Do You Know Where Your Pumpkins Are?

(Photographer Unknown)

We Can Only Hope

Redistribution of Snacks

Sydney Brillo Duodenum loves him some snacks: Doritos, peanut M&Ms, bananas, Circus Peanuts, beer (yes, beer can be a snack), popcorn, Funions. He maintains a well stocked cubby of items for himself and his children. The acquisition, maintenance, hoarding and careful consumption of snacks encompasses a good portion of SBD's American story. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he lives for the snacks. Snacks are representative of his status in life. A typical upper class existence, really.

That's why he weeps for Rebecca Johnston, one of Barack Obama's middle class American stories, a mother featured in his half hour television infomercial. While a mysterious unknown videographer, let's call her Leni Riefenstahl, follows Ms. Johnston around her newer home in a suburb of Kansas City, MO, purchased just prior to the Clinton Technology Crash, and to which she and her husband fled, so, as Obama states in narration, without a trace of irony, "she could send her children to good schools," we see her in her kitchen, the most hallowed of American spaces, before a side-by-side refrigerator.

At approximately 3 minutes into the advertisement, Ms. Johnston opens her refrigerator and pointing to each shelf on the inside of the door, states:

"This is where our snacks would go. Gabriela, and then Nathan and then my husband and I, and my daughter, and Ethan my son."

The mind reels. "This is where our snacks WOULD go." No clearer sign of the pending Depression than that, friends. A barely stocked refrigerator snack door. God only knows the depletion in the dry goods closet. Ms. Johnston must be too embarrassed to reveal that to Ms. Riefenstahl.

More heart rending is that they have arrived at this bare minimum of snackery at the expense of other things, such as medical attention to her husband's crumbling knee. But, as she says, "He has a torn ACL and meniscus that he walks around with everyday. He was going to have the surgery in June, but we couldn't really afford for him to get the disability pay." Senator Obama tells us "And so they put off the operation, to take care of other things." The snacks.

God Bless These People. AND GODDAMN GEORGE W. BUSH!!! That bastard probably has an entire White House staff just to handle his snacking.

During these dark ages under Bush, her family, upon opening the frig door, has learned that, "If they know this is it for them, for the whole week, then they will make it last longer." The silence of the snacks.

A lower intake of snacks has weakened Ms. Johnston's vicissitude: "I think everybody feels the same way, they would like to see an end in sight to all the worry and the chaos of everyday living. Trying to make ends meet. OK, how much are we bringing in this week?"

It is a pity that Ms. Johnston does not have access to facilities such as they have in Switzerland, which would be more than willing to relieve her of her endless day-to-day existence of monitoring the snacks.

Senator Obama tells us that the Johnstons are not the only ones with a dearth of snacks: "All across the country, I've met families just like Rebecca's getting the kids to school, meeting their mortgage payments, fighting for their families."

Fighting for the snacks.

But Senator Obama has a plan. As he states earlier in the advertisement:

"I will also lay out in specific detail what I'll do as president to restore the long-term health of our economy and our middle class and how I'll make the decisions to get us there."

And it's obvious: he will redistribute the snacks. My snacks, specifically.

And what of John McCain? What does he know about snacks and the bare snack shelves? This is a man whose war injuries don't even allow him to pull a Dorito out of a bag and place it in his mouth without all kinds of gymnastic maneuvers. John McCain is not a snacker. He does not GET IT. Nevertheless, he is beholden to Upper Class Snackers, such as Sydney Brillo Duodenum.

Once Obama has redistributed the snacks, everyone will have enough money to repair their knees and, well, just be able to deal with everyday life. After all, that is what truly afflicts the middle class: everyday life. And that is criminal.

Your Government At Work

Sydney Brillo Duodenum offers a small quiz this morning. Below is the full text of a press release. See if you can figure out which government agency released it.

Today Yum! Brands, Inc. has taken a great step forward in educating families about the content of the food they are consuming. Yum! Brands is the first national restaurant chain to voluntarily make this information available on their menu boards. As the world’s largest restaurant company in terms of system restaurants, with more than 35,000 locations in over 100 countriesand territories, Yum’s commitment will truly influence the decisions—and eating habits-- of millions of customers. This will not only be helpful for parents in making healthier choices, but hopefully moves us one step closer to eradicating the epidemic of childhood obesity.

Well, of course, there is no fooling Sydney Brillo Duodenum's readership. Who else but a Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission would have something to say about the posting of calorie counts in Taco Bell restaurants?

LA Crimes

To some Rashid Khalidi is a leading Palestinian scholar and activist. To others he is an Israel-hating terrorist mouth piece. To some he is a poor researcher and to others a hack. SBD is content to call him a polarizing figure, perhaps even a radical (he teaches at Columbia, for pete's sake), which then makes it no surprise that Barack Obama would be his friend, associate, drinking buddy and possible Facebook Favorite. Well, in the words of the Senator: "I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy . . . So we gotta be careful about guilt by association.” Mmmmm, no, we don't "gotta be careful." That's how politics works, Senator. For example, what's with Obama's kids and their ties to the children of radical anti-Americans?

Anyway, it has come up AGAIN that there is a video out there showing Senator Obama all chummy and lovey with Mr. Khalidi at a going away (not far enough, apparently) party before he took up his position at Columbia. SBD would provide a link to the video because he's not careful about guilt by association but the video is being withheld by a conspiratorial, anti-democratic group operating under the name Los Angeles Times.

"The Los Angeles Times did not publish the videotape because it was provided to us by a confidential source who did so on the condition that we not release it," said the newspaper's editor, Russ Stanton. "The Times keeps its promises to sources."

Syndey Brillo Duodenum is impressed with the cleverness of this approach. In order to ensure that a possibly damning video of one's preferred candidate is not seen by the public before they vote on whether to elect that same candidate, the best method to suppress the information is to supply it to a major metropolitan newspaper on the condition that they not publish or show the contents of the video. Damned, damned clever.

Nevertheless, Sydney Brillo Duodenum must call on Senator Obama to demand that the LA Times release the full tape and transcript so that the Senator is not complicit in the attempt to cover up another of his unfortunate associations, which he has claimed to be nothing more than the knowledge a leaf in Fall has of another leaf as it passes a branch on its way to the ground.

You may still ask: why does it matter? Well, SBD asks how could it not possibly matter? SBD is fairly sick of perfectly reasonable questions be dismissed out of hand these days.

Guilt by association? Well, stop associating with the guilty.

Second Bill of Rights

Well, it seems the Old Boys forgot a few things way back when:

Senator Obama's call for a middle-class rescue plan comes a day after The Blade published a Page 1 open letter to the candidate welcoming him to Toledo and inviting him to endorse a 'Second Bill of Rights' that includes Americans' right to a job where they live.

Mr. Obama responded to The Blade's question by agreeing that every American willing to work should be able to find a job at a living wage. But he stopped short of accepting that as a right.

U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D. Toledo) whipped the crowd up before Mr. Obama took the stage yesterday telling them that America needed a Second Bill of Rights guaranteeing all Americans a job, health care, homes, an education, and a fair playing field for business and farmers.

Since the topic has been raised more formerly elsewhere and seems to be a popular point of discussion among socialists and changers and hopers, Sydney Brillo Duodenum puts forth his own suggestions for items to be included in any Second Bill of Rights:

The right to kill those who displease SBD.

The right to sleep with SBD's neighbors' wives.

The right to be confortable.

The right to take SBD's neighbors' possessions if they are shiny and new and his stuff is old.

The right to use SBD's neighbor's family room and watch his favorite shows on their 50" plasma screen TV.

The right to take whatever he wants out of people's cars or houses if they leave their doors unlocked.

The right to the exclusive use of the handicapped stall in the men's room.

The right to put an addition on his home and have the government pay for it.

The right to keep other people from saying things SBD disagrees with.

The right to make up rights on the fly.

