Line of the Day

Ace:

Great. Now in addition to raccoons and the neighborhood dog, I have to worry about garbage hippies.

Today's Hoot!

Jay Reiner in The Hollywood Reporter:

What is it like to pal around with Bill Clinton? Rick Cleveland gives us the skinny in "My Buddy Bill," a fascinating and finely executed one-man show based on Cleveland's friendship with the former president.

The friendship is over now, for reasons that become clear in the evening's most revealing episode. But no matter what you might have thought of Clinton going in, you're going to understand him much better on the way out.

Ruh Oh!

Cleveland's stories are chock-full of intimate details and amusing enough to tickle the most demanding funnybone. There was the time he was invited to Arkansas and winds up jamming, drinking beer and playing Trivial Pursuit with Clinton, his strange brother Roger and Billy Bob Thornton.

Hmmm, wasn't that one of the scenes in Deliverance?

We're also told about a trip to Amsterdam where Clinton, Christopher Walken and Cleveland smoke some very good hash in a stoner bar and Bill, perhaps under the influence because he definitely inhales, has some intriguing things to say about Monica Lewinsky, Sharon Stone, Ann Coulter and other topics of interest.

Spare me. But it gets better:

But of all the people we meet, including Clinton, no one is quite so ... um, commanding as Hillary. We first meet Hillary at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica where Bill and Rick are double-dating with their respective wives. The Clintons arrive late and obviously have been fighting on the way over, so the dinner has the feel of low-level warfare with lots of sniping and an occasional ambush. One thing is crystal clear: Bill Clinton is not the same person with Hillary around that he is when she's not around.

Ya think?

Hillary, it seems, is not only "watching me like a hawk," as Bill puts it at one point, but she has someone else watching her fun-loving husband. Based on what happens next, one is forced to conclude that one, Bill Clinton would not have become president if not for Hillary; two, Bill Clinton would not have continued to be president if not for Hillary; and three, Bill Clinton owes Hillary Rodham big time for what she has done for him, and she has her own ways and reasons for collecting on that debt, not all of them pretty.

That's what we're afraid of.

More by following the link including speculation as to whether this is all fact or fiction. Since Cleveland's previous career was as one of the writers on The West Wing, I hope he has some non-Hollywood jobs lined up for the future, because he certainly isn't going to be welcome again in Hill and Bill's biggest fan club.

Someone explain Black Friday to me!

At the NY Times, Michael Barbaro tries:

Five minutes after midnight today, moments into the earliest store opening on the first shopping day of the season, the beleaguered employees at CompUSA on 57th Street in Manhattan laid down some ground rules: no more pushing, no more grabbing, and no more stealing other customers' $9.99 wireless PC cards.

What about biting and eye-gouging?

Across the country, millions of Americans mobbed discount stores, raced into suburban malls and swarmed downtown shopping districts in a retail ritual whose outlandishness - and sleeplessness - seems to grow with every season.

Merchants, fearful that shoppers might be scared off by higher fuel costs, opened even earlier than last year - by an hour (Wal-Mart), six hours (CompUSA), and in one case, even a day (Kmart).

Retailers are putting a greater emphasis on the day after Thanksgiving because they find it strongly influences decisions about where to shop for the rest of the holiday season. Deep discounts, in particular, they say, create the impression that a retailer is offering better values than competitors. "If we don't have the right door busters we don't have a good Christmas," said Ron Gregory, district manager for Sears in Chicago.

So if you don't have a riot on the premises in the cold dark of the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, people are going to ignore you for the rest of their Christmas shopping? I sure don't want to meet the folks in the focus groups that rendered that conclusion. They must have been a rough bunch!

Anyhow, Black Friday is over and now it's time for Cyber Monday:

"Cyber Monday," the term coined for the Monday after Thanksgiving, comes on the heels of the busy "Black Friday" shopping day when many brick-and-mortar retailers begin turning a profit.

The good news for online shoppers this year, is that "Cyber Monday" is becoming the Web shopping equivalent to "Black Friday" when retailers launch major sales and discounts to drive traffic, analysts said.

OK, but why Monday?

"Most people who shop online do it at work, not at home," despite rising rates of high-speed home Internet connections, said Jay McIntosh, Americas director of retail and consumer products at Ernst & Young. Work connections tend to be faster than those at home, he said.

