, well, uhhhh, okay not many. Blair has sold out his people so he can cozy up on Bush's lap. Tony is like any other man in power, he wants to more power himself, and be closer to those who have even more power.

The mind reels at brilliant analysis such as this. Really. No chance whatsoever that Blair weighs the pros and cons and finds some benefits to his nation in allying with the most powerful country in the world, militarily and economically speaking at least. Nope. Can't be. Because if one so brilliant as punditron (and who's to say the left isn't spitting these talking points out of a Bush hating robot, anyway) makes the calculation and the scales weigh heavier on the con side, then all points to pro are immediately discarded. No fine, nuanced arguments to consider; it's a runaway. Like Ditka v. the rest of the NFL, baby. 72-0. Ditka played in a wheelcahair, while recovering from a heart attack.

After all, we know what a stupid head Tony Blair is. Can't even pronounce half the words in the English language (and with an accent like that, well, you can only bet what he and Bush are doing when the doors are closed - but I'm okay with gay marriage, dirty buggers). Then there's this:

So, here's the plan to make Bush and Blair come back to reality. Make these idiots ride commercial aircraft, ride the subways, and walk the streets like the rest of us. Let them be exposed to the results of their reckless foreign policies. Plus, do that for their families. Then, we'll see if they want to engage in their cowboy attitudes towards the rest of the world.

I think that's a great idea. Might be better, though, if we made them get permission from Muqtada al Sadr and Ahmadinejad before they go anywhere, though. Or at least a note from the Kofi, I guess. That'll really crush those cowboy spirits (or at least make 'em sissies like those "cowboys" in the movies right - so Brokeback! - but I watched it with my girlfriend and only closed my eyes once, so I'm behind you Andrew).

It's gonna take a while for this deep thinking to really sink in with me. Guess I'm too stupid, or maybe I'm just too committed to the lie to back down now.

Via The Corner.

Update: protein wisdom has another suggestion to humble the Lone Ranger and his Tonto.

Why not demand Blair and Bush pick up a pistol, put on a ten gallon hat, and
march themselves into the badlands of Pakistan?

A different take on Joe: From Radley.

Good riddance.

He has a lot to say about the war and the Bush administration as well, but overall it's good old fashioned Libertarian cynicism about politicians in general, which is a spirit I can get on board with easily, even if I have a different position on the war and a kinder view of Lieberman. I think there's a place for guys like him, dignified and reasonable, even if they are too tightly linked to preserving a status quo, bloated federal government. Guess I'll never make it as Libertarian.

I liked this line at the end, though:

More incumbents need to lose more often. From both parties. The position of federal politician should be a short-term privilege, not a career.

Cup of Joe? I think our readers (both of you) know how I feel about Joe Lieberman. But I'm still hoping for a Ned Lamont victory in Connecticut tonight. Why? Because it's so bad for the left. Every responsible Democrat has endorsed Joe, because they too know that Lamont and the Kos Klub weaken the party severely.

Honestly, I like Joe a lot. I disagree with him in so many, many ways, but he has really shown some spine this year. That said, I win either way. Either I see Joe winning the primary, and likely the election; or I see Lamont the instant lame duck as the Dems' candidate. The party will not back him, Lieberman will run as an independent, and the most likely outcome will be a split Democratic vote and a moderate Republican in the office. And whither Joe? He'd be awful good cabinet material for a lame duck president with 2-plus years to burn.

So, odd as it may sound, I cry, "Go, Ned, go!"

"MTV Cops": With those words, one of the best t.v. shows of the 80's was spawned. This was the concept Michael Mann was given and he turned it into something much more satisfying and wide-reaching than anticipated, giving us "Miami Vice". I dare you to find a young boy in the mid-80s who didn't own his own variation of the Crockett ensemble of pastel t-shirt, white linen pants with matching jacket, and something akin to Espadrilles -- shoulder holster very much NOT optional.

Well, fast forward nearly twenty years, and we have MTV no longer showing music videos, instead being solely focused on the copulation, drinking and self-loathing habits of 20-somethings, Don Johnson hell bent on wrecking his legacy as the coolest cop in the world, and his partner, off in oblivion after the obligatory singing career went nowhere.

So the question is, could "Miami Vice" be dragged into the 21st Century? I've seen the new movie, and my answer is: mostly. You'll never be able to re-create that sense of awe one had in watching Sonny and Rico speeding down a freshly-watered empty freeway at night in a black Ferrari Daytona Spyder (actually a Corvette with bepsoke body panels) as heavy mood music pulsated in the background -- lives on the line. And it's a good question to ask whether Colin Farrel could pull off Sonny's mix of joie-de-vivre and self-loathing.

First, here's what the movie got right: cars, boats, women, guns, music and ambience. I've never wanted to own a powerboat (or a "go-fast boat" as they're called in the movie) before I saw this flick. There's something unimaginably raw and powerful about those boats skimming over the bright blue S. Florida open water, or rumbling through the jet black waves in clandestine drug runs through the harbor. The car this time? A dark grey Ferrari 430 -- top down the whole time (that was one problem with the t.v. show when they went to the white Testarossa -- couldn't get good shots of Rico and Sonny driving) -- and damn does this car move. Mann loves cars, and he films this one beautifully, with some great after-market light effects, the paddle shifters, and some incredible exhaust notes.

The gun fights are infrequent but intense and fraught with what one presumes to be realism (some shots seem far away, some way too close) as their impact is truly frightening (especially the .50 caliber sniper rifles). Tension builds in the meets between the drug cartel and the undercover cops - who will shoot first?

The women are all beautiful, but Mann gives them substance, and some mystery, which is pleasing all the way around (not to say we don't get some good shower scenes, and mercifully, no shots of Farrel's ass).

The music alternates between heart-pounding and mood music - depending on the scene, but overall very effective.

What was wrong? Well, sometimes I really believed in the characters, and sometimes I didn't. I wouldn't say Jaime Foxx and Farrel were bad choices, but I'm not sure they were the best. Maybe it was the direction -- but they spent most of their time scowling and looking into the middle distance. The plot was not linear, which was fine (Mann basically drops us into the action without prologue or even opening credits!), but at times you had to wonder where the movie was going.

It brought its own style to the screen which was darker and certainly more violent, but wouldn't be viewed as groundbreaking as the t.v. series.

All in all, however, a solid thumbs up.

Okay Eno -- you can go see it now and say how much you hated it.

P.S. I saw the second Pirates of the Carribean movie -- truly awful and way too long. Sigh.

We interrupt this broadcast...: ...to bring you news that TMQ is back in the mix over at ESPN. He had posted once or twice earlier around draft time, but now that football preseason is nigh, it seems like the right time to get the ol' juices flowing again. [and what the hell is Easterbrook doing back at ESPN -- I mean really....does he wear out his welcome that fast? First Slate, then ESPN, then NFL Network, now ESPN again -- I can't figure it out. But at least he's writing again.]

Anyway, to celebrate the return of football, as well as the return of me to the ol' Blog, I suggest we make our annual bad predictions in three weeks hence (this should give even Flyer enough time to step away from the 4-iron and put some thought into the NFL) in the following categories:

1. Conference Winners and Wildcards
2. Superbowl match-up and winner.
3. Week of the first T.O. disciplinary action
4. First coach to get fired and when
5. Reggie Bush -- boom or bust?
6. First QB to get benched.
7. Team to most spectacularly fail to meet consensus pre-season expectations.
8. Team to most spectacularly exceed consensus pre-season expectations.


Okay gents, start your engines.

