ginandtacos.com

Jon Stewart on Crossfire, telling them how awful Crossfire is (click on 200k, written transcript here). It's really amazing actually.

Say what you will about Jon Stewart and the Daily Show's new higher profile in the campaign across major media networks, but anybody who calls Tucker Carlson a dick ("You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show") to his face on national TV is ok by me (watch the video, it really happens).

No really, you are a dick.

STEWART: Here's just what I wanted to tell you guys.
CARLSON: Yes.
STEWART: Stop.
STEWART: Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America…And come work for us, because we, as the people.
CARLSON: How do you pay?
STEWART: The people — not well.
BEGALA: Better than CNN, I'm sure.
STEWART: But you can sleep at night.
…
STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And we're left out there to mow our lawns…you're not too rough on them. You're part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.
…
STEWART: [when asked why he wasn't harder on Kerry in their interview] is that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity…You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls.

I still miss old Michael Kinsley squaring off against Pat Buchanan (whose Nixon-era mentality was already anachronistic in 1988). I haven't seen Crossfire since they took a cue from WWF for set design and level of maturity, but seeing that clip makes me think it must be an awful experience to sit through for a half hour each day.

Do you ever have a moment where something that is pretty ordinary or routine is made very personal very quickly? I had that intense moment when I was getting coffee and flipped open the Chicago Reader to see a picture of the late Chris Saathoff and to find an article about him and his band.

Chris was a friend of Ed and myself; I did not know him anywhere near as well as I wish I had before he died in Feburary. I still have very happy memories of defining "Saathoff's Constant" (still standing at 3.8) to late night drunken legal advice to a game of wits that had a drunken Irishman as the pawn and drumming motions as the threat. Chris was one of those people it was impossible not to like. As this webpage was not up at the time, I never got to post this treasured picture of myself running into him (literally) at a party.

I encourage you to read the article, even if you did not know him. I only met his bandmates from Chin Up Chin Up in passing (some under the worst possible conditions); the efforts they made to include Chris posthumously is remarkable. They built songs off of Chris's proposed basslines and isolated his tracks from demos to include them in their new album. It sounds like an amazing feat to have his presence in the project and I'm really excited to hear the results.

And I also want to wear this shirt. Deal with it.

Order it here. You should wear it too. Order several. She has other shirts in varying degrees of production, including one that has the number "773" on it with a little note in the catalog saying "best area code ever (except for 312)." The fact that she has written such an accurate sentence means you should all give her money on principle – you can also wear that shirt as a bonus.

In case anyone has failed to notice, Jay Leno (on the heels of his retirement announcement and plummeting ratings) has started telling the media he is very liberal.

For those who stopped watching his show when it ceased being funny (15 years ago), Leno has consistently refused to touch politics in his safe-as-possible-for-the-advertisers monologues. He also hosted the Governator's inauguration and allowed him on the show several times during his campaign last year.

However, Jay is starting to realize how many viewers he's losing to Letterman, Stewart and Conan because, well, people want to hear our President ridiculed. So he has taken to calling reporters at random (seriously) and yelling at them about what a liberal he is. He even "used to" read Mother Jones.

Well, I'm sold. Because, really, selling is what his show is all about.

Well ginandtacos.com viewers, all of our favorite pandering assclown is at it again.

Mr. O'Reilly was outraged yesterday. He claimed that Andrea Mackris, a producer at fox news was attempting to shake him down. Although one could be led to beleive from Mackris's complaint displayed at Thesmokinggun.com that while on the phone with Mackris he was "shaking himself down".

This is quite a development in the realm of exceptionally absurd news. Whether or it true or not, Miss Mackris's claims read like an exceptionally poorly written romance novel. Perhaps nearly on the level of O'Reilly's own novel Those Who Trespass.

For anyone who has seen the O'Reilly Factor, or possibly read the book The O'Reilly Factor For Kids should understand why, whether true or not, this is exceptionally funny.

"Ann, you ever been to Thailand? I have, damn, this girl I saw in a sex show there did things to me in the back room that blew my mind."