And Monday is their first day back "at work." Well, at least you won't get stepped on - unless the boss catches you.

Something else to be thankful for

When I itemize my list of things I'm thankful for, one of them is men like those of the Deuce Four.

On a related note, Christopher Hitchens:

I once grabbed a plate of what was quite possibly turkey, but which certainly involved processed cranberry and pumpkin, in a U.S. Army position in the desert on the frontier of Iraq. It was the worst meal--by far the worst meal--I have ever eaten. But in all directions from the chow-hall, I could see Americans of every conceivable stripe and confession, cheerfully asserting their connection, in awful heat, with a fall of long ago. And this in a holiday that in no way could divide them. May this always be so, and may one give some modest thanks for it.

Fun with prize prat Laurie David

Curmudgeon:

Not only has Laurie David, ("Seinfeld" creator) Larry David's wife, been active in organizing the creative community against President Bush, she is an enviro-wacko who " lectures others about the evils of SUVS and the redemptive power of energy saving light bulbs." While it's become commonplace to discover how hypocritical these Hollywood nincompoops invariably are, it's nevertheless a delicious snack.

Details here, but the tastiest part is that the reason that Laurie and Larry got in all sorts of ecoweenie trouble was that they were spiffing up their mansion for the visit "of a VIP guest, National Resources Defense Council champion Robert Kennedy Jr.—the man who first introduced Laurie David to environmental activism at an L.A. breakfast seminar in 1997." Sheesh, all you need to do to host that goofball is just lay in a little smack and hide the breakables.

Today's Hoot!

Michael Moore to Hire Terminated GM Workers:

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore today announced he would immediately hire the 30,000 autoworkers that General Motors cuts as it closes all or part of 12 manufacturing plants.

About half of the former autoworkers will be trained to “edit news footage in ways that make people look stupid or evil,” Mr. Moore said, the rest will provide catering services.
...
Mr. Moore said his work for the Democrat party, including his 2004 opus ‘Fahrenheit 9/11‘, has made him “bigger than the Beatles…bigger than GM...

Well he is rather on the large side.

Yeah, it's ScrappleFace, but c'mon Mikey - put your money where your gaping maw is!

Be careful what portion of your anatomy you reveal at a Taser fight

Naked Fla. Man Shocked In Genitals By Taser:

A naked man was accidentally shocked in the genitals by a Taser after he was found breaking windows and asking women to touch him inappropriately, police said.

Guess he got an even bigger thrill.

Jeremy J. Miljour, 26, of Bonita Springs, attempted to run when approached by Lee County sheriff's deputies Saturday. When he ignored requested to stop, Deputy Daniel Hollywood shot Miljour with a Taser.

One of the Taser prongs accidentally hit Miljour's genitals and got stuck, said Cpl. Matt Chitwood.

Ouch!

Today's Hoot!

Margaret Thatcher Threatened to Use Nukes During Falkland Islands War. But only on Francois Mitterand. Just kidding - here's the real story:

French President Francois Mitterrand made a stunning claim to his psychoanalyst during Britain’s Falkland Islands war with Argentina in the early 1980s:

Margaret Thatcher threatened to use nuclear weapons unless Mitterrand gave the British the "deactivate" codes used by anti-ship missiles that France had sold to Argentina!

That never-before-revealed scenario is disclosed in the new book "Rendez-vous: The Psychoanalysis of Francois Mitterrand,” written by Ali Magoudi, who was the French president’s psychoanalyst from 1982 to 1993.
...
A French-made Exocet missile struck the ship, killing 20 crewmembers and injuring 24. The destroyer was scuttled and British naval officials feared that the Exocet was so effective that it jeopardized the entire operation to dislodge Argentine occupiers from the Falklands.

Shortly after that, according to Magoudi’s unsubstantiated disclosures, Mitterrand told him during one of their sessions: "What an impossible woman, that Thatcher. With her four nuclear submarines on mission in the southern Atlantic, she threatens to launch the atomic weapon against Argentina – unless I supply her with the secret codes that render deaf and blind the missiles we have sold to the Argentinians.”

Magoudi said Mitterrand told him that he had ordered the Exocet codes to be handed over to the British at Thatcher’s insistence: "She has them now, the codes. If our customers find out that the French wreck the weapons they sell, it’s not going to reflect well on our exports.”