The Open wrapped: Okay, so I was as wrong as could be when it came to Tiger. He really was on another plane from everyone else in the field. One driver in 72 holes, and he still looked like a man among boys. Thank G*d DiMarco played well enough to make it a little interesting at he end. Everyone else played scared and never made Tiger have to work at it.

It was disappointing that the wind never really blew and the rain never came, because watching The Open under those conditions is lot more fun and and brings the field together a little more. Tiger may still have won playing the way he did, but it wouldn't have looked quite so easy. Maybe next year.

Who can save the old girl now? Without the wind and weather, links golf courses can be utterly defenseless, which is wha we're seeing right now. 83 degrees and hard fast fairways are gonna lead to low scores when these guys tee it up, no doubt. I'm a bit of a bastard, so I'm rooting for at least one day of nasty weather to cool down the birdie barage.

Overall, I'm pleased with my predictions, even though Tiger looks like he's set to put it in the bank. There's still time for that to change (okay, not likely). The rest of the leaderboard is about what I imagined - not many Americans (good playing DiMarco, and where the hell have you been for the past year), a healthy dose of who-dats, and some foreign powerhouses looking strong in Els and Goosen. And Adam Scott fills the role of my Aussie rising star.

I agree that McDowell will fade, Eno, and in fact the 73 he shot today may as well have been 78 with the low scoring around the course. Of course, he'll always remember the night he slept on the lead at The Open, and a couple decent rounds this weekend could land him a nice finish.

The cut is projected at -1 I believe, but if you finish today worse than -7 you better hope for ridiculous weather and then play a couple career rounds. Clearly Tiger is the favorite now, but we can hope for a battle, perhaps a long awaited Tiger/Ernie down-the-stretch-they-come finish. We'll see.

British Links: Thanks, Flyer. I always enjoy reading your thoughts about golf -- often more than watching the game itself. Here's my take following a look at the day one scores.

Gut feeling: McDowell blows up tomorrow. He's only made the cut four times this year when facing the pressure of PGA opponents like Tiger and Phil and Vijay. Today was a great round for him, but unlikely to be duplicated.

As for Tiger, he seems at home here. He's one of the few American players who seems totally unfazed by what the British think of a golf -- i.e., brown, coarse, salt-burnt grass growing in stone-hard dirt, surrounded by high winds and chance of rain every 30 seconds. (As several commentators have noted, American golf is like much of American football: played on an artificial surface.)

In addition, he shook off early mistakes and made up ground with his short game. I mean, he's five under in spite of finding the rough, doubling the bunker, plugging his ball, and finding various other obstacles. Imagine what he'll do if he has a good day!

One other thing worth noting. Weather in the North of England is not like this very often. What happens on that front is definitely a factor.

By popular demand: I've been eagerly anticipating the Open Championship this year, maybe more than before, and I think I know why. This year's tournament is the most mysterious major championship we've seen in golf for quite some time, like going on a blind date, set up by someone you've never met.

First, there's the golf course. When asked what he thought of the site for this year's Open, Tiger Woods replied, "I know it's in Liverpool." Brilliant insight, that, since the course's name is Royal Liverpool (not Hoylake, as you may have heard - that's the name of the train stop nearest the course which is how Brits used to refer to their favorite links, i.e Sandwich for Royal St. George's). The greatest player in the world, and a pretty knowledgeable golf historian, Tiger claimed never to have seen a picture of it before this month. It last hosted the Open in 1967, won by Roberto de Vincenzo, who is better known for signing an incorrect scorecard at the Masters a year later, causing him to lose that major to Bob (who?) Goalby. Royal Liverpool, I'm afraid, was forgotten a little more after that. After all, if de Vincenzo goes on to become a multiple major winner, old Hoylake's story changes a little, I'd say.

Add to that the fact that this year's tourny has no clear cut "Story." Or maybe too many stories. Tiger? Is he back. Phil? Can he put Winged Foot behind him? The Europeans? Have they surpassed America in talent? Boy, that's a lot to be decided in one four-day stretch. Add to that the vagueries of links golf and English weather and this week is wide the freak open. But that doesn't mean I won't play Carnac.

Here's how it plays out (bear in mind, it's after 2:00 as I write this and play is probably close to done for the first round and I haven't seen a single shot or even a leaderboard...damn job gets in the way every time). Tiger beats Phil, who really ought to start preparing for next year's U.S. Open now so he can just win it and be done with it. He'll have to satisfy himself, like Sampras, with 3 out of 4 for his career (too bad he won't have that whole most-majors-ever thing to console him). Just not cut out for the links was Phil. But, Tiger doesn't win this week, either. Royal Liverpool is a neat course, but it ain't St. Andrews and Tiger, intentionally or not, saves his best stuff for the best courses. Which means look out Medinah in August at the PGA, which I predict he wins going away.

Really, there's not an American I think is a favorite this week, and neither Ernie Els, Vijay Singh or Retief Goosen is having a banner year, to round out the Big Five. Of those three I'd say Ernie has half a chance, since he has a game that can win on a links (he wins all over the world) and he's had good rounds lately, if not four good ones together. Retief has half a chance, also, since he's one of the best putters in the game and that means he's never out of it. Vijay is sort of like Phil - go get a U.S. Open and forget about across the pond.

That leaves us with a bunch of Brits, Swedes, Aussies, Kiwis and the like who are absolutely taking over the game. I continue to pull for one of the Irishmen who are always in the mix: Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, maybe. But it's always a bridesmaid for those guys. The real killers these days are the Aussies, proving that it's not the alcohol that keeps Irishmen from winning majors. Geoff Ogilvy won't go back to back, but Stuart Appleby has plenty of game and tends to pop up out of nowhere hot as a $5 pistol. A British Open would suit him well.

Of course, it's entirely possible we'll get an unknown or barely known again this year - it's sort of every other year and Tiger won last year, so that's what I'm expecting. And somehow, that would suit this year's event. Unknown course, unknown champion. Fine with me.

I should get bonus points for making it through all that without mentioning The Beatles. But there I go, went and did it. None of them was a golfer, not even later in life like Alice Cooper. Bunch of stiffs.

Now it's off to find out how wrong the Day One results make me look. Cheers.

Flyer's Well-Timed Appearance: Can't wait to hear about Radley's book. You'll post something about the Open, too, right?

In the mail: A little professor lingo there. Heh.

I've ordered a copy of Radley's new paper/book (98 pages with a cool cover, I'll give him book cred) on paramilitary raids by police forces. I've enjoyed his coverage of the topic on the blog and he deserves some recognition for the work. I don't know if he gets any of the $10.00 that Cato charges for the book version instead of the PDF, but I hope so.

I'll try to post my thoughts on it after I read it.

Federer-Nadal, Again: I stand by my statement, post-Roland Garros, that there's a better than even money chance that Nadal will beat Federer on grass before Federer beats Nadal on clay. Sometimes a player just has your number, and you can't do anything about it. Think McEnroe-Conners in 1984. I mean, who the hell whips Jimmy in straight sets? McEnroe did it and made it hurt.

Well, Nadal appears to have Federer's number. Granted, we are now on Roger's preferred surface, and he's still number one (for now); but Rafa has brought his grass game up hugely and is a legitimate threat Sunday, which many had hoped for but almost no one imagined was truly likely.

The only light for Roger, really, is that Nadal struggled significantly against Baghdatis's solid service and variety of winners in the second set. If he comes heavy, Federer can play Marko's game 10 times sharper. But the Federer who showed up for the final in Paris will get his ass whipped.

The dreaded fl*p fl*p: Razor's been telling us this for quite some time, but finally the MSM has caught on to the footwear fashion faux pas. You'd think something like this would come from those brownshirts at Fox, though.