"Hey baby, why don't you and I go to the carribean. I'd take a shower with you right away I would take that little loofa thing and kinda' soap up your back… rub it all over you, ret you to relax, hot water…and..um..all the tension would drain out. I would kinda' rub your tummy a little bit with it, and then with my other hand I would start to massage your boobs, get your nipples really hard…"

*all taken nearly verbatim from Miss Mackris's complaint

I think you see where this is going. We can all only hope that this is a long protracted legal battle. You just can't make shit like this up.

I would like to thank Terpsboy for some fantastic Bill O'Reilly picture.

Also from that previous entry: Elite Traveler magazine exists.

Look at it. Take a good hard look at it. From their press kit:

Elite Traveler magazine that has set standards for providing the most affluent audience in the history of media (Household Income of $1 million+). While there are many travel and lifestyle magazines written for the affluent market, until now no magazine in this category has been specifically targeted to the Elite Affluent—the very top end of the market and the smallest but most lucrative slice. (The wealthiest 1/2 of 1 percent of Americans control over 25 percent of Net Worth in the U.S., according to the Federal Reserve.)

Keep going. Don't stop now! Hey look, a reference to that Two Elite Americans (is that what Edwards was talking about) split:

Today, there is a widening gap within the affluent community itself…Half of Conde Nast Traveler (49%), Town & Country (49%) and Vanity Fair (48%) readers did not buy ANY fine jewelry in the past 12 months, and those who did spent on average less than $2,000…By contrast, the readers of Elite Traveler not only enjoy the finest life has to offer, they demand it! They are unlike the lower echelon of the affluent market who must save and plan in order to treat themselves to luxury vacations and purchases. The Elite Affluent live a completely different lifestyle.

Do you love those who make between $200K and $1mil are referred to as the "lower echelon." Wow. Just the printed table of contents preview for their winter issue sets me off as well. "14 Days Touring Elite India." Can you picture the trust fund princess? "I've always heard that India was really spiritual and cultural, but I've also heard it's dirty. I want to visit it, but you know, not visit the common parts."

The rich are more than welcome to spend their money how they'd like, but if this doesn't serve as the prima facie for a graduated income tax I don't know what will.

I'm also considering starting another one of these magazines. "Logan Square Elite" will be the first column, focusing on the higher end taco establishments. Shoot comments if you'd like to write another article that we can then use to swindle high-end watch makers into buying our ads (ET has at least $35,000 a PAGE in ad revenue according to their info; picture at least 60 pages of ads) and we'll laugh all the way to the bank.

Not to take any moral high ground (not that I hate such things), but when I was growing up, I was always taught that if you could pay your bills, keep yourself entertained, keep up your savings and have a little left over at the end of the month you were doing ok. Wow. My parents were fools – evidently you aren't doing ok until your net worth reached eight figures, or just over ten million dollars.

Very interesting article in slate yesterday about Billionaires for Kerry. They looked over research done for Elite Traveler magazine, in which they polled people whose net worth was over 1 million dollars. The results are fascinating:

The rich folk [all over 1mil] favored Bush by a 58-42 margin… But when you break out the numbers, they tell a different story. The petit bourgeoisie millionaires were passionately for Bush: Those worth between $1 million and $10 million favored Bush by a 63-37 margin. But the haute millionaires, those worth more than $10 million, favored Kerry 59-41.

These results may seem confusing, as Bush is in favor of lowering taxes and Kerry in favor of raising them, but they make more sense seen through this lens: "Russ Prince explained the difference by noting that…those with a net worth of merely seven figures don't feel financially secure. 'The people with less than $10 million are still very focused on their personal financial situation in the short term'."

Those whose worth is more than $10mil care less about tax policy as they are going to be insanely rich no matter what the tax rate is, and instead get more worked up on things like Drug War policy (Soros) or the environment or, you know, social issues, and that they think that the Democrats have better policy on these topics.

Can you imagine anything more offensive than someone with 8 million dollars whose only topic of interest that gets him worked up enough to vote is taxes? "Sure we are at war with terrorism, we are occupying/liberating a Middle Eastern nation, health care is out of control, environmental policy is falling apart, pro-life forces are making headways, but the only thing that really matters to me, the only way I'd really measure progress, is to see the top marginal income tax rate below 30%."

