It Could Have Been Worse...

There he goes again:

Jerry Lewis makes another anti-gay slur

CANBERRA, Australia - Jerry Lewis made an anti-gay slur on Australian television similar to one he apologized for using on his annual telethon a year ago.

Following a news conference in Sydney Friday, Lewis, 82, was asked by a Network Ten national TV reporter for his opinion on the Australian nation sport of cricket.

"Oh, cricket? It's a f-- game. What are you, nuts?" Lewis replied.

The network broadcast the comment in full on its Friday evening news bulletin along with footage of Lewis handling an imaginary cricket bat with an effeminate gesture.

...

Lewis was still in Australia on Saturday and has performances booked there through Nov. 1. His Australian spokeswoman Julie Cavanagh said he did not intend to comment.

The comedian held Friday's news conference to promote his latest stage show that is touring Australia. It is a retrospective of his career that includes show tunes with a 24-piece band, excerpts from his scores of movies and television shows, and his trademark slapstick comedy.

I think the story misses the real point: Lewis didn't just insult gays, he insulted the entire country of Australia. About the only thing he didn't do was tell them that Vegemite sucks and accuse them of being a bunch of sheep-rapers. (Punchline: "The sheep's a liar!")

So, let's see what he managed to do here: He offended the "show tunes" crowd (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That) that would be many of the the paying customers coming to see his stage show (Show Biz Rule #1: Don't offend your paying customers! You can't afford to lose any of them!). And he offended Australia's national sport (probably a different subset of the Australian population, although I'm sure that some of the "show tunes" people are also cricket fans). And of course, it's not just their national sport, but that of the UK and India as well. So in one fell swoop, he managed to offend about a billion people. Nice work, Jerry.

As noted in the subject title, it could have been worse: He could have offended soccer fans (who are well known for their hooliganism), which would have included everyone in the world outside of the U.S. and Canada. Then again, soccer fans don't carry wooden bats...

Solidarity With Joe the Plumber

I agree 100% with Iowahawk's post. And thanks to him for his kind permission to use this graphic to show my solidarity with Joe the Plumber.

Here's a comment I left at the US News site on a post by Michael Barone:

The Mask Slips

Joe's question just caused Obama to slip and accidentally reveal his true socialist nature. He might just as well have told Joe, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Yup, just gonna spread that wealth around. It's the Soviet -- err, American way.

The inquisition that the Tanning-Bed Media has visited upon a private citizen who merely dared ask a question of the Obamessiah has been shameful. Too bad they didn't have the professional ethics to investigate Obama himself anywhere near as thoroughly! And this is the kind of fate that the rest of us can expect from Obama's lapdog media and his Kossacks and other digital brownshirts if he is elected.

I AM JOE! It's the "I Am Spartacus" of 2008. Let our elite media overlords know that we won't go quietly!

Curious Ad Strategy

In case you haven't heard, Oliver Stone has made a movie about George W. Bush that is coming out soon. It stars Josh Brolin in the title role. Brolin is the son of Hollywood actor James Brolin and the stepson of liberal Hollywood icon Barbra Streisand. The movie appears to be ready to perpetuate all of the liberal tropes about Bush, and will no doubt be just as fair and accurate [eye roll] as the rest of Stone's films have been. Just from the ads I've seen, Brolin appears to play Bush as a complete idiot who somehow stumbled into power; we are shown how uncouth Brolin's Bush character is by the fact that during meals, he talks with his mouth full.

The odd thing is that the film company has been running saturation ads for the movie on Fox News Channel. I don't know how many ads they're running for it on CNN (which I don't watch because it leans left) or MSNBC (which leans so far left that it's lying on its left side), but the audiences for those channels would seem to be far more likely to go to the theater to watch a Bush-bashing flick. Running ads for W. on Fox News is about as much of a waste of money as some of those loans that Fannie Mae was giving out.