Raising the Future

Another weekend of Cub Scout Webelos (We Be Loyal Scouts) camping in the wilds of suburban Maryland on a small tract of reserved farmland surrounded by shiny new, foreclosed homes. The weather was perfect for instilling a love of the outdoors in a group of ten year olds - torrential downpours, wind, and increasing cold. Coupled with a leaking tent and a spider and mouse infested outhouse, the making of life-long scouts was ensured. Other than demonstrate what perfect asses we are, the purpose of the trip was to introduce the Webelos to real live Boy Scouts and to try to finagle an invitation to join their very distinguished troop. Whereas in Cub Scouts the parents hover over their sons, correcting their every move and utterance and asking them ten times if they are sure they don’t want to wear the $90 rain pants from REI, the Boy Scouts are pretty much left to their own devices, with a modicum of adult supervision. Case in point: the Boy Scout seen drudging up a mud slicked hill with 50 pounds of crap on his back wearing shorts, a t-shirt and black Merrill slip-on shoes. He has a parent somewhere who let him leave the house like that. But that kid had the hard look of the independent, positive mind on his face. So, it is not only a big transition for the Cub Scouts but for their parents as well.

Speaking of such, one usually finds that the parents attending these campouts are special people and SBD has become fully immersed in the peccadilloes, idiosyncrasies and skills of those in his son’s own Pack, such as who is the champion snorer, who is Julia Child behind the white gas Coleman stove, who is guaranteed to arrive without a flashlight, who is guaranteed to drop a deuce five feet from his tent instead of walking the hundred yards or so to the outhouse, and who is a crazy ax wielding, wood chopping fiend (full disclosure: SBD). On this particular weekend, there were parents and children from another Pack camping with us. It’s always a joy to discover such parents’ specialness because when you are camping, the more expertise on hand, the better the whole group does. A few examples with us this weekend:

• Mr. F16 Fighter Pilot. A multi-skilled dogfighter, this one. He spent the better part of Saturday in wet cotton jeans, a wet cotton rugby shirt, soaked tennis sneakers and no hat, demonstrating exactly how not to survive in cold, rainy weather. But, being the multi-talented sort, his other specialty was sitting by the fire in a camp chair brought by another parent, asking if anyone knew any good jokes, and then, when one of the few moms on the trip was out of earshot, volunteering his best anal sex jokes. His third specialty was chasing everyone away from the fire because he was a supreme, unfunny pain in the ass.

• Mr. New Zealander. This man’s specialty was to adopt a haughty, I’m-from-a-small-puke-chunk-country-of-anti-nuclear-sheep-buggerers-but-I’m-still-better-than-you-amusing-Americans attitude and to thoroughly ignore all the other parents while sitting in the camp chairs they brought.

• Mr. Befuddled-Look. It all started with his attempts to construct his three room tent on top of the camp site’s original fire pit. ‘Nuff said on him.

In any event, the parents were informed that we were to stay out of the way and let our sons “hang” with the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts split themselves into patrols of 5-10 kids, where they work together on building catapults, experimenting with fire, playing suicide knives, and ensuring that no sapling is left unsnapped in the forest. The Cub Scouts were divided into smaller groups to make it easier to cook them up for dinner, er rather to serve them dinner cooked up by the Boy Scouts. Sydney Brillo Duodenum Jr. was assigned to the Chicken Cacciatore Patrol. This innovative group had come up with a method of natural refrigeration for the chicken they were to use in their dish. Using this method, one digs a hole, fills it with water, places an impermeable barrier over the water, then places the wrapped meat on the barrier, then covers the meat with another impermeable barrier, and then quickly builds a fire before the meat goes bad or is discovered by insects. Thus, did the Boy Scouts at Chicken Cacciatore Patrol dig a hole, fill it with water, place their unwrapped chicken pieces into the water in the hole, cover it with fallen leaves, and then return to it eight hours later. Needless to say, Sydney Brillo Duodenum Jr. and his mates were back at the adults’ “kitchen” requesting some of our buttered salmon and rice with cucumber and chick peas salad.

After dinner, the rain had ended and a cold, crisp clear sky was revealed. The whole group gathered in the troop's cabin for skits, songs and testimonials on the merits of joining the Boy Scouts. All very impressive and solid kids. Why the hell not join, right? The Boy Scouts organization will be 100 years old in 2010. It would be a damn shame to keep Sydney Brillo Duodenum Jr. away from that legacy of building leadership, character and life skills in young men. He sure as hell won't get any of that from his old man. The evening ended with a game of capture the flag played on a pitch black, fog-shrouded field. Casualties were kept to a minimum.

Sunday dawned and Sydney Brillo Duodenum was up early scouting for logs and chopping wood. He created a spectacular teepee style fire which could not withstand the probings, blowings, pushings, pryings and peeings of eight or so boys. The fire having been beaten into submission, the Pack reformed and moved like a bait ball down a hill and into a creek bed where they discovered a large wet, crumbling log, which they proceeded to smash with sticks, rocks and a trenching shovel until it was rotting pile of mush.

Your future leaders, my friends.

Science Marches On!

"The Stink in Farts Controls Blood Pressure"

“Now that we know hydrogen sulfide’s role in regulating blood pressure, it may be possible to design drug therapies that enhance its formation as an alternative to the current methods of treatment for hypertension,” said Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., a co-author of the study detailed in the Oct. 24th issue of the journal Science.

We shall the rue day this discovery was made.

Omens and Signs

First and foremost, Sydney Brillo Duodenum is a man of science, reason and rationality. Second and next, he is a superstitious, signs-mongering ignoramus. Under normal circumstances, these forces wage a subliminable duel for his attention as he makes his way through the day. Today, the superstitious ignoramus took some high ground.

First, while driving back from an early afternoon visit to the hospital attending to the family patriarch, along a well traveled city street, he glanced at a crumbling, empty red, late 19th-century brick building, encircled by a tall chain link fence, topped with barbed wire. A sure sign of urban renewal and developer bankruptcy. But, painted on the side of the building was a large Soviet-style propaganda rendering of His Most Merciful and Beknighted Saintedness, but where one might normally see big block lettering spelling out the word HOPE under his resolute, babyfuss-covered chin, giant block lettering spelled out the word VOTE. The salmon red, white and teal paint was dulled, dingy, chipped and alligatored from exposure to the scouring city elements. Locked behind a fence on a collapsing edifice, it appeared contained and muted. Struck so by the image, SBD saw it as an ill omen for The Chairman's coming investiture.

Later, the day still young, but your hero very much old and tired, he ventured from his office space to procure his 20 oz., afternoon ration of coffee from that great American success story, Starbucks. Knowing the tab would be $2.15, he searched his pocket for coins and pulled forth from his Blue BB pants a shiny, new State of Alaska 25-cent piece. Where had this come from? he had not purchased anything that day and SBD always inspects his change before putting it into his pocket. A collector of the state quarters, SBD knew that the Alaska series had been released in late August and was on the alert for its surfacing, but he did not think one would cross his path so soon.




This wonderful coin, with its image of a grizzly bear, Mount Denali back arched, and a limp, wet salmon, clutched mercilessly in its jaw. "Ah, Alaska!," SBD exclaimed to a colleague found on the line, who evidenced a slight look of disgust. The mere mention of Alaska these days brings to mind the bespeckled visage of That Palin Woman, who just this very morning he had seen live on MSNBC giving a speech about special needs children. A live Sarah Palin. It was somewhat shocking. A free flowing, unedited, confident, eloquent, wonkish Gov. Palin. On MSNBC, no less. And there in Starbucks, a shiny new Alaska quarter! The bear - a sow, perhaps - with the shiny limp salmon in its mouth. A sign, my friends.

Forces are clearly at work in the land. The signs are everywhere. Except on SBD's front lawn. He still needs to get a McCain-Palin lawn sign. Maybe a banner.

Barbarians at the Gate

Charles Krauthammer endorses John McCain:

First, I'll have no truck with the phony case ginned up to rationalize voting for the most liberal and inexperienced presidential nominee in living memory. The "erratic" temperament issue, for example .... McCain the "erratic" is a cheap Obama talking point. The 40-year record testifies to McCain the stalwart.

[...]

The case for McCain is straightforward. The financial crisis has made us forget, or just blindly deny, how dangerous the world out there is. We have a generations-long struggle with Islamic jihadism. An apocalyptic soon-to-be-nuclear Iran. A nuclear-armed Pakistan in danger of fragmentation. A rising Russia pushing the limits of revanchism. Plus the sure-to-come Falklands-like surprise popping out of nowhere.

[...]

