Read The Rude Pundit

Like I've said before. Reading the Rude Pundit is a joy not unlike listening to Beethoven. RP weaves language at a level most of us can't understand - but everybody should appreciate. Like yesterday's offering:

The head Bushie hisself had a public snit yesterday over the coming
subpoenas of Karl Rove and Harriet Miers over the whole U.S. attorney
clusterfuck of firings. After laying out his offer that Rove and Miers have tea and crumpets with a couple of members of Congress, sans oath, sans transcript, and with only limited lumps of sugar for the tea, the President unironically said, "[W]e will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants." Karl Rove and the word "honorable" belong together like a baby and a bucket of bleach. Indeed, it's about as dissonant as the sound a man might make if he slammed his dick in an unabridged dictionary. And then a midget jumped on the book.

The rest of it here.

Quote of the Day

"Evidently, [The President] wants to shield virtually any communications that take place within the White House compound on the theory that all such talk contributes in some way, shape or form to the continuing success and harmony of an administration. Taken to its logical extreme, that position would make it impossible for citizens to hold a chief executive accountable for anything. He would have a constitutional right to cover up.

Chances are that the courts will hurl such a claim out, but it will take time.

One gets the impression that [The Administration] values its survival more than most people want justice and thus will delay without qualm. But as the clock ticks, the public's faith in [The President] will ebb away for a simple reason: Most of us want no part of a president who is cynical enough to use the majesty of his office to evade the one thing he is sworn to uphold -- the rule of law."

Tony Snow said that. Really.

Of course, that was in 1998 (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 29, 1998). Hat tip to Glenn Greenwald of Salon. See the whole post for more quotes about "Executive Privilege".

Jesus Camp

When I was younger, I saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and didn't sleep for a couple days. Later I saw The Blair Witch Project and that made me not sleep for a night. Tonight, I'm watching Jesus Camp and I have to say that is scaring the shit out of me more than any other movie I've ever watched. Even including the not-intended hilarity of the Ted Haggard segment.

Self-Portrait

I think I'll make more photo-posting a feature of Spin City v.2.0. This is me in Chicago December, 2004.

March Madness

Here in the greatest city in the greatest state we have somewhat of an unofficial holiday today. Everything stops this afternoon starting at 1:45PM while we watch the UW Badgers continue the dream season against Texas Agriculture and Military University - Corpus Christi in Round 1 of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

And at 4PM this afternoon, Jessie Vetter puts her totally sick 350+ minute shutout streak on the line in the NCAA Women's Hockey Semifinal against St. Lawrence.

But what I'm really jazzed about is at 7PM, Mike Eaves and the boys will be dropping the puck against Don Lucia (pictured above) and The Evil Empire in the WCHA Semifinal. Don't look now, but after an abysmal-by-Wisconsin-standards season, the Badgers are 4-0-1 in their last five games and looked great last night against a Michigan Tech team that swept them a mere three weeks ago. A win tonight and tomorrow night will have the Badgers in the NCAA tournament. Use the force, boys!

What I did on my vacation from blogging

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Democracy simply does not work.” – Kent Brockman

I’m a Cub fan – I’m used to being disappointed.

And so, on a base level, I’ve spent a life being prepared to accept being bounced from the District 12 Aldermanic Primary last month. Most of you already know everything that went into the race. I did everything I could and ran the race I wanted to. I managed to convince over 500 of my neighbors to trust my vision of true neighborhood-based progressive independence – hitting my main goal.

In the end, it simply wasn’t enough. It wound up being a numbers game where I got squeezed between an establishment conservative and a brand-name progressive. Even though I have absolutely no regrets, I’m left with a very empty feeling .

So I have been spending the last three weeks recovering from seven months of frenetic activity of a high-powered campaign and working on things like culinary ideas in the kitchen, listening to my backlog of emusic downloads, planning my garden for the summer, getting involved in neighborhood issues, and starting my taxes. And I’m following an idea I discussed on Election Night at my “Victory” party with Jesse from Dane101 – I’m going to bring Spin City back.

As Western Music’s second-most-important Joplin would say, freedom’s just another word for not having a campaign to lose. I’m going to let Mike be Mike again. That means interesting projects and reports on Spin City about them. Hope you enjoy it.