September 16, 2004
Who are you going to believe?
Sully, reporting from the Starbucks in DuPont Circle, or someone on the ground who knows "harrassment and interdiction" is not related to sex in the office?
Vote Libertarian?
A colleague at work emailed to ask if I was voting Libertarian in November. My response:
ann, ann, ann.....if i've said it once, i've said it a thousand times, libertarianism is something to talk with friends about while ripping off a clip from your Sig-sauer at bottles of sam adams tossed off your back porch, the heavy smell of the cigars and BBQ hanging in your nostrils while the mosquitoes meet a nasty death in the sorrowfully embracing arms of mother bug zapper, but it sure is hell is NOT the way to vote in the cold sobriety of an election booth!
sheesh!
Holy crap!
This is the money shot image from the latest MoveOn.org ad.
Are they out of their freakin' minds????????
The 1968 Riot at the Democratic Convention cost the Democrats their place as the majority party in American politics. In the thirty six years--an entire generation!--since the Yippies let go with their rage at the Hubester and Mayor Daley (the old reptilian one) the Democrats have earned more than 50% of the total vote in a presidential election once. 1976, and that was in retrospect an anomaly of Watergate.
This one ad might cost them the next thirty six years.
Because it sure as hell is going to cost them the presidency as well as the Senate seat of Tom Daschele.
Forget Duke in the Tank--this is as if Goldwater's own people had put out the Daisy/Nuke ad themselves.
For. the. love. of. gawd. how. stooooopid. are these people?
WTF?
How is it that after Beautifully Atrocious Jeff goes to all the trouble to suggest suitable pajamas for various members of the blogging community, Wonkette appropriates the idea for herself (with, granted, a not-very-noticable link) and, in turn, gets her own shout-out from Sully?
(Suitably polite email sent to Sullivan, btw. We like Jeff here at Llama Butcher Central.)
There ain't no justice in the world, I tells ya.
UPDATE: Yes there is! The Llamas get results!
Getting to "No" Again
As both regular readers may remember, yesterday I posted on the Boomer Generation's self-made child-rearing crisis, as skewered by my friend Sparky.
Today, The Barely Attentive Mother, another real-life friend, weighs in on the issue from a slightly different perspective - the apparent traditional backlash in parental attitudes among Gen-Xers. BAM quotes the following suggested explanation for this from an article in the Oregonian with a considerable amount of skepticism:
Gen-Xers grew up in the aftermath of a time of much social upheaval, in an era of rapidly increasing divorce rates and mothers rapidly re-entering the work force," says Chung. "Some of them want to raise their families different from the way they grew up."
She goes on to suggest that the real reason Gen-Xers might be becoming more attentive parents is a disillusionment with the culture of material greed pursued by their elders and their own consequent refocusing of values.
Maybe, but from a personal perspective I think there is room for multiple explanations, including one both theOregonian and BAM might have overlooked: The article defines Gen-Xers as those born between 1965 and 1979. As it happens, I was born in 1965. My parents, now in the neighborhood of 70, were emphatically not Boomers, but rather of the generation just preceeding them. As such, they held on to the more traditional way of doing things right through the storm of the Boomers' Social Revolution - My mother was always home when we were young, my father's medical practice was one that always saw him home for dinner, and divorce was considered a social pathology, not an acceptable lifestyle alternative. Values such as hard work, prudence, delayed gratification and self-discipline were hammered into us.
I believe that there is a fair-sized chunk of older Gen-Xers who fit this model, never having been directly subject to the Boomer approach to begin with but rather looking on as horrified spectators. I often refer to such people as the "Reagan Youth" - those born between 1965 and, say, 1970 to pre-Boomer parents and who came of political age during the first flower of Reaganism. At least speaking for myself (and for the Butcher's Wife, for that matter), now that we are parents we seek to emulate our folks' way of doing things, not to run away from it. (N.B., of course we do some things differently, but these are variations on the theme, not rejection of the entire model.)
As for younger Gen-Xers seeking to be more sober fathers and mothers than their Boomer parents, I don't think there really is a difference between the bases of their rejection suggested by the Oregonian and BAM. The social upheaval and out of control consumerism witnessed in our society over the past 30-odd years are both phenomena that arise out of the common root of undisciplined narcissism, which, a I said, I believe to be the defining characteristic of the Boomer generation. In this, the Gen-Xers are simply rejecting two sides of the same hippie.
Either way, I am encouraged.
