A Few Random Quotes

Jabba the Slut?

• Banging away at Palin.

Back on your knees.

• Getting to First Base With My Readers.

Being a gay vegan…

“I have an unnatural man-crush on Christian Bale.”

Christian Schneider went and saw the new Johnny Depp/Christian Bale flick “Public Enemies,” and he wasn’t impressed.

Noting that the movie was shot in Wisconsin, largely on the strength of tax incentives we offered at the time, Schneider notes:

Conservatives have an opportunity here – if government-subsidized movies are this bad, imagine how bad government health care will be. If people draw the connection, single-payer government health plans will be dead within a week.

But what if it would have been even worse * without the subsidy. Didja ever think of that?

Say, did I ever tell you about the time I helped Christian Bale tie his tie?

* This in no way constitutes agreement with Schneider’s opinion.

Another reason Wisconsin is better.

The 2009 Miss Beer Cart Pageant:

Speed cart stocking and Bloody Mary mixing will be among the skills on display July 14 in the preliminaries for the 2009 Miss Beer Cart Wisconsin Pageant Tournament. The preliminaries will be held at McGillycuddy’s Bar & Grill, 1135 N. Water St.

The event will be open to the public (must be 21 to attend). Contestants from throughout the state will compete to become finalists in the Miss Beer Cart Wisconsin Pageant Tournament. Golfers are encouraged to visit www.MissBeerCart.com to nominate their favorite beer cart drivers and sign up to play in the tournament.

The finals are held August 7-8. We at The Trog will endeavor to keep you updated.

Hat tip Sean Hackbarth, who adds: “Why can’t ABC put this on television instead of Wipeout?”

It’s like letting your kids throw their steak and veggies on the floor, but then getting mad when they don’t finish their dessert.

This is all over the interblogs today, and far be it from me to ignore whatever’s all over the interblogs. Look! A Memeroandum thread!

Hey, look, No Sheeples Here got her own Memeorandum thread!

Sweet.

The story: Helen Thomas and CBS’ Chip Reid went at it with White House media guy Robert Gibbs. They’re mad that the White House is taking questions in advance for the President’s health care town hall.

A little bit of transcript:

Gibbs: “… But, again, let’s–How about we do this? I promise we will interrupt the AP’s tradition of asking the first question. I will let you [Chip Reid] ask me a question tomorrow as to whether you thought the questions at the town hall meeting that the President conducted in Annandale—“

Chip Reid: “I’m perfectly happy to—”

Helen Thomas: “That’s not his point. The point is the control–”

Reid: “Exactly.”

Thomas: “We have never had that in the White House. And we have had some, but not– This White House.”

Gibbs: “Yes, I was going to say, I’ll let you amend her question.”

Here’s video, which I got from Pat Austin. The exchange starts at 2:32:

First thought: Helen Thomas isn’t looking all that well. She’s lost some weight, I think.

Hey, no kvetching about Mrs. Thomas. Sure, she’s a harpy, but now she’s our harpy. So you go, girl!

Second thought: are we really so surprised about this? Surely nobody expects the White House to hold a “town hall” and not exert some control – Lord knows how many rabid gun-toting Right Wing bible-thumping gay-bashers would find their way in and turn the thing into a travesty! Or a sham!

Or they might get the same question five times. Or they might get somebody asking about parking validation. Or they might get such an embarrassingly fawning, slobberingly worshipful question that it makes the whole thing a joke.

Yeah, I know, it’s already a joke. But from their perspective.

Yeah, I know, that presumes some capacity for embarrassment on their part. Work with me, please.

Point is, the surprise isn’t that the White House is exerting control. The surprise would be if they weren’t. So what’s the press room’s problem?

I’ll tell you the press room’s problem: they’re starting to realize they’ve been a bunch of pliant little puppies. Not only that, but they’re starting to realize that they’re the last ones realizing that they’ve been a bunch of pliant little puppies. They’re realizing that the White House is playing them like a drunk at a bar piano, and they have just enough self-esteem to insist that the White House at least pretend to respect them in the morning.

Please excuse the mixed metaphors.

So they’re getting all whiny about pre-selected questions at a town hall, and a set-up question at a press conference, and they probably figure that makes up for not asking tough questions about policy and stuff.

I first became aware of this over at Cold Fury.

As expected, a surprise:

And this is still before we know the impact of whatever health care plan the President and Congress come up with:

When the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their original estimate of President Obama’s Budget , they said it was going to be expensive: in ten years the President would accumulate over $9 trillion in deficits. Turns out, that was low-balling it…

At the request of Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), CBO recently redid their estimate assuming interest rates would not be held constant, and this more realistic scenario paints a very scary picture indeed.

Looking at three different interest rate scenarios, more accurate estimates of President Obama’s deficits would cost an additional $1.2 to $5.3 trillion, bringing the grand deficit-total to as much as $14 trillion.

Of course, any ten-year estimate depends on assumptions. Assumptions about, for example, economic growth. If the economy grows faster than the assumptions, then the deficits will be lower.

Thing is, given the taxes and the interest rates, the economy is less likely to grow faster. If I had to guess, I’d guess these estimates are still too low.

And just what the hell is that supposed to mean (part vii)?

Roger Kimball:

You see what troglodytes I hang about with.

Sir, you should be so lucky.

It’s only a civil war when Republicans fight other Republicans.

Whaddaya wanna bet we’re going to hear a lot more about this:

Palin story sparks GOP family feud

Than this:

Nineteen pro-life House Democrats signed a letter last week to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressing their opposition to any health care reform that includes abortion funding…

“Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly (are) unacceptable,” they wrote.

And while we’re talking about polls:

Gallup: More Americans See Democratic Party as “Too Liberal”

Hat tip Insty

Most Americans support the “public option,” as long as they don’t have to use it.

No word on how they feel about paying for it. Not from this poll, anyway:

Sixty-nine percent of Americans support creation of a government-run health plan to compete with private insurance companies, a new poll found.

But:

Even though most of those polled backed creation of a government plan, 53 percent said they would prefer to buy private health insurance…

And:

Eighty- five percent of those who have insurance said they were satisfied.

I’m guessing the poll didn’t ask what they’d think about being pushed onto government health care, whether they like it or not.

Via Memeorandum

Upcoming Troglevents:

• Attentive readers will have noticed that The Trog is rapidly approaching 50,000 hits. There will be an Eyes It Willy following this momentous occasion.

You could, were you so inclined, help that get here a little faster. Y’know. By linking.

• I’m also going to pick one day of the week specifically to seek out (and link to) new-to-me blogs. Thursdays, maybe. Gonna need a name for that.

Hat tips will, of course, be deployed. When appropriate.