Friday Open Thread

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Here’s a scene – the lunchtime ‘rap’ -  from the film “Bulworth” with Warren Beatty. Classic, brilliant film!
H/T: Crooks & Liars

(From YouTube):

Beatty put his finger on the sore spot in (American) politics: money corrupts, as does power, and most often the two go hand in hand. Written off by some as “unrealistic” Beatty chose the only format that could work to bring the message home, without preaching: satire.

By letting the story border on the absurd in places, by walking that very thin line between politically correct and politically incorrect he vented his frustrations about the state of politics – even the state of the nation.

I haven’t seen this film in years. It came out in 1998, and yet, it could have come out last week.. Nothing seems to ever really change when it comes to politics and money. Of course this is just a film, but how refreshing (and hilarious) to see a politician break out and just tell it like it is..

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48 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

  2. Estelle Bennett, member of the Ronettes, passed away. A thread of some of their hits would be nice.

      • Last night Keith Olbermann mentioned all the new suggestions for new Ben & Jerry flavors of ice cream in honor of GW Bush.
        Here’s the list from this blog:
        - Grape Depression
        - The Housing Crunch
        - Abu Grape
        - Cluster Fudge
        - Nut’n Accomplished
        - Good Riddance You Lousy Motherfu***r… Swirl
        - Iraqi Road
        - Chock ‘n Awe
        - WireTapioca
        - Impeach Cobbler
        - Guantanmallow
        - imPeachmint
        - Heck of a Job, Brownie!
        - Neocon Politan
        - RockyRoad to Fascism
        - The Reese’s-cession
        - Cookie D’oh!
        - Nougalar Proliferation
        - Death by Chocolate… and Torture
        - Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
        - Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
        - Credit Crunch
        - Mission Pecanplished
        - Country Pumpkin

  3. “‘Shot From The Air Moose’ Tracks”? For Sarah Palin.
    I had a pint of Moose Tracks ice cream the other day.

  6. THBT,
    Changing the name won’t help anymore than putting lipstick on a pig. I hope they don’t think they can get back into Iraq that easily. I think the ‘cons believe the people of the Middle East are backward and gullible, just because they don’t all have Master’s Degrees.

  7. PRESIDENT CLINTON CALLS FOR MEDIA FAIRNESS-Mario Solis Marich
    “The full interview to air today on our special TGIV anniversary show on AM760.net. I asked President Clinton about the Fairness Doctrine and if it was time for “some type of enforced media. The show will air from 4 PM MT to 7 PM MT on February 13th.”

    http://www.am760.net/main.html

    Click on the “listen” button. You may have to unblock popups fpr the player to work.

  8. I briefly watched some mush-mouthed Republican (Greeley?—something like that) on CSPAN today complaining about how horribly expensive the proposed stimulus package is.

    To make his case he had a chart comparing the cost of the stimulus ($1.2 trillion) to the cost of the Vietnam War (about $770 billion) to what he had labeled as the “Iraq Invasion” (about $675 billion) compared to the New Deal (about $500 billion).

    Conclusion? 1.2 trillion is MORE than 770 billion and is therefore BAD!

    Yes, he needed a CHART to explain that (made possible by taxpayer’s money of course).

    Now I’ve always been amused by the idea of ‘Comparative Studies’ because that’s where I thought pointless statistics came from—I mean things like “if the population of China jumped up and down at the same time it would be the equivalent of…”, or “if in a single day humans ate as many hamburgers as Aardvarks eat termites then….”

    Lately I have found that Comparative Studies is an actual and serious discipline (I think Zooey actually enlightened me in an exchange we had concerning Sarah Palin’s academic career).
    The source of pointless comparisons and pseudo-statistics appears to be, in fact, the Republican Party.

    Apart from the above example, this week we have also heard from the GOP geniuses that one trillion dollars made-up of a pile of 100-dollar bills makes for an unimaginably tall pile of bills (apparently tall enough to interfere with the orbits of geosynchronous satellites)—which somehow is supposed to help me more fully understand what a trillion dollars represents.

    If the Republicans could at least explain their own economic recovery plan in terms of Chinese aardvarks eating hamburgers whilst they jumped up and down on the way to the moon, maybe I’d be able to find something in their arguments to relate-to (hamburgers) and maybe pay attention then to what else they had to say.

    But not only are the Republicans incapable of drawing a compelling comparison, they can’t even come up with a compelling, or even boring but nonetheless valid, alternative plan.
    What’s more they can’t even come up with an argument that any 10-year-old could shoot-down in 30 seconds.

    And I don’t know what aggravates me more—their own stupidity or their expectation that the average citizen is even dumber than they are.

    I swear, no matter whether you arranged Republicans; in a pile, end to end, in a dodecahedron, or assembled them on that old standby ‘the football field’ you’d still be faced with a huge stinking pile of crap and trying to convert that pile of crap through force of imagination into Chinese Aardvarks circumnavigating the globe or jumping up and down. isn’t going make it any more clear or change the inherent crapitude of the crap that is the very essence of Republican existence and every Republican argument that pollutes the public environment.

  9. I’m watching C-Span 2, and they are showing 57 Aye votes cast with 3 Democrats and 1 Republican yet to vote. They are holding the vote open for the return of one Senator who had to attend a funeral.

    There’s still time to hear the Clinton interview, it hasn’t started yet.

  10. That would have to be Charles Grassley, 5th. He’s the Prince of Powerpoint, doncha know?

  11. There wouldn’t be a need for the bill at all, if the Republicans had practiced what they preached (and, boy, do I mean preached), from 1994 to 2006.

    The Clinton interview is at the top of the hour, in 20 minutes or so.

    Mel Martinez, the last “R”, just cast his no vote, so left to vote are Evan Bayh, Sherrod Brown, and Ms. Gillibrand.