Who do you want answering that phone at 3 a.m.? A man who's been cramming on these issues for the past year, who's never had to make an executive decision affecting so much as a city, let alone the world? A foreign policy novice instinctively inclined to the flabbiest, most vaporous multilateralism (e.g., the Berlin Wall came down because of "a world that stands as one"), and who refers to the most deliberate act of war since Pearl Harbor as "the tragedy of 9/11," a term more appropriate for a bus accident?

Or do you want a man who is the most prepared, most knowledgeable, most serious foreign policy thinker in the United States Senate? A man who not only has the best instincts but has the honor and the courage to, yes, put country first, as when he carried the lonely fight for the surge that turned Iraq from catastrophic defeat into achievable strategic victory? There's just no comparison.

[...]

Today's economic crisis, like every other in our history, will in time pass. But the barbarians will still be at the gates. Whom do you want on the parapet? I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb.

Bush Resigns

In a shocking bit of gumshoe reporting, Sydney Brillo Duodenum's man-about-town Waldy Duester has come into possession of President George W. Bush's impending resignation speech. Duester is protecting his source, and despite its likely fakeness, it nevertheless has a sort of authenticty about it. It's not clear what effect, if any, this will have on the election.

Resignation Speech of President George W. Bush

Normally, I start these things out by saying, 'My Fellow Americans.' Not doing it this time. If the polls are any indication, I don't know who more than half of you are anymore. I do know something terrible has happened, and that you're really not fellow Americans any longer.I'll cut right to the chase here: I quit. Now before anyone gets all in a lather about me quitting to avoid impeachment, or to avoid prosecution or something, let me assure you: There's been no breaking of laws or impeachable offenses in this office.

The reason I'm quitting is simple. I'm fed up with you people. I'm fed up because you have no understanding of what's really going on in the world. Or of what's going on in this once great nation of ours. And the majority of you are too damned lazy to do your homework and figure it out. You've been sold a bill of goods by politicians and the news media.

Meanwhile, all you can do is whine about gas prices, and most of you are too stupid to realize that gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security.

We face real threats in the world. Don't give me this 'blood for oil' thing. If I were trading blood for oil I would've already seized Iraq's oil fields and let the rest of the country go to hell. And don't give me this 'Bush Lied...People Died' garbage either. If I were the liar you take me for, I could've easily had chemical weapons planted in Iraq so they could be 'discovered.' Instead, I owned up to the fact that the intelligence was faulty.

Let me remind you that the rest of the world thought Saddam had the goods, same as me. Let me also remind you that regime change in Iraq was official US policy before I came into office. Some guy named 'Clinton' established that policy. Bet you didn't know that, did you? Now some of you want to be led by a junior senator with no understanding of foreign policy or economics, and this nitwit says we should attack Pakistan, a nuclear ally. And then he wants to go to Iran and make peace with a terrorist who says he's going to destroy us. While he's doing that, he wants to give Iraq to al Qaeda, Afghanistan to the Taliban, Israel to the Palestinians, and your money to the IRS so the government can give welfare to illegal aliens, who he will make into citizens, so they can vote to re-elect him. He also thinks its okay for Iran to have nuclear weapons, and we should stop our foreign aid to Israel. Did you sleep through high school?You need to understand that we face a unique enemy. Back during the cold war, there were two major competing political and economic models squaring off. We won that war, but we did so because fundamentally, the Communists wanted to survive, just as we do. We were simply able to out-spend and out-tech them.

That's not the case this time. The soldiers of our new enemy don't care if they survive. In fact, they want to die. That would be fine, as long as they weren't also committed to taking as many of you with them as they can. But they are. They want to kill you, and they are all over the globe.You should be grateful that they haven't gotten any more of us here in the United States since September 11. But you're not. That's because you've got no idea how hard a small number of intelligence, military, law enforcement, and homeland security people have worked to make sure of that. When this whole mess started, I warned you that this would be a long and difficult fight. I'm disappointed how many of you people think a long and difficult fight amounts to a single season of 'Survivor.'

Instead, you've grown impatient. You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do. You think that wars should last a few months, a few years, tops.Making matters worse, you actively support those who help the enemy. Every time you buy the New York Times, every time you send a donation to a cut-and-run Democrat's political campaign, you might just as well Fed Ex a grenade launcher to a Jihadist. It amounts to the same thing.In this day and age, it's easy enough to find the truth. It's all over the Internet. It just isn't on the pages of the New York Times, USA Today, or on NBC News. But even if it were, I doubt you'd be any smarter. Most of you would rather watch American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.I could say more about your expectations that the government will always be there to bail you out, even if you're too stupid to leave a city that's below sea level and has a hurricane approaching.

I could say more about your insane belief that government, not your own wallet, is where the money comes from. But I've come to the conclusion that were I to do so, it would sail right over your heads.So I quit. I'm going back to Crawford. I've got an energy-efficient house down there (Al Gore could only dream) and the capability to be fully self-sufficient for years. No one ever heard of Crawford before I got elected, and as soon as I'm done here pretty much no one will ever hear of it again. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to die of old age before the last pillars of America fall.

Oh, and by the way, Cheney's quitting too. That means Pelosi is your new President. You asked for it. Watch what she does carefully, because I still have a glimmer of hope that there are just enough of you remaining who are smart enough to turn this thing around in 2008.So that's it. God bless what's left of America.Some of you know what I mean. The rest of you, well.PS - You might want to start learning Farsi, and buy a Koran.

First Taste

Budweiser American Ale

Marketing BS: "Carefully brewed with barley from America's heartland and cascade hops from the Pacific Northwest, this rich amber-colored ale has robust flavor and a distinctive, hoppy finish."

Translation of Marketing BS: Our company was recently purchased by an amorphous Belgian brewer with the warm and personal name of InBev and, in order to suck up to pissed off Americans, who believe that one of their cherished brands has been stolen from them, we offer this "new" beer, which is really just a heavily dyed version of our regular Budweiser brew, but we call it "American" and charge an extra dollar or two, which will be used to meet the increasing demands of Europe's unrealistic and in the long term disastrous social welfare programs.

Source: Wagshalls Delicatesan, Washington, D.C.

Setting: Family room couch

Bottle: Tootsie Roll Brown or Shit Brown, depending on your mood. Nice heft. Narrow spout. Slight lip just below neck allows firm placement of index finger and thumb on bottle - crucial detail four beers into a six, ensuring firm grasp and lessening chances of dropping the bottle and exposing oneself as a drunk ass.

Label: Dried blood red background with white and gold lettering using a font that could be Franklin Gothic Medium. Conservative use of the Budweiser eagle.

The Cap: Releases without drama. Assuming proper chilling, one may observe a fine mist gathering in the neck of the bottle. It stays low and in the bottle, perhaps trapping the beer's essence.

Alcohol Content: Unknown.

Method of Imbibation: Bottle to lips.

First Swig: Robust; citrusy; distinctive hoppy finish. Heavy but not oppressive. It's not a meal. Tongue remains active and inquires as to where to get more.

Competition: Anything made by Sam Adams

Recommendation: Yeah, sure, buy some.

Why Sydney Brillo Duodenum Is An Insufferable Jerk

Sydney Brillo Duodenum is an insufferable jerk because when his mother, having, as part of an excursion related to the reunion of her college class, visited Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, the former home of Marjorie Merriweather Post, heiress and founder of General Foods and wife of Joseph Davies, useful idiot and pro-Soviet US ambassador in the 30s to the Soviet Union, and now a museum housing Russian porcelains and Faberge eggs, procured from the gift shop and presented to him, on the night he visits with his father before he has open heart surgery, a white and dark chocolate lollipop molded in the likeness of Vladimir Ilych Lenin, he considers the likeness, thinks about whether the chocolate is any good, decides it looks like it has resided on the counter near children's inquisitive hands for too long, but more importantly suffers a fatal defect in design, informs his mother first, that Lenin was no more than five feet one inch in height, and second, that he will not accept the chocolate lollipop in the likeness of V.I. Lenin because V.I. Lenin is one of histories greatest criminals and Sydney Brillo Duodenum will not have anything to do with the reduction of those crimes into a sweet gift shop treat, even though doing so will cause a look of deep hurt to spread across the face of his dear mother, who thinks her son may very well be the humorless bastard his sisters think he is.

Guilty feelings generated by such an interaction are easily washed away by nursing two fingers of 12 year old Macallan while watching two episodes of South Park.

