Bell Business

My Prediction

We have already declared war on Iran. And we will be bombing them soon.

I hate this. But I am pretty sure I'm right.

Life Imitates British Comedy

I don't know much about Little Britain. I've seen a couple bits and I thought they were pretty funny, but I never made the effort to seek it out and watch whole episodes.

That said, given all the hoopla surrounding NOT GAY AT ALL Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), this is a pretty timely (and funny) bit.

Sir Norman Fry - Public Toilet

Oh, I should give a hat tip here to Josh Marshall for posting it. Thanks, Josh!

Honey, I'm Home...

Had a bit of a layoff there. Sorry about that.

Actually, I'm not that sorry.

So what am I listening to? What am I paying attention to? What am I concerned about?

All excellent questions. Proof that Bell Business readers are a cut above the rest.

Musically, I'm listening to Jay Reatard. Nice with the rock and the hoy de hoy. Love it.

I also just rediscovered Skylarking. It's been a dismal rainy day today, so the album seems a little extra perfect. Is this my my favorite XTC record? Another excellent question!!! Kudos!!!

(BTW, LAME website, XTC)

I've also recently discovered The Best Show on WFMU, starring Tom Scharpling (pictured) and Jon Wurster. They're both very funny. Scharpling handles the meat of the show, while Wurster calls in as a different (or recurring) character each week. They've got a few albums of bits available on their website. I bought them on iTunes a couple weeks ago to listen to on vacation. Pretty GD funny.

Anyway, that show might be going away soon. Scharpling got a dead fish delivered to his studio during the last show and it freaked him out. It wouldn't be a big shock if he called it quits. He's been threatening to for quite some time for various reasons anyway.
Also, I should say that the episode with the dead fish doesn't surprise me in the least, and I think that most of his listeners assumed it was just part of the show. Almost every character that Wurster does threatens to kill Scharpling in some horrific way. It's not surprising that some regular caller trying to develop his own character (this guy called himself Captain Jack, and he was such a regular that he was mentioned in The Best Show's theme song) would go to such lengths for what he considered a joke.
That said, obviously what the guy did is not cool, and Scharpling is certainly right to be alarmed by it. Personally, I would call the cops, but that's just me.

It would be a shame if The Best Show were to go away, but it certainly wouldn't be a surprise. At any rate, we'll find out tonight at 8pm ET. You can listen live on the web at WFMU.

Finally, what am I concerned about?  I am concerned that Rex Grossman had three fumbles, an interception, and a sack against the Colts Monday night. And that's playing like half a game. Ugh.

Go Bears.

Oh, one more thing. Major kudos to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for calling Cheney on his bullshit yesterday. I happened to catch part of this on TV and it was great. Choice nugget:

Incidentally, in the administration’s response today, they claimed the Office of the Vice President is not part of the Executive Office of the President. So it’s some kind of fourth branch of government.

Well, that’s wrong. Both the United States Code says it is part of the president — oh, incidentally, at least this morning, as I left Vermont, I checked the White House Web site. And even their own Web site, this morning, at least, says that the Executive Office — that the vice president is part of the Executive Office of the President.

Think Progress has a good chunk of transcript as well as video here. Good stuff. Well worth the couple minutes it'll take you to read through/watch it.  I just hope he follows through on it.

Anyway, go Bears.

UPDATE: Great news. Scharpling is back on the air, with pretty much no mention that anything happened last week. It certainly doesn't sound like he has any intention of giving up the show any time soon. Nice.

Eye For An Eye

I like Oliver Willis. He's a pretty smart guy, and a fun read. But he seems to be somewhat apprehensive about linking to this. I wish he had given it a little more thought before he did.

It's a link to a Mike Stark post on Kos. He is writing about his trip to Bill O'Reilly's house. Stark put a bunch of signs around his block referring to Andrea Mackris and calling O'Reilly a liar, etc... Then when O'Reilly came out of his house Stark seemed to confront him in his driveway. It looks like (from the stills - video is coming later I think) O'Reilly calmly asked him to leave his property, and Stark obeyed, waving good-bye with a loofah on his hand.

Now, O'Reilly's been an especially big dick lately to Kos' site. And in the past he also has urged his radio listeners to "visit" Mike Stark's home. Although, as far as I know, he didn't reveal Stark's name or address to follow up on his threat.

Anyway, there is a (pretty boring) debate in the comments of Stark's post about whether or not what he did was proper (scroll down after the link). And Stark responds to some of his critics by calling them "concern trolls."