Middle Sunday Blues: No matches today, alas, but a moment to see off Andre. Razor put it well last week. The former Peck's bad boy of the tennis world became an elder statesman with surprising ease and grace, becoming especially popular here in London, a tournament he skipped early in his career.

I really though he still had the grass court moves to take Nadal, more so after Nadal had to fight five sets against a who-dat to get there. But no, the bones creak a bit too much. A young Andre would never have let a clay-court upstart dictate the match's pace like that, but dictate Nadal did. And Andre, despite being a spectacular baseliner and one of the real physical specimens of the game, looked small and slow against the buff Nadal.

Andy vs. Andy was the other big surprise, with Roddick bowing to Murray in straight sets. Famously resiliant British hopes rise once again.

Venus went out with a whimper, complaining that her opponent wasn't giving her enough time between points. Oh, boo-hoo. If tennis players take any more time between points, the game will begin to resemble major league baseball in its pace.

Now, other than Roger, who has a shot at the Mens' trophy? Well, Hewitt, technically. I'm delighted to see doubles specialist Max Mirnyi get this far. But in order to get into the quarters, this big Belorusse has to beat his partner, Jonas Bjorkman (who is nearly as old as Agassi). They may have already worked this out ahead of time. Both are long ahots to do any damage in singles, but they have a great chance to take another doubles title. What would you do? One of them might tank.

And hooray for Andy Murray and all that, but can he get Roddick and Hewitt to choke within days of each other? Well, stranger things have happened. If Hewitt is bringing his A-game, though, a baseline duel with Nadal would be a good match.

On the ladies' side, there seem to be too many seeds floating around Mauresmo's half for her to have a prayer. I've heard her birthday is this week. Maybe, as a birthday gift from the gods, the three Russians between her and the final will choke. Not likely.

Finally, keep an eye on Na Li, who hung on against Kusnetsova to get here. She's young, sharp, and came to the net well against the Kusnetsova.

Update: Tank, schmank -- Jonas and Max went five sets, nearly four hours. They will not be terribly fresh for their third-round doubles match tomorrow, I think.

Moreover, Na Li has now decisively beaten two top-ten players and is into the QF round. Her match against Big Kim will be a good one, I predict. Li (or is it Na?) is quick and powerful, with a strong and accurate serve. However, meeting Clijsters will test her against a real power player. I like her chances, though.

Hitchens: In Vanity Fair:

America was not the land of birth for this lavish caress, but it is (if I may mix my anthems) white with foam from sea to shining sea. In other cultures, a girl will do "that" only when she gets to know and like you. In this one, she will offer it as a baiser as she is making up her mind. While this persists, and while America's gay manhood is still sucking away as if for oxygen itself, who dares to say that true global leadership is not still within our grasp?

Yes, that's what he means.

Via Instapundit.

Nadal Advances . . . in five sets . . . against a qualifier. And he faces Agassi next. Methinks someone's capri pants are going to be in tatters by the end of that.

Meanwhile, Jon Wertheim takes on the Federer-Nadal hoo-hah, and he nails the point I made at the French:

It's less Federer's head-to-head record [with Nadal] as it is the appearance he's being beaten mentally.

Yes. Other than the first set, he played like someone believing Nadal's press agent and buying into the "clay streak" hype. Nadal played only marginal tennis that day; by the grace of god, he won when Federer showed he could play worse.

Finally, on the once again media fodder of equal prize money for the broads, I'll restate my position: Tough shit.

To elaborate: When the ladies voluntarily decide to play best-of-five for their prize money, I'll scrub the gents' loo at Wimbledon with a toothbrush to earn them the difference. Until then, a smaller prize is unfair only in the minds of such deep thinkers as Maria Sharapova.

The former champion Maria Sharapova said: "I think men and women should be treated equally."

Meantime, Leander Paes reaches for the Vijay Singh award:

Leander Paes, the Indian doubles player, said he thought 80 per cent of women players would not be able to play five-set matches.

He's right, too. But so insensitive to say so!

Non-Story Dead: R-Fed destroys Henman -4, -0, -2. Stick a fork in Hennie -- if he can't make it here, he can't make it anywhere (apologies to Frank). Much was being made of Henman's actual winning record over Federer leading up to this match, but I suspect most of those wins came either at Wimby or in tune-ups about 3-4 years ago. Anyway, no other seeds faced any considerable trouble.

Agassi is getting the hero's send-off, as he should. Who would have guessed, say 12-13 years ago, that the Vegas Bad Boy would now be a) hairless, b) playing long after Sampras hung it up, c) married to Graf [still a stunner], and d) tennis' ambassador??? Not your humble scribe, that's for sure.

And the Ladies? You're right not to count Venus out. She's a fan favorite, and she's got a history here. But when was the last time she went two straight weeks for a title? Last year. I wonder if she's tough enough to hang in to the quarters.

I like Justine's chances, as usual. She played well at the French and at the Hastings grass tune-up last week. And she's been in a lot of finals this year -- meaning she seen the talent in the field and has sweated through numerous rounds to get there. She's tough enough.

I think Mauresmo's a choker, and I always have. As I live and breathe, I can't believe she won the Aussie. I don't expect her to do much.

I've always like Hingis's game, and she's got more power that she did back in her earlier career -- though that's not saying much. It would certainly be a feat for her to cement her comeback here, where she won nearly a decade ago.

More later.

Good Show! That's the spirit, Razor. After blogging the French nearly solo, I briefly feared you'd be out of commission for The Championships (capital T, capital C) as well.

Best that I not waste time disputing your picks, as they are wise -- on the men's side, anyway. Roger is surely the best grass player out there, and a tough loss at the French doesn't seem to have lingered with him. That said, presented with the betting proposition "Nadal will beat Federer at Wimbledon before Federer beats Nadal at Roland Garros," I would look my money over very carefully before choosing a side.

Some points of note: The Brits could not pull off their annual feat of mathematical legerdemain this year -- a seeding for Henman.

Tough to believe Lleyton Hewitt won here in 2002 -- seriously! The big name in his draw is fellow "what-the-hell-happened?" Andy Roddick. Lleyton won the Stella (That's "Stella!" to Flyer) Artois, so maybe he's back in business.

Roddick, on the other hand, has won cazzo this year. He turns 24 before the U.S. Open -- not Methuselah, to be sure, but certainly time to think about not ending up with that single major on your shelf. 15 years on, pretty much everyone spells Michael Chang's name F-L-U-K-E.

That other Andy -- Andy Murray -- went through Nicolas Massu like a Sidewinder missle. True, Massu is not . . . er, not a grass player's grass player, you might say. But he's a veteran, a journeyman, and he got dusted by the gangly British kid in straight sets. Many a British heart went pitter pat. Tim who?

Let The Real Games Begin (once it stops raining): It's raining everywhere. That can only mean that it's Wimbledon time. Break out your berries and cream and follow along with Razor as he handicaps the tourney:

Mens

Here's who won't win: Nadal, Roddick, Hewitt, Blake, Robredo. Nadal hasn't proven himself off of clay, and I just don't see it. Roddick may very well be done for. Blake -- he's got moxie, but I don't see him winning a major whilst R-Fed is alive.

Here's who could win: Nalbandian, Ljubicic, Ancic, Agassi (never underestimate this guy although his body is telling him that he'll be lucky to make it to Flushing Meadows)

Here's who will win: Federer. He's motivated and he's good. Plus he has history on his side.

Biggest Non-Story: Henman. Sorry, but that ship has foundered long ago.