Sticks and Stones

Over the past weekend, Sydney Brillo Duodenum opined, jocularly, that John McCain's naming of Barack Obama as an out-of-the-closet socialist because of his redistributionist agenda would be described in a few short days as racist.

Well. Although not a likely Pulitzer winner by any measure, on Wednesday (SBD is half a day short in his prediction), a Mr. Lewis Diuguid, a columnist for the Kansas City Star and member of its editorial board, stated in no uncertain terms that:

"The "socialist" label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots. J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.

Those freedom fighters included the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement; W.E.B. Du Bois, who in 1909 helped found the NAACP which is still the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization; Paul Robeson, a famous singer, actor and political activist who in the 1930s became involved in national and international movements for better labor relations, peace and racial justice; and A. Philip Randolph, who founded and was the longtime head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a leading advocate for civil rights for African Americans.

McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.

Shame on McCain and Palin."

Mr. Diuguid's biography is nothing special as far as trained journalists go, but the chances are quite fine that he represents a fair number of academic and media types and those whose profession it is to be concerned about "communities." In other words, he's not alone in this thought. It frames his world view and reveals what he expects from people not like himself.

In any event, he's absolutely right. Isn't obvious that Senator Obama has tried, tried, tried to transcend race this entire election? Look how He has tried to transcend His racist and socialist background. On His tour of personal discovery, the good Senator has shed His mentor and pastor of 20 years, Rev. Wright, and His other nutjob man in black Father Phlegm er Felcher or whatever his name is. Both racists of the worst sort. Twenty years in those pews, consuming a steady diet of black liberation theology (a sort of socialism is it not?) do not make Barack Obama a racist. Just like cavorting with an unrepentent Marxist and all-around rabblerousing, bomb-making, Constitution hating education professor does not make the Freshman senator a socialist. besides he hasn't spoken to Ayers since 2005, when he only 44. Nor does His playacting at New Party development in Chicago make Him a socialist, not to mention His affiliation with fascist friends of the PLO make Him a national socialist. He tried so hard to dissociate Himself from ACORN, which specializes in radicalizing communities with hate speech in an effort to get them to the voting palace. Barack Obama has moved past His past. He is not a racist socialist. How do we know? Well, He said He has. And others have attested to it. As one transformational figure has said, He's a "transformational figure." Apparantly, all the Senator's great deeds ar ein the future. And still, McCain and his ilk keep framing things in terms of race by turning to that tired old racist ploy of discussing one's opponent's economic plans. Raw, filthy historical racism. After all, says Diuguid, look at how all those socialists were treated. Hoover didn't give a rat's ass about Russian or East German or Chinese or Vietnamese or Cuban or Puerto Rican socialist/commie bastards, just the socialist/commie bastards who happened to be black.

Anyway, what better way to keep fence sitters and undecideds and independent thumbsuckers in baby-me mode until election day than by implying they are racists if they vote for such obvious racists as John McCracker and Sarah Paleskin.

The fact remains that at this point in the race, the only stone that Sen. McCain has in arsenal of personal destruction is the name of Unrepentent Socialist. He must beat Him with it mercilessly. It's high time that Senator McCain live up to his reputation as a mean SOB and fight like one. It's possible that's one more thing the press has been wrong about. Frankly, though, it doesn't matter what McCain calls Him because the past 20 months have destroyed any common language this country once shared. A further sign, perhaps, of the coming of the Transformational Figure.

Where is this man?

John McCain, September 5, 2008:

I'm going to fight for my cause every day as your President. I'm going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I'm an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me.

Fight with me.

Fight for what's right for our country.

Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Fight for our children's future.

Fight for justice and opportunity for all.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.

Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight.

Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

We're Cooked

Charlie Cook:

Obama is now leading in every state that Al Gore and John Kerry both won, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and he is ahead in Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico, the three states that went once but not twice for Democrats in 2000 and 2004. He is also ahead in Florida, Colorado and Virginia. If that weren't enough (and it is), he's running basically even in Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio, and even threatening in Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia.

As things are going now, this election would appear to be on a track to match Bill Clinton's 1992 5.6 percent margin over President George H.W. Bush, the question is whether it gets to Bush's 1988 7.7 percent win over Michael Dukakis or Clinton's 8.5 percent win over Robert Dole in 1996.

Maybe some cataclysmic event occurs in the next two weeks that changes the trajectory of this election, but to override these factors, it would have to be very, very big.

Lunch

One of Those Days

Pipe

Get your shirt, hat, mug, stationary, picture, greeting cards now! Profits from sales go to Joe to help him pay off his tax lien.

Update: Joe the Outlaw

He is an outlaw in the same sense that our founders were outlaws. He lives outside the regulations of the state because these regulations attack his freedom and property. It was to end systems such as this that the American revolution came to be. And yet we find ourselves back in exactly the same system, and one incredibly worse in every way.

Update 2:

Hey Saul? Fuck You!

Calamity Joe

Joe "God Bless 'Em" Biden:

Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

There are international incidences and then there are international incidences.

Let's look back to 2001.

There's this type of incident: April 2001 - a US signals reconnaisance aircraft, otherwise known as a spy plane was forced to land in China after colliding with a Chinese intercepter. This was the first international test of the Bush administration, which had made a point of confronting the Chinese on human rights and Taiwan and sending aid and munitions to Iraq, after eight years of Bill Clinton fellating the Chinese. Now, whether the Chinese deliberately bumped the US plane or not remains in doubt only for the delusional, but ten days later, the 24 crewmen had been released and President Bush had sent a letter apologizing for entering Chinese airspace and landing without authorization. The Chinese, of course, translated that into a complete admission of guilt - literally. The United States then paid the Chinese $35,000 to reimburse their cost of feeding and lodging the hostages, er the plane's crew, and then forced us to dismantle and cart out the aircraft instead of flying it out of Chinese territory.

And then there's this type of incident: September 11, 2001

There are test takers and there are test givers. But it's all in how you prepare, eh?

Flowers and Sunshine!

It's cut and paste Monday, so Sydney Brillo Duodenum presents choice parts of a Barron's article by Gene Epstein entitled "Sorry, Chicken Little." Epstein argues that the economy "may not be as bad as everyone thinks" and "it's possible that the downturn could prove to be one of the briefest and mildest on record."

If Mr. Epstein is correct, one of two things will happen.

1. These things will come to pass and President Obama will receive all the credit, attribute them to his "pohlasays" and embark on a radical socialistic agenda.

or

2. These things will not come to pass, allowing President Obama to immediately embark on his radical socialistic agenda.

Some main points:

• "The main positive is the huge boost to consumer spending that will come from the decline in energy costs."



• "The energy payback will be enormous. This economic shock absorber should help offset the cruel blows of the credit crunch and declining wealth from equities and homes.



• The consensus of the 10 most optimistic forecasts in the latest survey published by Kansas City-based Blue Chip Economic Indicators is that a recession began in this year's third quarter and will persist through 2009's first three months. "However, the average of the 10 most optimistic predictions put economic expansion at an annual rate of 0.6% in both 2008's third and fourth quarters."



• "Labor income should rise. The projected jobless rate of 6.2% is still fairly low by historical standards, and should be enough to lift wages and salaries."



• "The expansion phase of this business cycle produced relatively modest increases in capital investment. Thus, there's no capital overhang to work off. Manufacturing capacity, in high-tech and other industries, grew at a subdued rate. Sometime in 2009, then, capital investment could start contributing to growth."



• "net exports should keep boosting gross domestic product growth through 2009, although at a diminished rate."



• "the only quarter of contraction . . . will have been 2007's fourth, in which GDP fell at an annualized 0.2%. The economy won't be great through the end of 2009, but it should do far better than the gloom-mongers expect."

A boring list:

Source: Barrons

A pretty chart!

That's News?

It's Sunday! The day Sydney Brillo Duodenum retrieves his The Washington Post and his The Washington Times from his the Walkway, secure in the knowledge that he now has everything he needs to start the week off prepared to meet whatever life doles out to The Him. Or specifically, whatever Sydney Brillo Dog doles out for him on his morning constitutional. The only reason Sydney Brillo Duodenum subscribes to the newspapers is so that he has a steady supply of tubular plastic newspaper bags, which act as the perfect mitt for picking up dog shit.

SBD supposes a secondary benefit to home newspaper delivery is that the paper itself may contain something in it that he doesn't already know. Today is not such a day.

Let's consider just the top of the page of both papers.