And then there's the question of whether the loony left people really want to see a film about Bush. The typical response from those people to seeing or hearing about Bush is identical to the people of Oceania in George Orwell's book 1984 when they see Emmanuel Goldstein on their telescreens: They stand up and bay out their rage during the Two Minutes Hate. I suspect that there will be more than one incident of audience participation when this movie hits the theaters, because they just won't be able to help themselves.

Last thought: The ad ends with the claim "Based on a true story." Yeah, right. Here's your "true story": George W. Bush was twice elected President of the United States, and Hollywood liberals hate his guts. Anything beyond that from Oliver Stone is likely to be fiction at best.

14,164 Minus 8,579 Equals?

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the New York Stock Exchange's all-time record high of 14,164. It was not a happy anniversary, however, as the Dow-Jones continued its frenzied plunge, losing another 679 points to fall to 8,579, a loss over the past year of 5,585 points, about 39% of the stocks' value. Even worse, it doesn't appear that the bottom has been reached, as stock markets around the world continue to plummet.

The equation in today's blog post title is more rhetorical than mathematical. The real question is how it will play out in the upcoming election. A lot of people who have lost small fortunes in the past few weeks are going to be very, very angry, and somebody is going to get the blame. They won't connect the dots and see the malfeasance of various Democrats like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank who enabled and exacerbated the housing crisis; they'll just say "Bush is in the White House, so it must be the Republicans' fault!"

I'm afraid that Barack Obama will benefit from the anger of the middle-class voter who has been watching his retirement funds evaporate faster than a puddle in Baghdad, despite the fact that the policies that Obama is likely to implement will probably make the situation worse, not better. In a panicky market, however, it's unlikely that the voters will be any more rational than the traders on Wall Street.

One thing's for sure: I wouldn't want to be one of those Wall Street wheeler-dealers when the Obama administration's Justice Department starts trying "economic criminals." And yes, I have already heard that term bandied about, albeit by Ralph Nader rather than any mainstream Democrat. However, if Obama is elected and brings his pals along with him (Secretary of Education William Ayers, anyone?), Nader will be a typical mainstream voice of that administration.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Here's What Real Justice Would Look Like

It's too bad for Skylar Deleon that Johnnie Cochran is dead, because it sure sounds like he could use a better lawyer:

Defense in SoCal yacht killings says client did it

Defending a man accused of killing three people, attorney Gary Pohlson took an odd angle in his opening statement.

He said his client is "guilty of all three murders."

Pohlson told a jury Tuesday that Skylar Deleon killed Arizona couple Tom and Jackie Hawkins, who were thrown off their yacht and bound to an anchor. He also killed another man he met in a work furlough program, Pohlson admitted. But the lawyer argued his client should not die for his crimes.

"My goal is simply to save Skylar Deleon's life," Pohlson said in a 15-minute opening statement.

Riiiiiiiight. This guy deliberately murdered the couple in order to steal their yacht, by tying them to the anchor and throwing it overboard. You know what they really ought to do to him? They should take him out beyond the 12-mile limit, tie him to an anchor and throw him overboard, just like he did to that couple. That would be justice. Although I might be a bit more merciful: I'd give him a wet suit and an oxygen tank with an hour's worth of oxygen, just so that he would have time to think about what he did. Of course, he'd probably be crushed to death by the water pressure before he ran out of oxygen. Gosh, that would be a shame. But I wouldn't shed any tears for him.

How I Spent Monday Afternoon

I went to the Sarah Palin rally at Germain Arena in Estero yesterday. The rally itself was great. Getting in and getting out were stone cold hassles.

I went with one of my co-workers and her nephew. We got to the Arena around 12:30, and ended up parking at the end of nowhere in the Miromar Outlets parking lot. After a lengthy walk, we found the end of the snaking line to get into the arena. Here is how it looked when we started out:



That's also near the area where I got up close and personal with the pavement. When we were getting to the end of the line, there was a small hole in the ground by the curb, camouflaged by the grass. I tripped over it and fell, landing on my left knee and left hand. I ended up with a small scrape on the palm of my hand and thought at the time that was the worst of it.