Biggest Story: Probably Agassi who I think might make it interesting.

Women

Here's who won't win: Mauresmo, Clijsters, Dementieva (no serve), Myskina (I don't know that she can play anymore -- something happened to her after winning the French a few years ago).

Here's who could win: Justine, Sharapova, Hingis (who knows, maybe she makes this her coming out party -- er, coming out again party?),

Here's who will win: Venus -- she's due to play well. She loves Wimby, they love her -- Serena's not around to bother her, and I have to think pride pulls her through.

Biggest Non-Story: The expected Russian domination of the game -- where have they gone?

Biggest Story: Wimby cutting out the low-cut tops on the women. Why don't we just put them in bloomers while we're at it?

The Best There Ever Was: Back when t.v. mattered, there was this. I am already shuddering over the movie re-make....

Sullivan misses the point: Or maybe just avoids it purposefully, but why make it so obvious. In his Email of the Day post yesterday he cites a correspondant who says:

I can't believe you would put the interrogation policies of the Bush administration and the barbaric beheading of another human being on the same moral plane. You wrote today:

"My point is that we can no longer unequivocally condemn the torture of these two soldiers because we have endorsed and practised torture ourselves."

Until you can show me evidence that a U.S. Government interrogator has taken a dull knife, cut into the throat of another man or woman, and sawn through skin, muscle, tendon, and bone until the head of that persons detaches from their neck, please don't make such an intellectually dishonest comparison between these barbarians and our own government.
Our enemies are fundamentalist nihilists. We may have to fight a harder, dirtier war against such a disgraceful enemy. But we still must do what is necessary to win.

Sully replies thus:

This is an honest argument: to fight barbarians, we must become more like them. I disagree; I believe torture is always wrong, and profoundly corrupts the torturing nation that endorses it. I also think that in the short and, even more, in the long run, it will prove our undoing in this war. This is a battle between barbarism and civilization. We cannot destroy our moral compass in order to save it.

At the very end of the email the writer does indicate some vague support for getting a little down and dirty with those who don't fight by Marquis of Queensbury rules, but the overall thrust of his argument is that we don't engage in behavior that in any way resembles the atrocities committed by our foes. We don't cut off heads or otherwise murder our victims, we don't torture enemies, at least not in the same sense of the word. He's basically saying, "We may have to get a little rough from time to time, but this (ed. those who beheaded american soldiers) is torture. And if you can't see the difference maybe you're not so qualified to say who holds the moral high ground."

Andrew totally ignores that accusation and makes a nice attempt to distract the reader with a little rhetorical dodge, offering to legitimize, if not accept, an argument that isn't there ("This is an honest argument."). But it's a cheap trick and is the kind of thing that has pissed off much of his readership.

If it's Friday, this must be a mojito: No, just coffee. The past couple weeks have been pretty hectic, so here's a quick rundown: Michelle Wie still hasn't won anything and proved that when the sponsor's aren't holding the door open, she can't get on the course with the men; Big Ben finally got his head examined, just not in time so do him much good (I'm glad he seems okay, but if he misses one mini-camp I say they start fining him $10,000 a day); al-Zarqawi lost the big game of tag (you're it, no tag-backs, and enjoy your 72 raisins).

Went to Miami on Wednesday and got fried on $9 mojitos (Miami can now officially be cut off from the continent as far as I'm care - what a shit hole). Then went back to the hotel, ate a $50 steak sandwich and passed out. Got rewarded for my genius with a canceled flight home yesterday and an 8 hour wait for a new plane to be brought in, from China, apparently. Now I'm packing to drive to Cleveland for a college friend's wedding. I'm sticking to beer. Maybe they'll have Rolling Rock.

Later.

If it's Friday, this must be a mojito: No, just coffee. The past couple weeks have been pretty hectic, so here's a quick rundown: Michelle Wie still hasn't won anything and proved that when the sponsor's aren't holding the door open, she can't get on the course with the men; Big Ben finally got his head examined, just not in time so do him much good (I'm glad he seems okay, but if he misses one mini-camp I say they start fining him $10,000 a day); al-Zarqawi lost the big game of tag (you're it, no tag-backs, and enjoy your 72 raisins).

Went to Miami on Wednesday and got fried on $9 mojitos (Miami can now officially be cut off from the continent as far as I'm care - what a shit hole). Then went back to the hotel, ate a $50 steak sandwich and passed out. Got rewarded for my genius with a canceled flight home yesterday and an 8 hour wait for a new plane to be brought in, from China, apparently. Now I'm packing to drive to Cleveland for a college friend's wedding. I'm sticking to beer. Maybe they'll have Rolling Rock.

Later.

Why Roger Lost: I've been thinking about it this week. Let's face it, the ice-man put on a pitiful performance. He was unable to think about his game, correct errors before they sank him, or take advantage of Nadal's poor start. Granted, Nadal has whipped Federer on clay all year long, but this was completely winnable for Roger. His momentum coming out of the first set was staggering. The best clay player in the world was wholly unable to read or respond to Federer's game. Nadal is great for his age, but he's still a kid, and Federer is old enough that he should know how to push that momentum against a hot player.

So what does this mean? One word: choke. Federer choked, and will continue to choke against Nadal. For how long? Until he doesn't anymore. For long enough that he's unlikely to win the French, ever. Early in Federer's career, David Nalbandian was his nemesis, a second stringer who consistently beat Federer -- sometimes beat him badly. And not because he was terribly talented, but because Federer would choke against him -- all the while beating top tier players like Roddick, Safin, Hewitt, and Agassi.

Anyhow, it took Federer years -- years of getting past a psychological block, analyzing Nalbandian's game, whatever -- to finally start consistently beating Nalbandian. He doesn't have years to break down the young Nadal, who has the potential to dominate the clay court like nobody since Borg*, who had won the French five times by the time he was Federer's age. Nadal is on that kind of pace.

That said, Federer can win. But he needs to play a clay court game. He needs to take advantage of the unbelievable angles he can put on the ball, his shot placement, and his strong, versitile serve. After the first set, none of those were on regular display on Sunday.

Sometimes players win matches, and sometimes the match is won for them. Nadal had the match won for him. Federer played awful tennis and gave away the victory.

*Of course, it goes without saying that Borg, the original ice-man, dominated nearly everything in his brief career. He won 11 majors in 8 years and went to an additional five major finals -- and retired at 26 (imagine Federer retiring next year, at 26). If he had been as good on hard courts as on grass and clay, it wouldn't even occur to people today that the "best ever" question was open for debate.

It's Been a Rough Week in Western PA: Sure the Ben R story was pretty bad -- but all in all, it was his own damn fault for not wearing a helmet. If he chooses to be an idiot, then he gets to pay the consequences.

But this....this is just too much.

I'm quickly losing faith in humanity.

And the Ladies': Who thought Martina Hingis would be in the QF at the French? Well, she's unlikely to go much farther, facing Clijsters -- and then Henin-Hardenne, if she's lucky enough to survive Big Kim.

Kusnetsova, too, seems out of her depth. She's never done as well on clay as on pavement, and she didn't have to face Sharapova this year.

So it would seem to be either Kim or Justine taking on whichever Williams sister bothered to show up this year. Yes, Venus is always a threat, but the world of female tennis finally learned a few years ago that if you can hang in on some of Venus's first serves, and really pound her second serves back at her the way Justine does, you find that her game has no depth. Notice that once Justine figured this out, Venus decided she'd rather pursue fashion ... or film ... or ... what is it again that takes her away from tennis?

As for Miss Ana-Lena Groenefeld, I don't know a damn thing about her.