The Washington Times has a bold headline, in the fashion of an old school newspaper. You know, the kind that tries to sell itself by placing a bold headline at the top that announces in no uncertain terms, "This Is The One Story That Matters! Now Read It!"

"McCain calls Obama's tax policy socialism."

Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama of pursuing a socialist agenda and seeking to hide his intention to redistribute wealth as part of a massive government welfare program.

Sen. Obama "hit back" with this zinger: "The only 'welfare' in this campaign is John McCain's plan to give another $200 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest corporations in America." Thank you for proving Sen. McCain's point.

The story that remains unreported, though, is why it took Sen. McCain as long as it did to use That Word "socialism." One supposes that if knowledge of Bolshevack Obama's last 20 years in Chitown were better reported and more widely known by the bourgeoisie, Sen. McCain would not have had to rely on Plumberman to snake out the giant national hairwad. It doesn't matter: by Sunday evening, Sen. McCain will be called a red-baiting McCarthyite; by Monday lunchtime, Sen. Obama will be describing his economic plans as essentially Reaganesque; and by Tuesday afternoon, no one will be having this conversation because calling someone a socialist is racist.

Sen. McCommiebasher is, of course, exactly right in his assessment of Sen. Obolshevik.

And what of The Washington Post?

The Post likes to put its must reads on the upper right panel. Today they have for us this:

"Global Summits Planned to Tackle Economic Crisis"

Now here we find the socialist threat in another form - President Bush, overseer of the largest government expansion since FDR, planning "an emergency summit of leaders from the world's top economies to map out a response to the global financial crisis [and] urging a renewed effort to secure the basis of 'democratic capitalism.'" President Bush believes he can contain his European partners, slow them down with meetings, proclamations and process, but the bottomline remains: how can government take more control of the free markets. The Europeans see this as their big chance to direct all our financial futures, and in three short months they are likely to have sitting before them a president who could not agree more and who has eight years of Bushwackery for which to make amends.

It's True: The Best of America Is Not in Washington, D.C.

It's quite obvious to Sydney Brillo Duodenum, who was born in D.C., grew up in D.C. and now lives but a mile from the D.C. border, that Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, in stating that "the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C.," meant that what makes this country great is not the government (let's call it Washington, D.C., Inc.), but the people of this country, who drive it forward with their work, their families, and their bond to the Founding Principles that they are free and independent and have a right to pursue their individual happiness and safety. In most Americans, that forms a fundamental patriotism, love of country and hope for the future.

Only the assinine and immature would suggest that Gov. Palin was referring to D.C. as opposed to Washington, D.C., Inc. D.C. is a separate thing, a small, incredibly mismanaged but very proud aglomeration of Americans from all over the country mixing with third, fourth and fifth generation inhabitants. Away from the federal morass, it is a small town in many respects, albeit a very liberal small town. A good deal of the people in D.C. make a living working for Washington, D.C., Inc. As we have seen, a fair number of those people think that what's good for Washington, D.C., Inc. is good for the whole country. Certainly not.

Senator Palin said that, "We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation." She is speaking to them as one of them. Washington, D.C., Inc. is not pro-America. It is pro-Washington, D.C., Inc.

She continued; "This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom." She's speaking of the local, appealing to the local. She's drawing a contrast with Senator Obama who makes appeals to "the nation," to the national community, really the national commune in his mind, as held together by a strong guiding hand - Washington, D.C., Inc.

Mentioned above were the assinine and immature and so let's discuss Senator Biden, but briefly. Senator Biden trying, and aided and abetted by "the media," to turn Gov. Palin's fairly straight forward message into some monstrous, unforgiveable gaffe, bloviates that he is tired of being called unpatriotic, and he's tired of Senator Obama's patriotism being called into question and "We are one nation, under God, indivisible. We are all patriotic, we all love this country." It's very telling that Senator Biden reacts so sensitively, almost as one who occupies a corner suite in Washington, D.C., Inc. and not a resident of a D.C. And what of that type, that resident of a D.C.? Well, just yesterday, Sen. Biden was casting aspersions on the authenticity of Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher, the very type of American Gov. Palin was describing, a man drawn out of his house and to his front lawn to engage the presumptive CEO of Washington, D.C., Inc. with a sensible question about the disposition of the fruits of his labor. But of course, Senator Biden once told us that men like Samuel Joe Wurzelbacher are not patriotic because they are reluctant to pay their fair share of taxes.

McCain on Letterman

Tonight, McCain will appear on Letterman -- his 13th appearance -- and it will seal his fate and doom his campaign. Where it began, it shall end. Three weeks from the most important night of his life, John McCain and his closest advisors think it a worthy venture to travel to the Ed Sullivan theather to pay homage to a man who neither respects the nominee McCain, McCain's values nor the people McCain claims to represent in this election. Letterman has brutally attacked Sarah Palin. McCain does his running mate a disservice by appearing for that reason alone. And, no,we should not all relax and laugh it off. Something in this world should matter. Honor matters and must be, well, honored. Letterman's opening joke is this: Tonight, our audience is filled with State Troopers fired by Sarah Palin. Ba da bum. Uh?

Press reports have Senator McCain expressing nervousness on the show because he begged off a prior scheduled appearance in order to travel to Washington to engage the financial crisis. In both instances, he was mocked, neither deservedly.

If Letterman were a true friend, he would have understood that McCain could not "do comedy" as the economy crashed. He would have cut his longtime guest some slack. But Letterman is a selfish egomaniac and, being another person who is never told no, he was hurt. Yes, McCain went across town to give an interview to Katie Couric, who, despite her credentials being thinner than Sarah Palin's gams, is the presumptive head of the CBS News Dept. and an interview, again, as the economy was crashing, makes some sense.

Sydney Brillo Duodenum is an old student of Letterman's, watching him since he was on morning television, following him too late in the evening in college and, now 20 years later, deliberately avoiding his hackneyed schtick, but for a few nights a month. Letterman, always mean and nasty - that's the core of his humor - is now a mean, nasty, and vindictive old man, a condition that came upon him with the birth of his first child. Strange but true.

Letterman has mocked McCain and will continue to mock McCain. And when Senator Obama appears on Letterman for his "endorsement" a week or so before the election, McCain will have been burned again.

There is no one who watches Letterman whose vote is in doubt, no one who developed second thoughts because of Letterman's top ten strained jokes about McCain. Letterman's audience is narrow and coastal. Now, it is possible that McCain thinks by appearing on Letterman he gets some free national press. Indeed, let's have another round of mocking reports of the doddering old Republican presidential candidate dunking himself like some Hydrox cookie into liberals' favorite late night glass of warm milk. What can happen but that he will dissolve and be consumed. A little dramatic perhaps, but these are the events that tell a man's soul and concerns. SBD cannot fathom how a man of McCain's stature cannot see past this stovepiped approval circuit. What's next? Another visit to The View shrews?

McCain should not give a rat's ass about Letterman, should not apologize for bailing on his show, and should have gone on Leno to talk about American cars and their mechanics.

Tonight, McCain states the reason for missing the prior appearance: "I screwed up."

You certainly did and you certainly have, Senator. And while you may have screwed up, we remain screwed.

Update: Yes, indeed, McCain did himself a great service by allowing David Letterman to draw an equivalence between G. Gordon Liddy and William Ayers. Twins, those two are. Why, just the other day, SBD heard G. Gordon Liddy reminiscing about that nail bomb his girlfriend and some other friends were putting together for later deposit at a dinner dance attended by officers at a major U.S. military installation, but it blew up in their faces. Har, har. He's a professer of something now, so it doesn't matter. An instant classic in the moral relativism of the Left. And Letterman is of the Left.

Letterman then mocks McCain (again, to his face) about McCain's clearly ludicrous insinuation that Senator Obama and William Ayers had any kind of working relationship, asking, "Are they double-dating, are they going to dinner, what are they doing?" Letterman asked. "Are they driving across country?" No, Dave, they just spent ten years using a dead man's good money to corrupt the minds of children. Letterman reveals himself to be an asshat.

The A.P. tries to explain how this was good for McCain:

While McCain risked a rough appearance — "I haven't had so much fun since my
last interrogation," he said — it gave him the chance to show courage in the face of fire. Letterman reaches about 4 million people a night, a number sure to increase with McCain as guest. With clips on the Internet and Friday morning news, countless more people will undoubtedly learn about their encounter.