A meme takes off
Jeff Goldstein picks up on our Dan Rather/Mark Fuhrman evidence planting theme by playing with its corollary: what's the Johnny Cochrane defense?
We had started the ball rolling with "If the typeface don't kernel, they didn't come from the Colonel."
Goldstein adds: "If they were done in Word, your defense is absurd!"
Commenator Fat.Elvis: "If the pajamas do not fit, you must acquit!"
Feel free to join in the madness.
UPDATE: Jeff has over 50 commentators joining in the Johnny Cochrane fun!
I just want to take a minute to editorialize for a sec: we're getting a huge traffic surge from Jeff's Johnny Cochrane bit, which he gives us credit back to our original "Dan Rather Uses the Mark Fuhrman Defense" post. It's what we call a secondary or tertiary Instalanche---Glenn links to Jeff, who linked to us, next thing you know, badda-boom badda-bang you've got Police Captain brains all over your nice Ivy league suit. Wait, that's Sonny Correlone. But you get the point.
What I'd like to think is the difference between your humble Llamas and certain OTHER bloggers I could name is that certain OTHER bloggers would spend the next week pouting and sulking about that Glenn didn't link them directly, like somehow the top ten bloggers owed them traffic or something. Get. Over. Yourself! Whereas your humble Llamas looked at the sitemeter report and broke into the "The Linkety-Bling Bling is the Thing-thing" merry traffic dance (which, set to the soundtrack of Oceans Eleven, is a cross between "The Hustle" and an epileptic seizure).
We're not too proud to admit we're link whores!
As to the whole "affair de Wonkette" my advice to you is taken from that ancient Stoic philosopher Sgt. Hulka: "Lighten up, Francis." I mean seriously, lighten up folks. Wonkette stole from your site? Hello? That's what she does, for chrissakes! Plagiarism, deviant sex jokes, and strawberry-blonde smiles are what she does: reading Wonkette is basically like reading the blogging of Howard Kurtz's naughty au pair. Sex and public policy, who wouldda thunk it? Take it as the compliment it is, and leave it at that. I mean, you don't want to start sounding like the Larchmont Episcopal Junior League biddies with their (starched) shorts in a twist because Martha Stewart just lifted their creme de menth chili cheese fries recipe.
And no one should take my defense here of Wonkette as having ANY relationship to my recent business venture of setting up her live viewer request cam shows (which, as the server will be in the island nation of Nairu we'll avoid all sorts of pesky Mann Act issues). Or the DVDs. Definitely not the DVDs. (Trust me, the Wonkette version of "I'm just a Bill, sitting here on Capitol Hill" sizzles....) No siree. You can preview it at Capitol Hill Skanks, our new blog dedicated to all the naughty things in the Evil Dr. Spock Universe inhabited by Wonkette.
If the web teaches us one thing, it's that mockery is Kryptonite to pretension. (And plagiarism is its cabana boy!)
Want to be a contributor at Capitol Hill Skanks? Drop the Llamas a line in the Tasty Bits(TM) Mail Sack (complete with pics, of course!)
UPDATE: The blogger with a heart of gold! See, I told you so. Wonkette emails us:
i do all my links that way... it's not an intentionally hard to see link. and i totally give him credit...you snuggily studmuffin of an Andean pack animal!
Okay, so the last part I made up, but the rest is real!
Who Da Man?
Yo - check out the Pimp Name Generator.
Talkin' to me? That's Macktastic R. Tickle to you now, dawg.
Props to Pimp Daddy M. Silk.
YIPS from Steve: What the.....? Professor Truth Steve Gates. That's gotta be the lamest pimp name ever. Too much Mac, not enough mack....
HFS!.....MARKET BREAK IN ACTION!!!!
Tradesports.com election futures contract update:
Bush reelected now trading at $69 (the highest its been since late December and the capture of Saddam)
Here's the chart that goes up until last night:
here's the chart showing the "Kerry elected President" contract since the 60 Minutes story broke:
Kerry was trading at 40.7, and dropped to $36.0 yesterday. Today, after CBS invoked the Fuhrman defense the contract dropped five dollars, down to $31.5.
Kerry's contract (the futures market's assessment of the likelihood of Kerry winning the election)has dropped 23 percent since CBS ran with forged documents to smear Bush. Thanks, Dan!
What about the swing states, that went marginally to Gore that Kerry needs to win if he has any hope of winning?