The Men's QF: It says something about the state of men's tennis that the biggest threat left to Nadal in the bottom half of the draw is Ivan Ljubicic. I'll grant you, Ljubicic is the the fourth seed and all, but he's an empty seed, serving only as a placeholder for the wasted potential of former top 10 players like Hewitt and Roddick, and perhaps a placeholder for the untapped potential of young Gael Monfils. At any rate, Ljubicic eked out two minor hard court titles this year, beating talented but awfully streaky players like David Nalbandian and Thomas Johannson, or specialists like Carlos Moya, and is unlikely to give Nadal any trouble.

The real wild card is Nikolay Davydenko, who might just be ready to make some noise. He is a solid clay player who was a semifinalist here last year and has managed to dig up a 6 seed based on his clay showings and a trip to the quarters down under. He also beat former French Open champs Gaston Gaudio and Carlos Moya pretty solidly on his way to the qusrterfinals here. I'll be cheering him on, if only because he threatens to stand in the way of Federer and Nadal becoming another boring Sampras/Agassi rivalry -- the clinician vs. the properly pumped-up wildman.

Roland Garros: I'm glad someone is paying attention. This will be an interesting year for the French Open.

Federer is nearly 25. If he doesn't win the French this year, he probably never will. If he does win it this year, he's over the big hump for the real Grand Slam (not some phony "lifetime" slam or "Tiger" slam bullshit).

Also, if he wins the French, he's pretty much a shoo-in to pass Sampras for all time majors. After all, he won the last 3 Wimbys, the last 2 US Opens, and 2 of the last 3 Aussies. He could afford, like Pete, to f*ck off Roland Garros.

A win this year means he's still very serious about his game, and not just coasting.

That said, if you want to pick a winner, take Razor's evergreen advice and count the vowels in the players' names: Nadal, Gaudio, Ferrero (hell, even qualifiersuper-unknown Martin Vassallo Arguello would be a good bet, since he's carrying the perfecta of plentiful vowels and three names).

Where's Razor?: After all, the American men are already all but eliminated at Roland Garos.

Too Wiki by half: This seems just a little too clever.

What is Wicracy.org?

Wicracy.org allows political party members -- the voters
themselves -- to determine the agenda or platform
of a political party, establishing a non-binding form of democracy at the issue
or plank
level rather than simply at the candidate level.

Who can
participate?

During the testing phase (which is now), only registered voters in
California are allowed to use Wicracy.org.

How do I
participate?

There are two primary ways to participate: (I) review the planks
that have been suggested for inclusion in your political party's platform and
take a position -- ratify, oppose, or abstain -- on these planks; (II) propose
new planks for your party's platform.

There's more to read, but it doesn't look like there's any participation yet. And that's probably a good thing. Can you imagine the violence that could ensue in trying to pass any plank in the Libertarian Party platform?

Memorial Day Movies: I caught parts of some excellent war movies this past weekend, including a couple I hadn't seen yet. In "honor" of Memorial Day then, here are my top 7 (too lazy for 10) war movies/series (not in order of preference -- hard to compare apples to oranges in some instances):

1. A Bridge Too Far -- what a cast; great realism; displays Operation Market Garden from various perspectives and shows the good guys losing, which was a nice touch, artistically speaking.

2. A Band of Brothers -- HBO mini-series that moved me to tears. Based on the Stephen Ambrose book, this series takes us from training camp for a bunch of new Army paratroopers (Easy Company), through D-Day, Battle of the Bulge and ultimately through Berchtesgarten, and then peace. Really engrossing, and told at a nice pace due to its multi-episode sequencing. Bonus is the extra episode involving interviews with some of the real soldiers involved, including the beloved Major Winters. Bonus for me: I met two of the soldiers who live in the Philadelphia area.

3. The Great Escape: It's the anti-Bridge Too Far -- cartoonish, coy, with some god-awful stereotyping, but what fun to watch! The music was outstanding, and while it bordered on Hogan's Heroes at points, you were always interested in what would happen next. A classic.

4. The Caine Mutiny: Great movie that nearly lived up to the book's promise. Interesting tidbit on IMDB about how the movie wasn't going to be endorsed by the Navy, which would have made the movie nigh-impossible, so a compromise was reached -- the film would start by noting that no actual mutiny has been recorded in the U.S. Navy's history. Anyway, it's all about the psychology of leadership and when to challenge that leadership. Bogie at his finest.

5. Das Boot: The anti-war movie to end all anti-war movies. Dark, claustrophobic, paranoid -- these are just a few adjectives to get you going. Nowhere is a captain more independent than on a submarine -- or more isolated. The Nazi party-line is not so strict when you're being depth-charged for the 20th time. Wonderful direction.

6. All Quiet on the Western Front: Released in 1930, this was the first truly "cinematic" war movie -- and a more horrible subject could not be envisioned at the time. WWI was well known for the atrocities of the trench, and this movie does not spare the audience. Parts of it seem dated, while others seem like they could be part of any "big" movie today. We don't see much on WWI (with bookends like the Civil War and WWII, one can imagine why), but this is worth a view.

7. Platoon: I'm sure many will howl over this selection, but say what you will about Oliver Stone, in this film, his "trust no one" attitude is well served. Charlie Sheen actually showed some promise as a young actor - sad to see that promise turn into ridicule, but a great score and some unflinching camera work sucks you in. If it's on, I'm watching it.

Honorable Mentions: Patton (just not a huge fan of Scott, but it's a great bit of acting no doubt); Schindler's List (less of a war movie really, but unflinching and a film that needed to be made); MASH (for obvious reasons); Lifeboat (a Hitchcock gem -- another psychological examination of humans under the stresses of war, both political and personal).

Didn't See: So I don't get totally reamed, I did not see, and therefore cannot comment on such notables as: Paths of Glory (Kubrick); Stalag 17; Breaker Morant; or Lawrence of Arabia (I know, I know....)

Speaking of . . . our neighbors to the south, I think I've spouted off on immigration here before, so I won't do the whole song and dance (i.e., let labor cross borders just like capital). I'll just say this about Vicente Fox: he embodies the notion of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" wonderfully. Remember when his election caused a wave of optimism, that finally the corrupt old PRI was swept out of office, and a new generation would take over Mexico, build an economy, and stop using the porous US border as an economic crutch? Well, it's business as usual again.

Kicking off a three-day, three-state tour, Mexican President Vicente Fox on Tuesday stressed the need for greater cooperation between his country and the U.S. on such things as trade, energy and security. Left unmentioned was the hot topic of illegal immigration.

That's right, Sr. Fox managed to skip the topic that's giving America convulsions now. Mostly because we're about to hand him a sweet, sweet deal to make millions of his citizens our citizens. He's caught on to all the old tricks of his predecessors, selling US-Mexican "cooperation" that saves him the trouble of doing all that reforming he talked about.

Like I said, I'm all for well-regulated immigration, even lots of it. I'd like to see the Mexican border run like the Canadian border (only with fewer Canadians), with a relatively free flow of people and investment. But we can never truly have that kind of relationship as long as Mexico pushes off the troublesome sacrifices (like giving up blatant, wholesale graft at all levels of government) that building a real economy would require.

The economics of immigration: And why Razor is a "hotheaded, conservative populist." Oh, okay, not really. I admit there's a worthwhile distinction between illegal and legal immigration, which seems to be Razor's gripe. Do it legally and we've got no problem, sneak in and skirt the law and taxes, and woe betide all ye dusky heathen. But Larry Kudlow at NRO makes a good argument that a lot of people need to cool down on the immigration debate.