"Courage in the face of fire?" What?!?

McCain better hope that "countless more people" see his Al Smith Dinner routine than this shameful, suck-up to Letterman.

Update II: Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Mr. Supple

The Washington Post:

Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building.

[...]

Mr. Obama, as anyone who reads his books can tell, also has a sophisticated understanding of the world and America's place in it.

[...]

He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view.

[...]

Built to impress, with truly livable luxury. Smart angular lines cut a slim profile with a cushy, tight back and low track arms in supple matte black top-grain, semi-aniline leather that lends a designer look. Plump seat cushions let you sink in and stretch out, for all-day lounging.

Ok, that last paragraph actually describes the Crate & Barrel London Leather Sofa.

"Marinated in Extremism and Corruption"

The Baseball Crank:

Nearly all of Obama's appeal requires his supporters to take on faith that he will do things he has never done. But on the question of whether Obama will ever take a meaningful stand against corruption or waste in his own party or stand up to vested interests and ideological extremists on his own side, we have a certain answer: he has bypassed too many opportunities to do so already. To the contrary, Obama is so thoroughly marinated in extremism and corruption that it would be nearly impossibe to extricate himself and still have a meaningful identity left.

A great source if you have a John O. or a Carol C. or some other fencesitter in your life who has been hypnotized by the Swirling Empty Circle.

B-I-D-E-N -- A Four Letter Word

And now it's time for some petty funmaking of the other side:

"J-O-B-S -- A Three Letter Word"

What Will the Plumbers Eat Now?

Syndey Brillo Duodenum is in Bangor, Maine today (virtually) and is perusing the Bangor News.

According to this article - Drop in Price Has Lobstermen Worried - lobstermen are getting but $2-$2.50 a pound for their catch, which is uneconomic for them. They claim to need a minimum of $4 a pound to stay above water.

And who is to blame? Icelanders, of course.

Icelandic banks have been the key lenders to Canadian lobster processors, which handle approximately 70 percent of the October Maine catch. Because of the global cash crash, Icelandic banks cash freezers are now empty, thus they cannot lend anymore Icelandic icekrooners or whatever the hell currency they use (Saul Menowitz might know the answer to that - French Francs?) to the Canadian processors, who now have no cash to purchase large sea borne insects.

So, there may be a shortage of Maine lobster for all you rich plumbers out there. SBD's talking to you, Joe, you selfish, rich bastard!

The Taxman Cometh

The Heritage Foundation provides a fairly detailed comparison of the tax plans of Senator McCrashandburn and Senator Obamalamadingdong. Go here just before nap time.

For the lazy, Heritage offers some charts, presented below:

Oh, to be a Lilliputian!

After watching those giant intellects debate this evening, Sydney Brillo Duodenum asks: Who speaks for the Little People?

Oklahoma - Gateway to Space!

There are six space port facilities in the United States licensed by the FAA:

• Cape Canaveral, FL
• Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA
• Wallops Island, VA
• Kodiak Island, AK
• Mojave, CA

and

• BumFuck, Oklahoma, although on maps it can be located under the name Burns Flat, OK

Who knew?

Sydney Brillo Duodenum is raising Sydney Brillo Duodenum Jr. to be an astronaut. The prospect of having to travel to Oklahoma to see him launch one day is causing a reassessment of that plan.

Nut Job

Politico: "We don't need ACORN's help." -- Senator Barack Obama


Oh, really?

Planting Seeds of Disaster

Inside Obama's ACORN

ACORN Does Philadelphia

That's Not How Our Country Works

Mark Levin channels Fantasy Senator McCain in a debate with Senator Obama:

"You know, Senator Obama, you're just another tax-and-spend liberal ... actually, let me amend that, you're just another tax-and-spend socialist. Most Americans don't think their government should be 'spreading around the wealth.' They think hard-working people should get to keep most of what they earn. They're willing to pay their fair share in taxes to do that which the government is supposed to do. But they are not willing to fund all the five year plans and scores of schemes and your favorite groups like ACORN. They don't like the NEA destroying their school systems, ACLU-type judges running their country, and anarchy on their nation's borders. They are also patriotic people, and they resent when your Senate leader declares a war lost when we have young Americans winning the war on the battlefield. And you could not bring yourself to stand up for those troops and distance yourself from your leader. Americans are a great people and while they may need a helping hand from time-to-time, they don't want you running their lives. That's not the way our country works."

Hit Him With Your Stick

SBD's nemesis Saul Menowitz writes in with an anecdote about a conversation he had with his son. SBD always likes to hear about kids doing the right thing; about a parent's hard advice to their kid being followed through on.

Saul writes:

I think everything a boy needs to know about life can be learned by watching a Christmas Story: Don't stick your tongue on cold metal, your mom can be your best friend and protect you from the wrath of your father, TV and advertisers will take advantage of you, soap tastes horrible, stand up to bullies and yes, you will shoot your eye out with a BB gun. And I have proof of the second to last example:

Last night, as I was walking off the lacrosse field with my son, we had the following conversation:

Him: "Dad, there's this African guy named Napoo and he's from Africa and he's on my team."

Me: "Wait. He's from Africa or he's a black guy from the U.S. who's calling himself "African-American."

Him: "No, he's real African. Anyway, there was this other kid who was making fun of his name, calling him "Poo" and "Poop" and "Poo Boy."

Me: "That's not good. You didn't say that did you?"

Him: "No. I told the kid to shut up and how would it feel if his name was "Napoo" and people called him 'Poo?'"

Me: "And what did he say?"

Him: "He told me to shut up and called me stupid. And then I told him not to make fun of Napoo, esp. since he was on our team and then some of the other guys said yeah don't make fun of him."

Me: "And did he stop?"

Him: "No, he pushed me. He's kind of a bully"

Me: "And what did you do?"

Him: "I hit him with my stick. And then he looked like he was going to cry and he really shut up. He's kind of a bully. I remembered that scene in A Christmas Story and what you told me about standing up to bullies. It worked. Then later Napoo said thanks."

As I got to the car, I realized that maybe my son will not be a pussy like his father and will not have to endure taunts of "faggot," "gay boy," "homo" and "dick nose" because he is different. He may be different, but if anyone calls him names or makes fun of him, he will stand up to them and if necessary hit them with a stick. And he won't have to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours talking to some psychiatrist about how he was a pussy and got picked on when he was a kid.

And this was after the coach pulled me aside and said that he wants my son to play on his traveling team, even though he just started playing this summer. "He gets it," the coach said. No one ever said that about me.

***********

As so much of his future rides on this election cycle, SBD intends to draw everything back to the election. Tonight, SBD wants John McCain to hit Barack Obama with his stick. The press would have us believe that John McCain is the bully in this story. No. Barack Obama is the big mouth; Barack Obama is the popular kid; Brack Obama is the know-it-all; Barack Obama is the back stabber; Barack Obama is the one with the unsavory friends; Barack Obama is the one calling people mean, old, demented, inexperienced, corrupt, and racist.

Hit him with your stick, Senator McCain.

Your Government At Work

Today from the FCC: "The Commission will hold a meeting as part of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pediatric Obesity Conference. The Commission will listen to witnesses discussing a host of issues surrounding childhood obesity including the impact and role media serve in the area of children's health, the causes of pediatric obesity, and ways to increase awareness of and promote healthy lifestyles among children and teens."

We've moved from babyfat to husky to chubby to childhood obesity to the very serious sounding pediatric obesity. Being fat and out of shape is always serious, mostly because fat people make thin people uncomfortable. Gay clothes designers are forced to design pants to fit a man who wears size 40 or higher waist. If they can get to the kids early, this national waste of our synthetic stainproof fiber resources can be stopped and everyone can shop at Banana Republic.

But this whole TV thing and fatness sounds just like other arguments where individual responsibility and human factors always manage to be shoved aside so blame can be apportioned more fully to some innanimate object or some large amorphous industry (see, e.g., guns, helmets, transfattygoodness acids, cigarettes, Power Rangers and SUVs). Here we have the FCC -- the Federal Communications Commission! -- fully involved in "doing something" about the role that "the media" play in "pediatric obesity." It sounds reasonable - the FCC controls all the media (even though it doesn't, which SBD supposes is the problem from their perspective) so they have to do something about it, goshdarnit! People don't make people fat, the media makes you fat. The all powerful, mesmerizing media. And it is mesmerizing. We all admit it is mesmerizing and comfortable and fun. So there is no damn secret and there is no conspiracy and there is no sublimnable nonsense. We know exactly what we are doing when we watch TV, pass the chips please.