The people in the crowd were a cross-section of southwest Florida, although I saw very few minorities. There were a lot of women of all ages, many wearing Sarah Palin t-shirts or buttons. There were also a handful of hippie-looking Obama supporters there to protest. They were about as welcome as a Red Sox fan in Yankee Stadium, or vice versa.

Anyway, we followed the long, snaking line as it wound back and forth, and about 2:15, we finally got to the front door. We were lucky; a lot of the people behind us got turned away because the arena was full. When we got to the door, we spotted this lady. I liked her sign:



When we got into the arena, we had to go through the metal detectors but nobody was checking tickets. The arena has a capacity of 7,000, and there were at least several hundred people on the floor as well. Needless to say, by the time we got in, there were no visible seats left, and no more people were being allowed on the floor. I managed to find some seats in the very last row, directly behind the podium: The worst seats in the place, in other words. On the other hand, I did make it in. The people I went with ended up at the top of the next section over, since Marcella's nephew knew some of the cops running security.

There were a few speeches by other Florida politicians, and then, finally, Sarah Palin made her entrance to thunderous applause from the crowd. I didn't get any good pictures inside, unfortunately. This is the best one I got:



Other then a few protesters, who were widely jeered by the crowd, the rest of us were receptive to Gov. Palin's speech. The crowd was very loud and enthusiastic. Afterward, she shook hands and signed autographs for some of the lucky people on the floor by the podium.

Then it was time to face the gauntlet of getting out. I swear, whoever set the event up did a terrible job. There should have been cops directing traffic out of the arena and the nearby parking lot. There was nothing, and it took us more than an hour to get out of the parking lot.

I noticed that my right ankle was getting more and more sore as we inched our way out of the parking lot. I dropped the others off at their cars and drove home, and when I finally got there, two hours after leaving the arena, I found that my ankle was so sore that it hurt to walk on it. There wasn't any real swelling, and it obviously wasn't broken or I wouldn't have been able to walk all over hell and gone earlier; it had just stiffened up. I took some aspirins and elevated it, but by work time, it was still too sore to walk on, so I called out. It's feeling better today, so hopefully I'll be able to go to work tonight.

Just A Little Tease

I've got something interesting coming up this afternoon. There might even be pictures, depending on whether I'm allowed to bring my camera or not. It's gonna play hell with my sleep schedule, but sometimes, you just have to reach out and grab the brass ring.

All will be explained in good time.

Hard Times On Lake Michigan

Three of the eight teams that made the Major League Baseball playoffs are located in cities on Lake Michigan: The Chicago Cubs, the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers. After tonight's games, those three teams are a combined 0-5. Maybe it's something in the water?

Both the Cubs and the Brewers find themselves in an 0-2 hole, a dire situation in a best-of-five series. This is especially stunning for fans of the Cubs, who have lost their two games at home to the Los Angeles Dodgers by a combined score of 17-5. They now have to go to L.A. and win two games if they want to bring the series back to Chicago on Tuesday.

I switched over to the end of the Cubs-Dodgers game after the debate and the Cubs were down 7-1. The camera crew focused in on various distraught Cubs fans in the stands, including one fellow who was wearing half a watermelon on top of his head with a big C carved into the front. You had to feel bad for them, because their team had played so well during the regular season, and they certainly weren't expecting the Cubs to come out and play so poorly in the first two games of the series. Then again, these are Cubs fans, who have a century-long history of disappointment since their last World Series win. Barring a longshot comeback (maybe a 15% chance), that history will be extended another year.

Fire Bad! Fire Bad!

Things are dumb all over:

In Wisconsin: Man gets burned while using lighter to siphon gas

In Rhode Island: What a show: Cigarette sets off fireworks in car

And talk about a perfect web ad! There's one with both of those stories for some mortgage company, with fireworks going off in the background. It made me snicker.

(The post title references the late Phil Hartman's Frankenstein character on Saturday Night Live several years ago.)