Wage differentials between Mexico and the U.S. are huge — largely because of Mexico’s failure to liberalize its economy. So, as long as American job opportunities and higher wages beckon, immigrants in search of a better life will stream northward into the U.S. — fence or no fence. This has always been the heart of the problem.

.....

Due to the demographic shift being caused by the baby boomers, the ratio of working-age persons in the U.S. to retirees aged 65 and over will drop like a stone from the current 4.7:1 ratio to 3.5:1 by 2030, and 2.6:1 by 2040. With the Social Security and Medicare trust funds going bankrupt, how will we manage with so few workers per retiree? Will we let our whole economy stagnate like France, Germany, Italy, or even Japan? All of these countries suffer from shrinking workforces and top-heavy government taxation.

Well, the U.S. could maintain a 4:1 ratio of workers to retirees by admitting an additional 57.5 million workers over the next nineteen years, according to analyst William Kucewicz. This would result in an average annual population increase of less than 1 percent and a total of only 16.4 percent more than the 350 million projected by the Census Bureau for 2025.

I've got a couple points, although I generally agree with his viewpoint. One, these immigrants need to be legal in order for us to collect the taxes needed to make the math work. Two, doesn't this say a lot about the hole we've dug ourselves in the arena of entitlement spending?

Immigration policy needs serious reform, and I don't think fences and guard troops are the way to go, but if it's helps set the stage for making legal immigration more efficient, then it's a tolerable step.

Lastly, it's tough being stuck between smart guys like Robert Samuelson and Larry Kudlow, especially since it's not very often they disagree. Maybe I just side with Kudlow because he's the better dresser.

NOLA mayor election: Will Collier has a good take on the re-election of Mayor Ray Nagin. I don't know quite what I think, except that I saw a debate on MSNBC between the two candidates either Thursday or Friday night and Mitch Landrieu's entire pitch consisted of "Vote for me, I'm connected." Which in the bayou means nothing good, so I'm glad they rejected his cynical, stupid plea.

Nagin was elected as a reformer, a no nonsense business oriented Democrat who spoke the plain truth. I probably would have voted for him the first time, at least if my other option was Marc Morial, the former mayor. But there's a difference between being plain spoken and showing your ass on national tv, when the last thing that was needed was heated tempers. And his ensuing re-election campaign consisted of some pretty undignified race baiting, since he knew he'd need the black vote to have any chance. I think he would have gotten the black vote anyway, being the only black candidate (remember, the first time he won it was against the also-black Morial).

With two bad candidates to choose from, maybe New Orleans took the least bad path. But I don't think it's going to make recovery any easier or more complete, either physically or socially.

New Yorker cartoon: Via Radley.

My Enron Prediction: I have spent not a small amount of time familiarizing myself with the Enron debacle. I've read two books, including the excellently researched, although not tremendously written "Conspiracy of Fools", read the opening statements and the closing arguments of both the prosecution and the defense, plus a litany of actual and summarized testimony. I've tried to stay away from the talking heads as much as possible, except for those attorneys critiquing the performance of the lawyers (professional curiosity and all). After all this, I have several general opinions as to both the rise and fall of Enron, as well as the persons of Lay and Skilling:

1. Enron was a tremendous energy trading and facilitating company;

2. That went too far afield in trying to expand its business into untested and unfamiliar areas such as broadband;

3. Ken Lay was once a very innovative and creative businessman, who started Enron onto its road to success;

4. Who ultimately became more interested in the trappings of being an "ambassador" for Enron who met with politicians of various nations, and left the day-to-day operations to people like;

5. Jeff Skilling. He was a brilliant idea man, who pushed the envelope, finding new ways to say yes, rather than no. He engendered tremendous loyalty and picked smart people to help develop new business models for an energy company.

6. However, Skilling was ill-suited to the CEO role. He did not have a good nose for business-qua-business. He didn't want to worry so much about how to book revenue, value assets or worry over taxation, except to the extent that it was helpful in doing more deals.

7. The shift from hard assets and pure trading to deal-making (buying, selling, merging) ultimately led to Enron into a death spiral as it had to come up with new deals to make earnings (as it booked the entire value of a long-term deal immediately, rather than pro-rating it over time) --- this lead to tremendous end-of-year pressure to "creatively" find ways to keep beating the numbers.

8. Enron was a culture of me-first careerists, who were ranked on a punishing merit chart, which mandated that only 1/5 of the employees could be considered "the best" -- basically, failure for many was pre-ordained. Moreover, people were afraid, ultimately, to say no, even though Skilling didn't think that was the case.

9. Enron was failed by its accountants and lawyers who rather than advising caution at times, chose to value their income stream over prudent counseling. It's not clear that they encouraged fraud, but rather, they failed to often consider the long-term effects of their short-term advice.

10. Fastow, Kopper et ux. robbed the place blind, but not without a degree of head-in-the-sand attitude from those above and around them. The "Special Purpose Entities" were ultimately pie-in-the-sky fictions that no one at Enron cared to look at too closely for fear of what they might find.

11. Skilling and Lay both loved Enron and its employees, and the proof is that both kept the vast majority of their liquid wealth in Enron stock even until the end.

12. That said, they both were coy and at times quite misleading as to the financial truth of Enron as an objective observer would have seen things, not as an insider, who was drinking the Kool-Aid, was seeing things. They downplayed the major losses, and over-promoted the minor or phantom gains.

13. The company failed in part due to absolute lack of market confidence, the spectre of SEC and DOJ indictments, and credit downgrade. The rest was self-inflicted in one form or the other.

My Best Guess: Lay walks, Skilling gets indicted on a handful of counts (the indictment, by the way, is woefully inaccurate, overreaching, and inartfully drafted). There seems to be very little directly linking Lay to any willful or "blind eye" fraudulent acts. He mostly relied on others to tell him what the picture was and then to report it. He made some very hard decisions at the end to expose many of the losses, even when he had the chance to keep them hidden. He had 90% of his wealth in Enron stock -- hardly the acts of a master criminal intent on getting out rich. Skilling was more hands-on, he helped create many of the questionable practices at Enron, and although I sincerely believe that he sincerely believed in the health and righteousness of Enron, he by that time, was lost to the siren call of more deals, more power, more, more, more.

How do you tell people to stay away?: I mean sure, if you're Eno, you just stop showering for a couple of days. That, when combined with his usual chipper demeanor is enough for most instances.

But what if you're warning people 5,000 years into the future to stay away from a place where you've buried radioactive waste, which is going to be deadly for another 5,000 years from even then? What sort of message do you want to convey, and how do you communicate it?

Well, fortunately some smart people are considering this idea. This panel of smart people came up with the following general themes they wanted to get across:

This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Read the article to see how they're considering going about doing it.

On toxicity and dosage: Feed a mouse an Apple that was grown with chemical fertilizers and he'll be just fine. Maybe he'll be 0.7% more likely to develop a brain tumor in the next 20 years, but it's a pretty tough sell.

Feed a mouse enough Alar to simulate eating about 100 of those apples a day and he's gonna develop some nasty conditions. And Meryl Streep will never leave us alone.

The toxicity is relative to the dosage, whether its chemicals, twinkies, video games, taxes or...wait for it...immigration.