But what about the children, asks the Society for the Use of The Children as A Meme to Change Society According to Our Particular Fantasy of the Kind of Life Everyone Should Lead?

Sydney Brillo Duodenum likes his television. And Sydney Brillo Duodenum watched a great deal of television when he was a fat child. SBD attended a private boys school with rigorous academic standards and a long tradition of sports. The school day did not end until every child had been reduced to quivering, lactic acid depleted jelly on a soccer filed or football or what have you. Instilling "the tenacity of pursuit" was the stated goal. After this punishment, SBD longed for his father's den and what at the time was a gargantuan 19 inch color television. It would not be an exaggeration to describe a typical day after school in which SBD and his brother, Sydney Brillo Brother, also fat at the time, firmly ensconsed in leather recliners drinking two 16 ounce Cokes each (the kind in the tall glass bottle) and sharing an entire bag of Doritos while watching Speed Racer, Star Trek (animated) and the unforgettable dystopian fantasy Star Blazers. After a couple of hours of this and following a good 45 minutes of lackluster harranguing by Mother Brillo, SBD and SBB would turn to their two hours of homework, which they knew had to be completed by 8 pm or there would be no Bionic Woman or Buck Rogers or Rockford Files. So, two hours of homework was completed in one hour and it always got the B- it deserved. Weight remained a problem for SBD at least until his senior year in high school when he was forced onto the track team and all that running firmed him up a bit. But his television habit never slackened.

The obesity industry, and by that I do not mean the makers of processed food or candy or anything else that tastes good and yummy with ass firmly planted in Scotchguarded polyester. I mean the professors, researchers, bureaucrats, grant givers, grant takers, doctors, and scolds who make a living ignoring the single biggest contributing factors to so-called pediatric obesity -- parents. If a kid is fat and is spending his free time in front of the TV, it's because his or her parents suck. They suck at parenting. They are the reason their kid is fat. The TV did not walk into the child's bedroom, unpack itself and hook itslef up to the new Pottery Barn Media Headboard. It's not the shows, it's not the food makers, it's not advrtisers. It's the parents.

The end result of this Commission intrusion into the life of the family is a Task Force with findings and ultimately some shakedown of "the media" and "the food industry" and "the advertising industry" and "the toy industry" usually involving the funneling of shareholder profits into more grants, more research, more institutes for the prevention of real life happening to you, and more nanny state substitution of the single most important structure our society has - parents.

We Are So Fukked!

Cell Phone Service Turns 25; Asshole Population At All Time High

25 years ago yesterday, the first cellular telephone call was placed from the parking lot of Soldier Field in Chicago. That is also the day that the country began to see an inexorable rise in the population of assholes.

American-Style Capitalism

David Boaz at Cato:

"There’s no question that the global financial crisis is causing people to question how well capitalism works. But we’re still not in any Great Depression. And the evidence in this article is almost entirely that governments are — as usual — taking advantage of a crisis to expand their scope and power.

Of course, if this crisis leads us to question “American-style capitalism” — the kind in which a central monetary authority manipulates money and credit, the central government taxes and redistributes $3 trillion a year, huge government-sponsored enterprises create a taxpayer-backed duopoly in the mortgage business, tax laws encourage excessive use of debt financing, and government pressures banks to make bad loans — well, it might be a good thing to reconsider that “American-style capitalism.”

B-A-R A-C-K F-R-A-U-D

http://www.thoseshirts.com/mic.html



Tampa: "Mickey Mouse tried to register to vote in Florida this summer."

Clog

Plumber: "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" the plumber asked, complaining that he was being taxed "more and more for fulfilling the American dream."

Ivy League Twit: "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too," Obama responded. "My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Senator Barack Obama, Oct. 13, 2008

SBD was under the impression that spreading the wealth around involved working at a job for the better part of a day for the better part of a whole week for the better part of a complete year for the better part of one's life and during the down time, spending one's income - one's wealth! -on necessities (plumbers), frivolities, and charity in some balanced fashion. SBD supposes that the Senator believes that taking his marginal use of plumbers (e.g., only calling one for two out of three clogs because the guvmint took the third payment in taxes) and giving it to the guy "behind" SBD so Mr. Behind can buy a Sony HDTV from Target with his income tax rebate check on income taxes he never paid is spreading the wealth.

Pick A Side!

From Thomas Jefferson's Blog:

"In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time." - Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1798.

Adventures in the New World

Like that great greedy raping, pillaging biohazard Christopher Columbus, Sydney Brillo Duodenum sailed a great ocean of mayhem and tribulation since his last posting, albeit without the raping, pillaging and infecting, and he was confined to land the entire time.

Friday saw him walking Thomas Jefferson's footsteps at Colonialtown, USA, otherwise known as Williamsburg, VA, as chaperon on his son's 5th grade field trip. Saturday through Sunday he was in the wilds of suburban Maryland, camping with his son's Cub Scout pack. Monday, it was urban warfare on two levels and across 50 aisles at Target.

All of it had meaning and significance for your host, but probably none for the one reader who may discover this blog. SBD shall keep it short and sweet.

Williamsburg: A wonderful place to immerse oneself in the History of this country. One would be hard pressed to visit this grand outdoor museum and leave with little appreciation of the significant Revolutionary War events that took place in and around the city. Unless one were to accompany a 5th grade class on a field trip, in which case one would spend a fair amount of time dissecting the day to day life and activities of a milliner. In short, there was no macro, just micro. There was no, "Here's where Thomas Jefferson did x while Patrick Henry was over here doing Y; and over here is where Cornwallis sat on his horse during the second occupation." Instead, it was, "Here is Mr. Blacksmith and here is Mr. Bucketmaker and here is Mrs. Homespun, and let's not forget Mr. and Mrs. Potterer." Enough with the goddamned artisans! In SBD' world, each child would have been handed a map and a list of ten key, macro events that took place in and around Williamsburg. The teacher would then proceed to each point on the map, discuss the significance of the place and events and then move on. Instead, there was no teaching, other than that provided by a "guide," who invariably in situaitons such as these is a childless retiree who cannot stand to be around children. The teachers left it up to the doyenne to make it all relevant and that must be why the students of Green Group 3 were split in two and spent 30 minutes conducting a contest to see which group could reconstruct a bucket the fastest. Yes, American History in its purest form, that.

So, the school field trip proves to be an indictment of the public school system and the laziness and disinterest of the elementary bureaucrats to engage children in their big "H" history. The biggest concern, though, appeared to be preventing any of the boys in the group from purchasing replicas of weapons from the various gift shops, owing to the school's zero tolerance policy regarding weaponry. Which makes sense, as apparently George Washington's army prevailed over the British by bashing redcoats in the head with buckets, which would then have to be hastily reassembled for the next assault.

Cub Scout Camping: Every year about this time, SBD and SBD Jr. travel a short distance up the Interstate for a bout of camping with SBD's Cub Scout pack. SBD Jr. is a Senior Webelos. A senior what? Indeed. Webelos stands for We Be Loyal Scouts. A truly horrid name but good intentions appear to be behind it. In any event, the SBDs enjoy camping, inconveniences and annoyances aside. There wasn't too much to complain about because SBD Jr. is older now and a little more self-possessed, so there wasn't too much of the corrective admonishment applied. Mostly, it was of the nature of, "If you're going to whittle, move the blade away from your body, not towards it" or "Please do not hold your marshmallow spears at eye level" or "Do not douse the flames with that bacon grease." The three mile hike was likened to the Bataan Death March and there were deep grumbles at not being allowed to finish the ENTIRE bag of Doritos before dinner.

SBD Jr.'s mopiest episode was when he was not chosen by the Cubmaster to represent one of the points on the compass for the big group fire ring ceremony. The Cubmaster likes to put together a very solemn opening ceremony to light the firepit, which is always soaked with about five gallons of gasoline beforehand to ensure a sufficient amount of spectacle. Six Senior Webelos were in attendance, but only four main points on the compass. I suppose SBD Jr. could have been the southeast chinook or the northeastly sirocco, but the Cubmaster is not an all points on the compass type of guy. SBD Jr. was handed a reading part, but for some reason that did not have the significance of holding a gas soaked flaming torche. SBD made it loudly plain to the lad to suck it up. All was forgotten by the time the S'Mores orgy commenced. (see soon to be posted Disendorsement: Jet-Puffed Marshmallows).