Wisconsin: last traded at $59
Minnesota: last traded at $41.7
New Jersey: last traded at $24.3
The only state that went to Bush in 2000 that is not going his way in the markets is New Hampshire (currently trading at $41.0).
The state that the media (and history) declared Bush must win: Ohio, currently trading at $78
The other Gore states that Kerry needs to carry:
Pennsylvania (21 Electoral votes) $43.4
Iowa (7 EV) $45
(These are all expressed as futures contracts of the event of GW Bush winning the electoral votes of that state).
Add it up:
States in which futures markets on Bush Reelect is trading above $80 (out of a possible $100): 25 states with a total of 224 electoral votes
States trading between $60 and $79--four states (Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and West Virginia) for a total of 57 electoral votes.
Add it up: altogether, investors/bettors are picking that Bush will win handily at least these 29 states with a total of 281 electoral votes.
That doesn't include Iowa and Wisconisn (7 and 10 EVs), which they place in realistic possible striking distance, as well as Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), Oregon(7) and Pennsylvania (21).
Thank you, Dan Rather!
UPDATE: Compare this to our assessment of the futures market on the Electoral College back on March 18th.
Sigh
Cary Grant. Katherine Hepburn.
Thanks, Sheila! As usual, that was exactly what I needed to get my mind off things.
Mega-Yips! from Robbo! While Sheila mostly talks about Bringing Up Baby, I have to note that Holiday is one of my all-time favorite films.
Willow's back!!!
As if we were surprised by this.
I for one have missed the acerbic cans of whup-ass delivered upside the head that turned "to willow" into an action verb around these parts....
Teh-Raaaay-Suh Watch
I don't understand why everyone thinks she's so haughty, regal and Marie Antoinette-ish. After all, when a hurricane hits, what is her advice? Get naked!
I love this woman. I really do. It'd almost be worth electing J. Francois just to have her in the White House for four years.
YIPS from Steve: Is it just me, or does she have a sort of queen lizard from Aliens sort of thing going on the monitor? I mean, I'm almost expecting a buff and butch Sigourney Weaver to come blasting through the ceiling, and say "Eat this, bitch!" while blowing her away with one of those cool blaster rifles....
UPDATE DEUX: Teh-RAYY-zuh Antoinette speaks....
Paint it Red?
Ann Althouse Wisconisn update: Russ Feingold, running for reelection with a comfortable lead, refuses to appear with Senator Kerry at a major rally today in Madison, citing "business in the Senate."
Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes went to Gore by a wafer-thin margin in 2000.
Yips! from Robbo. Hey, let's stop worrying about these Nancy-boy swing states and go for the jugular!
UPDATE: Minnesota, 10 electoral votes that went blue in 2000: Bush 46 Kerry 44.
Also, check out Election Projection's electoral map.
MORE: Is Bush going to take Illinois? A former 13 point Kerry lead now down to 4.
Blogger Pajama Party!
Jeff at Bee-a-ootiful Atrocities takes some snaps of Bloggers in their Pajamas, including your humble Llamas.
We're gonna go ahead and invoke the No Hot Beverages rule on this one.
Random Commuter Thoughts
I've never much liked the practice common amongst DeeCee women of wearing business clothes and sneakers. Utilitarian considerations of comfort aside, it's just not very.....stylish. Nonetheless, I'm willing to let it go.
However, men who indulge in this practice wake the sleeping fiend in my heart. When I become Emperor, one of my first acts will be to require such men also to sport a paper bag with eyeholes, a handbell and a large sign labelled "I am a Dork."
SCHAUDANFRAUDE UPDATE
Newest CBS authenticator: former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman! 
Seriously.
Think about it.
Fuhrman "knows" OJ did it (because, in Fuhrman's mind he's black, so of course he did it), so he "improves" the evidence by making sure the bloody glove is back at OJ's. It's not actual evidence, but symbolic of the larger truth, right?
Rather "knows" Bush did it (because, in Rather's mind he's conservative, so of course he did it), so he "improves" the evidence by making sure the faked memos are in the report. They are not actual evidence, but symbolic of the larger truth, right?
What's the difference between Dan Rather using memos he knows are fake to support a story he earnestly believes to be true, and Fuhrman planting evidence to frame a man he earnestly believes to be guilty?
Absolutely nothing.
The statement of CBS news is nothing less than a defense of journalistic planting of evidence to frame the president of the United States six weeks before the election.
UPDATE: Of course this leads to the horrendous argument "If the typeface don't kernel, they didn't come from the colonel!" defense....