Bruce Bartlett argues similarly at NRO today, using salt in his analogy instead of apple juice, and its a worthwhile point, even if, intelectually, everyone already gets it. After all, noone is proposing we cut off immigration entirely, or that illegal immigration can be eliminated (although I haven't listened to Pat Buchanan lately), or that we should let 2/3 of Mexico just move right in and get comfy. We all know that there is a middle ground, but there's a hell of a lot of difference on where that spot is. Tom Tancredo and George W. Bush are quite a ways apart, as are, probably, Nancy Pelosi and Bush (although, to be fair, I can't tell where right and left start and stop on this issue, so maybe Pelosi wrote half of Bush's speech Monday). And I don't see anything wrong with spirited negotiation on where that ground is and how to bes achieve it. That's how this is supposed to work, right.

But I am vexed, and I suspect Bartlett is at least partially moved to make his case by, the level of discourse in some arguments on both sides. It's tough to treat this issue dispassionately, but at the end of the day it's all about the costs incurred at various immigration levels, both legal and not. And there are economic costs either way, to be sure. Robert Samuelson points out some of those costs today. Bartlett points out others, like the cost of lettuce going up to the point where we're keeping the rabbits out with IUDs. Who wants that?

But imbuing any of those costs with a certain morality or fairness is no help at all. We should set the levels of immigration, and enforcement, where they will help to minimize costs and maximize benfits on either side. In short, I don't mind if domestic workers take the shaft a little bit if turning a blind eye to SOME illegal immigration is overall better for us. I'm sure the border patrol is understaffed, but I'm not okay with giving them a blank check or with sending a bunch of guard troops to Texas to stop every Jose sixpack from coming across the border. It's expensive, dangerous and I think makes us look weak. Israel needed a wall because Palestinians were coming in three a day to have a slice of pizza and blow themselves up for dessert. We don't need a wall to keep out illegal immigrants who want to cut our grass because the costs, while very real, are not that great or are offset by gains elsewhere that we'd lose.

Or maybe I'm wrong about that, but if you want me to change my mind don't asinine arguments about compassion or fairness. I am a big rock when it comes to policy and it takes big numbers to move me.

A Deck Chair Speaks ... Then Weeps: Tony Snow gave his first official conference (not to be confused with the May 12 "gaggle") and he proved once and for all that he's a much better actor than McClellan or Ari ever were.

And no, I don't mean his pretending the NSA is not spying on American citizens. No, it was his emotional crying fit at the end when mentioning his health and remembering his mother's death from colon cancer. Puh-lease, Ton-loc, is this the start of a trend for you? Ari had his death stare, McClellan, the deer-in-the-headlights freeze, now Tony, crying for mercy? Not buying it.

Props for the Muskie comment however.

Speaking of good bloggers: Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

Really, no more blogging. I mean it, I can quit anytime.

The blogosphere is dead, long live the blogosphere: Yeah, you're right. Except I think in a few weeks it'll start being kinda cool again, like in a retro way, ya know. Like trucker caps and Phish. So why don't we get ahead of it and blog like mad so that a few days later we can say, "Feh, blogging, that's so, like, June. I'm way into Podbarfing now. You can download my vomit as a ringtone, dude."

Anyway, I fee your pain (well, not Razor's - I still think I'm damned interesting). I think blogging works when there's an event, like and election or hurricane, that can hold your attention for a few weeks and merits daily attention. Other than those times, there's not many people who produce enough worthwhile content to merit the effort needed to stay current. Often the level of discourse is about that of a sports radio call-in show, with a lot of screaming and not much substance.

There are noteworthy exceptions, including writers like Michael Totten, Radley Balko, who also does research many of his posts and has carved out a couple of niche issues to focus on mostly, and scholars like Becker/Posner. Notably, I think the best bloggers are the ones who'd be doing the same thing without the blogoshpere, in academic, think-tank, journalism roles.

The medium has ceased to be cool, like Eno's CB, but it's still in a relatively early stage of development. As the cool factor fades away, hopefully the best writers will stick around, and maybe even make a go at it economically, as some have been trying. The others, they'll move one to something else. And it'll be cool for few years, too.

That Smell: Actually, it's not the cheese. (The cheese is supposed to smell like that. It's French.) It's the scent of a rotting carcass -- in this case the rotting carcass of the blogosphere. You know what? I bet it's been two years since I told anyone I had a blog. I'm embarrassed by it these days. It reminds me of when I was a kid and I wanted very badly to have a CB radio. And there you have the equation: Blog = CB + internet.

I'll admit that I enjoyed blogging for a while, and some of the stuff I wrote for FauxPolitik is the most lucid prose I've written since I started working for the government. (To be fair to myself, though, they paid me for the bad prose. Being lucid was just a hobby.) And now it's 2006 and everybody has a blog. You knew it was getting bad when the MSM began to blog; things took a nose dive, though, was when major political campaigns decided to blog -- in the form of unpaid interns formulating nauseating politi-jive on a campaign website. Then there was Howard Dean's million-blog army -- the one that couldn't even win him a f*cking primary. Finally, John Kerry started to post with the bedwetters at Kos, in effect knocking down the fourth wall of the blogulo-political complex.

It was something of a jump-the-shark moment, given that Kerry had just had his ass kicked by the man the left regards as the dumbest human being in recorded history. And you can't really go out and say that "the people" were too stupid to choose wisely, right? At least not when you're called the Democratic party, right? I mean, not without exposing the party for what it is, namely a populist/crypto-socialist enterprise that actually does believe that Americans are too dumb to make their own dietary choices, let alone their choose own president, right? Nah, they said it anyway, and nobody blinked.

A circuitous route to my point, I hear you saying. True. I'll be brief. If I write something for FauxPolitik these days, it's generally not about politics -- as you may have noticed. Perhaps I'm just more cynical than usual these days (the major parties will do that top you), but it truly seems that political commentary so saturates all media that about the only worthwhile comment I can make is not to comment.

Perhaps it's a passing thing, but it does seem to have coincidentally struck our dear Razor . . .

By the way: Somebody really needs to dust around here. And I think Eno left the cheese out last week. It's taken on a smell that's beyond words.

From the department of "duh": Ever wondered why rock 'n roll concerts rarely start on time. Via Radley, here's someone who's uncovered the truth.

But, Witts explains, then "there is a curious, ill-defined period between the
moment the technicians have finished their on-stage preparations and the moment
of the band's arrival."
He contends that "it seems to be implicitly accepted
by management and the audience that there may be a pause of up to 20 minutes
following the end of the roadie cabaret."

Seriously, the causes for delay are pretty predicatable, including band members filling various needs, be they chemical, sexual or pshychological. It's not like they'e all superheros who may have to battle aliens or other arch-villians while the opening act warms up the crowd.

At least they're not all lost backstage.

Assimilate or suffer the consequences: So I've never been a big fan of roller coasters. And I'm comfortable with that fact.

But when the 10 year old girl in front of you in line to ride the Borg Assimilator asks if you're gonna be okay, the old machismo takes a bit of a wallop. And then, you either suck in your gut and laugh in her face or you wilt and ask if anyone's ever died on this ride.

Shut up, I did too choose the first tactic.

There's not a good picture of the ride, I guess 'cause even static photography of this beast has been known to induce vomiting, but here's the blurb on the Paramount Carowinds site:

The Carolinas' first flying coaster is also the tallest roller coaster in the
park. It soars riders through eight inversions, most while flying facedown,
zooming toward the ground and turning skyward just in time for the next
inversion. The unique rider position offers breathtaking and virtually
unobstructed views of the park.

They're able to make "inversions" sound like an almost routine, even pleasant experience. Sure, let me come over to your house and "invert" you for three minutes. See how you like it. And the "breathtaking and virtually unobstructed views of the park" go like this.

Sky, ground, big metal support beam, first 12 years of your life, parking lot,
sky, water, ground, hands clenching the safety harness, next 20 years of your
life, sky, inside of eyelids. Stop. Girlfriend.