Target: SBD enjoys spending an hour or five at Target. On Monday, he spent five hours roving the aisles. Pathetic, really, but SBD enjoys examining new products and loves considering form and function of consummables. Items purchased included Halloween paraphrenalia, including a gorilla suit; antiqued bond paper for an SBD Jr. school project; the Iron Man Special edition DVD set; two camping lanterns; a new sleeping bag and mat for SBD; two types of dog food for Sydney Brillo Dog; a pack of Keurig coffee pods; four pairs of pants, three shirts and one fleece for SBD Jr.; two sets of jammies for Sydney Brillo Duodenumette and a nice sweater; and men's shampoo and soap from Target's Every Man Jack line of toiletries. The things considered but not purchased included a 42 inch Sony 1080i LCD television; a rice steamer; men's jeans designed for a 22 year old asshat; 2-pack Barbasol shaving cream; Hannah Montana imprinted halter top for a 7 year old; a giant Christmas lawn display featuring Santa on a train; and the new Nerf N-Strike Vulcan EBF-25. Afterall, next month's joys must be preserved.

CSI: Bullshit

Bill Dyer at Hugh Hewitt's blog puts on rubber gloves and shines a UV light on a fresh corpse:

The Branchflower Report is a series of guess and insupportable conclusions drawn by exactly one guy, and it hasn't been approved or adopted or endorsed by so much as a single sub-committee of the Alaska Legislature, much less any kind of commission, court, jury, or other proper adjudicatory body.

So, for the next week or so, the press will keep this corpse at the crime scene, without a white sheet, for all to see, like state troopers in Maryland who take six hours to clean up some jackass who tried to bound across six lanes of Beltway traffic and leave him out as a lesson to all drivers of what complete and utter pricks they are. There is plenty in this report to be misreported, twisted, manipulated, bent and shellacked.

Meanwhile, the following lay double bagged in deep cold storage in the lowest level of the MSM morgue:

• $800,000 from the Change Agent to ACORN


• Master Ayers and Grasshopper Barack


• Barack Obama's New Party membership card (you mean he's a socialist?!?)


• Obama's relationship to the Fan-Fred Fracas


• ACORN's mass voter fraud in multiple states in support of the kind of campaign that would give it $800,000.


• Parallel Universe President Obama interferring with Real Universe President Bush's Iraq negotiations

Going Back In Time

Sydney Brillo Duodenum shall be out of pocket for the better part of his day, visiting a colonial theme park with Sydney Brillo Duodenum Jr. On Fridays, they present "live programming," performed by local college students and the retired, mostly overacting and asking tourists such as SBD questions designed to make them feel stupid and ignorant in front of SBD Jr. On Friday, the theme is "Citizens at War - 1776 - 1781." How timely.

In the meantime, Sydney Brillo Duodenum leaves his readers (reader?) with this link to the ruminations, utterings, proclamations, obfuscations, mutterings, mumblings, uhhings, butbutbutbutings, and bullshit of Senator Obama and the rogues gallery of fools he has associated with in recent times: Barack Obama in Quotes

A taste: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions." -- Barack Obama

Sydney Brillo Duodenum will be investigating America's best traditions. Something tells him Senator Obama is not referring to that time and place.

Before We Elect Dorian Gray . . .

The New York Times makes everybody run to their mirrors this morning to see if they are beautiful. Sydney Brillo Duodenum is decidely certain that they are not. In this Fashion and Style story - mind you not the Technology, not the Science, not even the Psychology section of the Times (because one does not exist, if you can believe that!) - some "scientists" have developed a program that fixes peoples faces according to some bullshit algorithms based on a survey of beauty as discerned from the faces of the woman in the pages of the porn mags hidden in the back of their closets.

While perusing the altered images offered by the Times in the accompanying slideshow, of the 6 billion people who could have populated the 9 slots in the slideshow prepared by the Times, there was Woody Allen. Woody Allen! Sydney Brillo Duodenum looked at the before and after images of Mr. Allen and, try as he may, he still saw a disgusting old pedophile, suggesting perhaps that our God-given programming is a bit more complex than that written by the beauty code geniuses.

It further suggests that we must always strive to get down to the deeds of the individual before we become enraptured with them. What is their history, what did they spend their time doing, and who did they spend their time with? How has one's personal associations aged their soul? Beauty is expected to change our lives; it shouldn't make us stupid at the same time.

Often we take the broad, hopeful smile, sometimes matched strongly with soaring rhetoric and we never look into the soul of a person. It's too bad that someone hasn't written a computer program featuring an algorithm or two that factors in non-visual information about a person and then presents that image. Sydney Brillo Duodenum would love to run some people through a Dorian Gray program.

Of course, none of this applies to Sydney Brillo Duodenum. He has no desire to see that picture of himself.

Absolute Brilliance

"The lady on the ledge was smoking a cigarette and eating a candy bar; a few minutes later a friend brought her a scooter, and she drove away."

Lileks in DisneyWorld. Visit with him.

BarackBook

Sydney Brillo Duodenum has found it difficult to keep track of all the scandalous figures surrounding Senator Obama, like some Christmas music box in which little skaters twirl and spin and drive elliptical orbits around a small adorable child, with a tiny Joker smile (painted by some slave in China), glued forever in place, in a perpetual position of kerplop onto the ice. These figures never pass out of view, do they? The unrependent educational visionary Ayers (who did some easily forgotten silly things when he young); the good Rev. Jeremiah Wright, so long misunderstood, hiding his true self for 20 long years from his flock; the FanFred Fraternity; the billionairess Pritzker; the billionaire Soros; the billionairess Oprah Winfrey; and the detestable Scarlett Johansson whose voicebox should be removed after her butchering of Tom Waitts style and music. They never sit down, do they? A strange collection in any curio cabinet.

When Sydney Brillo Duodenum pulls this little novelty from the seasonal box and watches the scene unfold, he often wonders: did they push the little boy to the ice or did he fall on his own?

Enjoy: http://www.barackbook.com/


Update: Charles Krauthammer on Obamassociations.

"[Obama's associations] tell us two important things about Obama. First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. . .Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama's core beliefs. . .For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond. . .Obama is a man of first-class intellect and first-class temperament. But his character remains highly suspect. There is a difference between temperament and character. Equanimity is a virtue. Tolerance of the obscene is not."

David Brooks - Funnier Than Mel Brooks

Sydney Brillo Duodenum went back to his copy of Mr. Brooks' interview with Governor Palin and discovered that Mr. Brooks did not bring up the nuances of Rheinhold Niebuhr in his conversations with that Palin woman. In fact he did not bring up any issues with Governor Palin because he has not interviewed Governor Palin.

Sarah Palin is a cancer. Nay, a "fatal cancer." Well. Thank you for the clarity, Dr. Brooks. Let's all proceed to hospice, shall we?

When has David Brooks sought to flesh out Governor Palin's ideas? Why does he find it acceptable as a conservative mandarin to make judgements based on an interview conducted by that other unsung intellectual Katie Couric? Why did he not pursue such an interview when Palin was elected governor two years ago?

Supposedly, Brooks is to conservative trend spotting as Tom Friedman is to capturing the perfect globalization annecdote. Lately, Brooks has been lamenting the future of conservatism, but one must have a firm sense of the past and present state of something, if one wishes to be taken seriously prognosticating on its future. Brooks never took Palin seriously before she became serious. He missed the last ferry from Gravina. SBD is sure that Mr. Brooks noticed the governor of Alaska a while ago, but his own elitism and myopia prevented him from understanding what and who she represents.

Brooks fancies himself a possible Buckley replacement, but whereas Buckley was indeed a wonderful elitist, in addition to standing athwart history and yelling stop as need be, he also knew how stand with history and let it happen. It also stretches the imagination to believe that Buckley would have said the things that Brooks has said on the eve of a critical election.

And yes, Sydney B. Duodenum is taking notes and making lists, regardless of the way this election breaks. A propos and with thoughts for our Jewish brothers this evening, there will be atonement, either way.