Iraq and environmental policy are just two of the things less important than capital gains tax rates

This makes me laugh even more as I was at a party on Saturday where I talked to a person I knew from college who now works for the timber industry (he knows who he is if he visits this webpage). He brought up his salary (of course he did) which was ~$50,000, and then proceeded to talk about how he was more conservative these days as he feels his taxes are too high.

Huh? What? The idea that Bush et al is looking out for this guy when they discuss tax reform is absurd. (You don't trickle-down from the middle-class.) At that salary you will be comfortable but you'll never be independently wealthy (presumably his dream) – why not give up your dreams of being uber-rich and let your venting focus on unemployment, or health care? The idea that he feels a sense of solidarity with those who have 5 million dollars in the bank is more than a little absurd.

First off, if your mind is still thinking in terms of "u r a fagorz" from all the comments left by camwhores/camwhore-well-wishers visiting our page, I'd recommend taking the quick Economist Style Quiz to cleanse off the verbal palette. Though I must admit, I keep rephrasing those questions in terms of what has been discussed (which is more correct: "the man paypaled for boob shoots" or "the boob shots were paypaled by the man"?)

Anyway, I'm sure you've heard: Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its 62 stations to air an Anti-Kerry film without commercials in prime time next week, just two weeks before the Nov. 2 election. There are many articles on the subject on the net, so I won't bother summarizing the issue.

The good news is that there's a very simple way to fight it, and it allows you to be a dick over the phone (always a plus).

The database is sorted both nationally and by market. It also contains a list of their phone numbers, emails and mailing addresses. Many of the advertisers in small markets are local restaurants and car dealerships. These businesses want to run their store and do not want to cause trouble. They hate things that rock the boat, and are more than willing to jump ship if there is trouble. From that page's main blog protest calls only took a few hours to get a car dealership to pull it's money. Dailykos is also reporting similar efforts has gotten Sylvan learning centers to pull ad money.

Call one in your area (Champaign has a market), and say, in the nicest tone that you can (remember that the person answering the phones is not the heart of the right wing conspiracy) that you won't support their business while they advertise on Sinclair due to this Anti-Kerry film. This ad money is a HUGE deal for these small markets. Ginandtacos.com knows firsthand the power of advertisers in getting content pulled. Now you can too.

The year was 1993. The grunge music was popular, Bill Clinton had recently been elected president, and Richard Linklater had just completed the movie Dazed and Confused. The marijuana and hallucinogenic drug consuming subculture was treated to a film that would, for years to come be viewed by stoned teenagers and college students who would stare vacantly at the screen and giggle uncontrollably for no apparent reason.

These were good times

This is possibly one of the best crafted high school, cult followed, viewed by stoners movies to ever have been made. Honestly, the basic premise of the movie is that it is the last day of school and the kids are going to go to a party, then they are going to go see Aerosmith… Really, that’s it.

Yet, between the fact that it had every actor that was going to become famous in the next 5 years in it, and that the plot basically made no apologies for the fact that it was just a bunch of people having a good time for an hour and a half, it managed to come off as incredibly refreshing as opposed to moronic.

Now the year is 2004. 11 years after the movie initially was released.

Three men in Santa Fe, NM are suing claiming their character has been defamed.

That’s right, apparently Wooderson, Andy Slater, and Richard "Pink" Floyd were actual classmates of Richard Linklater. Looking back it all makes perfect sense. These characters were so much of cliches that they had to actually be real people. In other words, a writer clearly would have made more effort if he were not basing it off actual acquaintances of his.

Where does one begin to discuss the absurdity of this lawsuit? Is it at the point where they chose to file it 11 years after the movie was released? Or is it when realizing that these three men have never left the town in which they attended high school- thus fulfilling the movie's prophecy.

I think perhaps I will just leave it with this. "Pink" Floyd works at a car dealership, Andy Slater does construction and remodeling, and Wooderson has some nondescript job in the "technology sector." One is only left to assume that if a sequel to the movie were to be made, these three men's lives could still be used to inspire the characters based on them.