I've got a unique rider position for the asshat that designed that thing.

After we got off and walked out they were closing the ride down. Not for safety reasons, apparently, just that it was 9:00 and the park was closing. Darn, can't ride it again till.....oh, let's say never.

Rock and Roll Radio: Continuing my near-total avoidance of political blogging, this Will Collier post caught my eye. It's about a radio station from his youth.

But that wasn't what was really great about the station. TK had a personality, and it was unpredictable. The station was programmed by the in-house jocks, and you really never knew what you were going to hear next, particularly in the first half of the '80's. TK picked up on new acts in a hurry, and even played stuff like Cyndi Lauper and Duran Duran long before they were unavoidable on Top 40 stations (and like them or hate them, at that time they were still new and very different from the automated pop of the day). It was a station that could effortlessly go from Judas Priest to Bruce Cockburn to an old Journey tune, and then roll into an obscure live U2 track one of the jocks found on the back of a vinyl EP.

Worth reading the whole. I'll wait.

Done?

I know I sound like a fogey of the first water when I get into the "Back in my day . . ." groove, but so what. I had the pleasure to grow up under the influence of the storied WNEW in New York. The names are almost meaningless now: Ken Dashow, Scott Muni, Pete Fornatale, the departed Nightbird, Vin Scelsa -- and Dave Herman. I was painting houses across Northern New Jersey, and only Dave Herman's morning show kept me going. You knew that your shot of "Bruce Juice" in the morning would not be "Tenth Avenue Freezeout" or "Born to Run." More likely it would be a non-single, like "The E Street Shuffle" or the album cut of "Jungleland" (a ten-minute extravaganza that any normal station would fire a jock for playing), or something quirky like "Does this Bus Stop at 82nd Street?"

The format was undeniably classic rock, but not "Classic Rock." In one sitting, you might hear an oddball oldie like Del Shannon's "Hats off to Larry," a Beatles B-side like "I'm Down" or "Rain," live cuts, a new song by Los Lobos, a top-name in-studio guest, Black Sabbath, and "Things from England."

Things declined, as they do. In 1988, WNEW was sold to Westinghouse. Before long, the jocks had either left (like Vin Scelsa), found other outlets (like Richard Neer), or settled into an embarrassing irrelevancy (like when Scottso had his show cut down to a single hour). The program became musty, and the playlist became one stale "hit" after another. Forget "Jungleland" -- even something like "Hey, Jude" didn't fit the format anymore.

It was right about this time that I was fired from the small station where I was working, ostensibly for playing the entirety of Side A of Shirley McLaine's "Best of Broadway" album. But really, it was for playing things like Rush, Yes, Cream, AC/DC, Traffic, War, Jeff Beck, The Kinks, Zappa, Vanilla Fudge. Their heavy rotation bin included things like REM, 10,000 Maniacs, the Smiths, and other groups that were played on every one of the other shows the station had, except for the jazz show and the country show. And Nirvana. Man, I never got Nirvana.

The jocks that spun REM said that classic rock was stale and corporate. But REM was stale and corporate pretty quickly, too. ("Everybody Hurts," anyone?) Plus, they were throwing out the baby with the bathwater simply because no station would venture much further than "Stairway to Heaven."

Radio's best feature was always its variety, its mystery, the surprise of hearing a long-lost gem or something new and different. Alternative radio did this briefly, but soon the alternative stations all played the same songs, too. (And, honestly, how much Morrisey do you really want in your life?) A jock from a small local station admitted to me recently that his hands are tied. He doesn't get to pick anything, and prerecords a lot of his intro/outro work. And this is the local alternative/worldbeat/alt-country/singer-songwriter station that brags about being "different." God help you if you're at the Clear Channel affiliate.

So I've made my peace with radio. I listen mostly to talk, now. If I want music, I'll play a disc or occasionally scan stations. I looked at satellite, but my reaction was the same as Will's: "Where's the station that plays everything?" If the legalities ever get straightened out, eclectica podcasts might fill the niche. But the record companies seem to get more committed every day to the principle of locking music away.

Maybe it's too much to ask, but I want the A-Z history of rock and roll, from doo-wop to heavy metal . . . on shuffle.

Well, if that's your definition of "pop": Then I nominate Cole Porter:

My story is much too sad to be told,
but practically everything
leaves me totally cold.
The only exception i know is the case,
when i'm out on a quiet spree,
fighting vainly the old ennui
and i suddenly turn and see,
your fabulous face.

I get no kick from Champagne
Mere alchohol doesn't thrill me at all
so tell me why should it be true
that i get a kick
out of you

Some get a kick from cocaine
i'm sure that if i took even one sniff
that would bore me terrif-icly too
yet i get a kick out of you

I mean, rhyming "spree" with "ennui" -- come on!

We could be next: Umm, anybody know what's happened to our friend Stephen?

Who Put the "Pop" in Pop Music? I appreciate the valid criticism of invoking mumblers and misanthropes like Waits. (Costello, however, is surely pop music, even if he has lately wandered awfully avant garde.) Pop is notoriously tricky to pin down. Hoagy Carmichael was pop -- in his day:

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
That melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
Ah, but that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song

And so was Antonio Jobim:

How insensitive I must have seemed when she told me that she loved me
How unmoved and cold I must have seemed when she told me so sincerely
Why, she must have asked, did I just turn and stare in icy silence?
What was I to say? What can you say when a love affair is over?

But Robert Johnson never was

Now six and two is eight
Eight and two is ten
Friend-boy she trick you one time
She sure gonna do it again

even though a bunch of white British guys made a mint running his songs up and down the pop charts.

Pop lyric: If it's gotta be pop, here's my pick.

Were all alone in a villa on the rivera

Thats in france on the south side In case
u cared

Out of all yo friends I wanna be the closest

Thats why I tell u things So
ull be the mostest

When it comes 2 life, 2 be this mans wife

U got 2 be well
educated on the subject of fights

I mean prevention of

In other words - its
r.e.a.l meaning of this thing called love

Are u up on this? If so, then u can get
up off hug and a kiss

Come here baby, yeah

U sexy motherfucker

If we're allowed misanthropes, Eno's stolen a little thunder from me. At risk of being a me too-er, here's my Costello pick (at least the first one I thought of):

When Sunday morning dandruff turns out to be confetti

And the cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty

The girl in your dreams would have you up on an under age charge

And the man of the moment is the lifer at large

If you've got something to hide, if you've got something to sell

If you've got somebody's pride she might kiss and tell

Or wind up with a fight fan in the Hammersmith Hotel

You better speak up now if you want your piece

You better speak up now

It won't mean a thing later

Yesterday's news is
tomorrow's fish and chip paper

And Lou Reed:

And back at the Wilshire, Pedro sits there dreaming

He's found a book on Magic
in a garbage can

He looks at the pictures and stares at the cracked ceiling

"At
the count of 3" he says, "I hope I can disappear"

And fly fly away, from
this dirty boulevard

I want to fly, from dirty boulevard

I want to fly, from
dirty boulevard

I want to fly, fly, fly, fly, from dirty boulevard

But this is all very cursory. If I think of anyting better I'll let you know.

Truthiness at the Correspondents' Dinner: All the networks are showing W and his impersonator for some midly, but mostly lame, jokes. Of course the real sturm and drang was Colbert and his extremely subtle jibes at the Admin via his "Colbert Report" character. Some are thanking him for his efforts. It's worth watching the whole bit.

By the middle, however, W is hardly amused and Laura is downright pissed. Silly to imply Bush wasn't fully clothed....