I am so sick of this phrase. Are there right wingers who go onto leftie comment boards and try to sway the argument with disingenuous remarks? Sure. I've seen them. They're usually pretty obvious. (I'd bet the opposite is true as well)But I think this label is now being applied to anyone who doesn't agree with whatever post the comments are referring to. I have been labeled thus by Crooks and Liars (comments are now closed for some reason) albeit in a thinly veiled way, when I took offense to their posting a video of a girl in Iraq being stoned and kicked to death.

By the way, C&L have posted approvingly to the Stark/O'Reilly business as well.

Anyway, this is bullshit. The reason O'Reilly is an asshole (one of the reasons)  is because he says stuff like "Let's go to his house!" Once we stoop to his level we are just as bad as he is, no matter what our motives. I realize that Stark did nothing violent, and it certainly appeared like he left O'Reilly's driveway when he was asked. But going to someone's house, littering the neighborhood with signs and such, and hanging out in his driveway hoping to catch a glimpse of him in his jammies is fucking stupid, and wrong. And it's not justified by  O'Reilly's rants advocating the same thing. In fact, that should be the first sign that it is a really fucking stupid idea. It is the WRONG THING to do.

I think Mike Stark does good work. So does the Crooks and Liars site, and so does Oliver Willis. But this is just beneath all of them. It should be beneath everybody.

UPDATE: GIGANTIC hat tip to Keith Olberman for stating the obvious. Also, kudos to C&L for posting it. But I have to wonder if Olberman had posted in the comments instead of talking on TV would he have been called a "concern troll"?

 

More On Tillman

Watching the hearings with Rumsfeld et al.

How many times can these clowns say "I don't recall" to questions about the most memorable events in recent history?

They are all liars. They are all devoid of morals.

I don't believe in hell, but I guess I wouldn't mind being wrong about that.

Tillman

I would just like to know when our Democratic leaders are going stand and call BULLSHIT on this.

(Thanks, Oliver Willis)

Moore Beats Down On Wolf

Say what you will of Michael Moore. He brought a delicious smackdown to Wolf Blitzer the other day. I have not seen Sicko yet, and don't really plan to. Watching things about health care make me think about how I don't take care of my health. But I do enjoy unscripted, uncomfortable TV moments like this.

One of the great things about Michael Moore, aside from the fact that he's a really talented filmmaker, is that he only agrees to do TV interviews if they're live, so that they can't edit what he says. Obviously few people have this power, but who can deny that we would be better off with only live interviews, as opposed to taped, edited ones?

Anyway, I got this from Crooks and Liars. I really like their site, although they basically called me a Concern Troll last time I commented on something, and apparently that's one of the worst insults you can throw at a commenter. Personally, name-calling like that doesn't really bother me. In fact, I think it's kind of funny. But I was a little ticked that a site I consider pretty smart just threw a very thinly veiled insult at me instead of debating my point. That was pretty lame, IMO.

The issue was a video they put on the site with the headline CNN Airs Portion Of Stoning Death.  Although, a good subtitle might have been  So Does Crooks And Liars.

Some poor Iraqi girl wass stoned to death in one of those religious "honor killings" and CNN aired the video. Yes, there was video. Video allegedly taken by Iraqi police with their cell phones. Anyway, I criticized them (and CNN) for putting the video on their site. It is a snuff film. You are literally watching a young woman get kicked and stoned to death. Anyway, they didn't like my comments, and so threw a whiny dig at me. Whatever. I'm a big boy. I can take it. I just think it's lame.  I'm not going to link to that particular post, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

Still, overall I really like their site. It's actually a marvelous resource for clips just like this one:

Moore Slaps Around Blitzer

 

UPDATE: For those of you who are interested, here's Round II.

UPDATE II: And for those of you who are as wonky as me, here's the clip that got Moore's dander up.

(Once again, props to Crooks and Liars, even though they are wussies.)

Oof! That's Bad!

There are a few reasons I will not be voting for Hilary Clinton to be the Dem nominee. The main one is, her name is Clinton. We've had a Clinton. We've had two Bushes. Dynasties are bullshit.

Her latest ad is another one.

You can get all crazy-go-nuts about it like some idiots, but the truth of the matter is it is just mindless pandering to the latest craze. If you go beyond even the most basic, "Oh, they're doing a Soprano's thing!" mentality, of the spot, then you've got a ton of subtext that the Hillary campaign can't possibly want any part of. (The guy about to kill her, for one...)

It's just a bad idea for an ad. She's got morons working for her, and that's a scary thing. Bush has morons working for him too. That's going great so far...

Also, the Celine Dion song as her choice for a campaign anthem is enough to get me to change the channel whenever she comes on. UGH!

Please run, Mr. Gore.

On The Other Hand...

This is hilarious.

Hitchens on Falwell

Say what you want about Christopher Hitchens. Here he is on Anderson Cooper's show, and he is absolutely 100% right.

(via the awesome Crooks and Liars)