  13. C-Span 2 is real exciting right now, like watching grass dry or paint grow.

    Gillibrand just voted Aye. Now 58, two to go.

  14. IMHO PowerPoint is “altogether EVILL!” (thanks for the quote Gandalf!).

    I have a copy of the PowerPoint plan for Iraq–invasion through stabilization through reconstruction through democratization through ‘profitization’, all mapped out as a half-arsed Venn diagram with lots of arrows pointing in one direction leading to a convergence of triumphant bullet points at the end, all on a single ‘slide’.

    Forget Bob Woodward’s insider trilogy, that one PowerPoint slide was Bush’s entire ‘strategy’ for Iraq. .

  16. Don’t know what that is.

    Bayh voted Aye. C’mon Sherrod Brown !

    Clinton interview is on. Back afterward.

    • I think I just heard on the teevee machine that Sherrod Brown is attemding his mother’s funeral. I could be mistaken.

  20. well, now that the Stimulus Bill has passed the House, once again with NO GOP votes the democratic leadership will get it through their thick skulls that there’s nothing to be gained from courting the GOP and IN FACT everything to lose from doing so.
    I also hope (and it appears now to be the case) that Obama drops his bipartisan vision permanently.

    • I guess I shouldn’t have bothered voting for my Dem representative in Idaho. He’s voting like a damn Republican anyway. I really need to get out of this state.

  21. Zooey, looks like you and I can’t get out of that damn boat, again! Now they are two of only seven.
    If your Rep. consistently votes against the majority party, what does that do for appropriations that help your district?

    5th,
    Grabthar’s Hammer! LOL! That was from Galaxy Quest!

    Kilrathi was something to do with the Wing Commander video game?

  22. house…

    …by the Suns of Worvan, well spotted! Wing Commander is the correct answer!

    And what has Mr Roberts won?

    MY ADMIRATION! Thanks for playing!

    See it was the pointy clawlike objects in your ans Chris Roberts created Wing Commander which was thew game that forced me to learn how to build my own computers so I could play it and well… there you go.

    Galaxy Quest may well be the first DVD I ever bought, and I think it’s brilliant.

  23. 5th,
    What am I supposed to make of the BBC show, Last Of The Summer Wine? They put it in place of Waiting For God, and I’ve tried it twice, but it’s not catching on with me. I’ve managed to determine these are the earliest episodes, but about all I can get is one old guy, not the three that are together, is shagging the librarian? They don’t seem to be very integral to what the three main guys are doing.

  24. House….Last of the Summer Wine? OMG! let me think a second.. ( this could be very bad )…. brb in a few actual seconds

  25. Okay…
    You may have noticed that it is isn’t as ‘fast-paced’ as Waiting For God.
    If you are actually watching series 1 or series 2, that’s as fast and funny as it gets or ever got. If its somewhat later well too late, pal, death can’t come soon enough.

    Given that you’ve enjoyed Waiting for God ( I thought it very good too) but you aren’t ‘getting’ Last of The Summer Wine then read your cell phone instruction manual for some heartier amusement.

    NOTE: I actually liked ‘Wine” and it took me a few episodes to really enjoy it—it’s very, very, very English. But there’s nothing wrong with you if it seems pointless, because it is.

  26. Oh I’ll watch it, just to get from Waiting For God, to To The Manor Born. I think it will take several episodes then before I start recognizing the quirks of the personalities as they reoccur.
    The first night it was on I googled and found out the main star, Michael Bates, was only in the first two series.

  27. I got confused. Are You Being Served precedes Last Of The Summer Wine, which took the place of Waiting For God. I had a cat walking the keyboard at the time and I was in a hurry.

  29. Thanks 5th,
    If I can ever stop being the 10,000th visitor there, I’ll dig around on that site.

    Even though Congress postponed the switch to all digital tv, my PBS stations are all going to switch at midnight, Feb. 17. They say they can’t afford to wait. That’s made me curious as to why.

    I meant to say this a while ago, but I was having refresh problems.
    Bill Moyers discusses the economic crisis with MIT Professor Simon Johnson. If you are following this closely, this is a must-see.

  32. The stimulus bill passed in the Senate 60-38. Why we had to wait for Senator Brown to return from his mother’s funeral to make this happen borders on the edge of cruel treatment. Surely at least one naysayer could have flipped his or her vote in order to enact what was a done deal and relieved Senator Brown of this ordeal at a time of intense personal grief.

  33. Hi Walt,
    You have a point.
    Reid is doing some procedural stuff, but nobody’s there.
    The Rushpuppets are going to delay all they can for the next two years.

  34. house….

    actually that link I gave you, you really need to know what you are looking for and the links provided don’t always work.

    Youtube is probably as good or better, really. I should make a list of links and or at least names of shows for you ( and everyone else) that I think are funny.

  36. Sorry, I haven’t been following the Senate tonight. Was the vote for which Sen Brown came back the one to invoke cloture? If so, then he was needed. If not, I agree, he could have been spared this. If it was the cloture vote, then he need not stick around for the final vote.

  37. 5th,
    That actually might help, I only know the BBC shows I’ve already seen. Maybe just a few to start with. Even while I’m off work I seem to find too much to do around the place.

    Reid is so tired he lost his place, he was praising Collins, Snowe and Specter for their “courageous stand” in supporting the Stimulus Bill.

  38. WAS,
    It was the final vote. The Senate has recessed until the 23rd after passing the bill. Hillary is now on C-SPAN2.

  39. They are going to try to get the DC rep voting status, in exchange for giving Utah an extra rep, and approve Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary when they get back.

  40. house… I’ll post some show links tomorrow for ya! on whichever thread is the most recent. Laters!

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