He needn't have worried, his successors discovered the oil business.

Mitterrand then complained to Magoudi: "To provoke a nuclear war for small islands inhabited by three sheep who are as hairy as they are frozen! Fortunately I yielded. Otherwise, I assure you, the metallic index finger of the lady would press the button.”

Maggie clearly knows how to bargain with weasels.

But then Mitterrand vowed to get revenge on Britain and its feisty prime minister – with a tunnel under the English Channel.

"I will have the last word,” Magoudi said Mitterrand told him. "Her island, it’s me who will destroy it. Her island, I swear that soon it will no longer be one. I will take my revenge. I will tie England to Europe, despite its natural tendency for isolation. I will build a tunnel under the Channel.”

And I thought it was just to ship along the illegal aliens.

All work and no play would make Ray Nagin a dull boy

New Orleans looking to strengthen relations with Jamaica:

Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, says as his city rebuilds in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it would be moving to strengthen economic ties with Jamaica. "As we look to rebuild New Orleans, we are also looking to rebuild relationships and the first place that we are looking to rebuild and strengthen relationships is Jamaica," said Nagin.

Hmm, that's a puzzler.

The New Orleans mayor who is vacationing in the island with his wife Seletha and three children, at a private villa owned by Sandals chairman, Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, was speaking to reporters in Montego Bay at a brief ceremony hosted by Sandals Resorts, shortly after his arrival at the Sangster International Airport on Friday.

Ah, it wasn't a puzzle at all.

Just yell "Sooey" if you want Hillary

Our favorite little porker has got a new plan for tax refunds for people who don't pay taxes:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has sponsored a tax refund for Puerto Rico residents that could pay out more than $50 million over the next 10 years.

She's the sole sponsor of a bill letting some Puerto Rico residents — who pay no federal income tax — get child-credit refunds on their Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Clinton's camp declined yesterday to say why the former first lady wrote the legislation, but politicos say the move is obvious: Puerto Rican support is crucial to her re-election — and a potential White House run in 2008. Puerto Ricans are born American citizens, ready-made voters when they move to the United States.

Curiously, Clinton has stayed mum on the bill. When she filed it recently, her staff did not put out a press release.

I guess some folks just don't stay bribed.

His departure is long overdue

Annan must go:

A former top aide to Secretary- General Kofi Annan has become the first United Nations figure to admit that he pocketed money from Saddam Hussein in connection with the scandal-wracked Oil-for-Food program.
Jean-Bernard Merimee, France's former U.N. ambassador, who holds the title of "ambassador for life," was Annan's senior advisor for European issues when he took $156,000 from Baghdad after deciding to go into business "on my own behalf" — though he now says he regrets having done so.

Merimee used the loot to renovate a home he owns in southern Morocco, he recently told a French judge.

It was hardly surprising that Merimee would be involved in the scandal.

Besides his position as one of Annan's most senior aides, he was a vocal opponent of international sanctions against Saddam — and, significantly, had worked at the U.N. to limit them.

It;s just another day among the kleptocrats, but wait there's more!

And news of Merimee's dramatic admission comes as Annan issued a new report on the world body's proposed headquarters renovation in which the cost has soared more that 50 percent — from an initial $1.2 billion to nearly $2 billion, with no end in sight.

And though an initial scheme to finance the renovation with a congressional loan has since been abandoned, it remains likely that much of that work will be paid for by U.S. taxpayers.

I thrilled about that fer sure!

As the scandal draws closer and closer, and rampant mismanagement continues unabated, when will it become clear that Annan and his corrupt crew have got to go?

Why don't they renovate UN HQ by tearing it down and then having "construction delays"?

Spot the fifth columnists

It isn't hard:

After my return from Iraq I received phone calls and emails from military friends as they either came back to the US on leave or finished their tours and re-deployed “Stateside.” The typical phone call went like this: “I’m back. It’s great to be home. What’s up? How are you doing?” Then, the conversation quickly moved on to: “What’s with the press and Iraq?” The press usually meant television. On tv Iraq looked like it was going to Hell in a handbasket of flame and brutality; however, the images of carnage didn’t square with the troops’ experience.

Much more by following the link. I'd like to think they were just presstitutes going for cheap ink or even apologists for Islamic extremism, but it's more like they hate the Western world in general and the USA in particular.