My weekend was crap. How was yours? Generally, I find that the way my weekend ends determines how I feel about it the following week. And since my weekend ended badly, this is how I feel about it - it sucked.
My dreams these days are alarmingly boring and mostly empty. But last night, perhaps because of the thunderstorm taking place outside my window, I dreamed that I somehow ended up in a motorcycle race. It was an odd race, with no ramps or whoop de doos or any of the normal things you'd find in a motocross race, or even an enduro race. And all the other riders, I assumed, had nice new bikes while I had my antique Honda 250 to work with. Plus, I had never ridden the course, not even once, so I was forced to jog the course beforehand to try and get a feel for what I was up against. This is where I discovered that it was laid out more like a cross country 5K than a motorcycle race. Yes, in my dream, they let me jog the race course while the races were going on, which upon waking, I realized was more than a bit odd and totally insane. And I did wake up, unfortunately, prior to my own heat ever starting. Thus, I dreamed that I was entered in a race which I jogged and researched and checked my bike thoroughly in preparation for my own run, but then never actually got to ride. Doesn't that suck? That is my real life in a nutshell - all preparation and no actual race. My life sucks.
I keep reading where President Obama is chiding the oil companies for not drilling in spots where the US Government granted them licences to drill, but no evidence of oil exists. Meanwhile, in the spots where the oil companies already discovered oil, he revoked their drilling permits and told them to stop all drilling and pumping of desperately needed oil. He's done the same thing with coal. I think Obama believes the average American to be so stupid as to not understand how energy production works in the slightest and thus, not realize that it is he and not the "greedy" oil companies who is responsible for this latest low blow to our nation's economy and the price of gas at the pumps. Jimmy Carter couldn't have done it better himself.
Wrong
As for Libya and our invasion of their country, this is the same president who declared Bush's invasion of Iraq to be criminal and promised to bring our troops home. That was a cornerstone of his campaign. Much like Clinton, though, he only meant to bring them home long enough to get more ammunition before sending them out again to invade even more countries than before.
While I'm on the subject of government interference in our nation's daily life and the resulting train wrecks it causes, the news is every day awash with stories of new outbreaks of infections which our antibiotics cannot stop. We went from fears of staph and flesh-eating bacteria to MRSA and tens of thousands of otherwise healthy Americans dying each year due to a lack of new antibiotics to treat them. American corporations used to produce more new antibiotics each year than any other nation. But that is no longer so. Guess why? Big Government, via the FDA, has steadily expanded its power and size, as governments are always doing, to the point that it is financially impossible for small, agile companies to even attempt to produce new antibiotics, and large mega-corporations are now, too, finding it so difficult and expensive, due entirely to unnecessary government obstacles, that most have stopped even trying. And so, as the FDA grows in size and budget, Americans are suffering and dying in order to pay the cost of this unneeded and counterproductive expansion of federal powers.
Government bacteria
Big Government generally only ever 'protects' the citizens from change. But the bacteria behind deadly infections are changing all the time. The world is constantly changing. To be protected from change, more often than not, is to be dead.
There is a trend here. The bigger, more powerful and more centralized government becomes, the more The People suffer, as Big Government intrudes ever-deeper into our private lives in order to justify its own bloated and inefficient existence. When there is no real need for a government agency, political players simply make shit up in order to stir enough fear that they can slip in a bill creating a new totally unneeded government bureaucracy with staff and budget and lots of power to deal with the imaginary problem. Once the agency is established, there is no getting rid of it, even after the lie is revealed and the people discover that they have been duped.
Official Government Document
Speaking of global warming and the EPA, there is a battle raging in Washington over the EPA's very likely illegal attempt to regulate Carbon Dioxide as a pollutant despite no Congressional approval and the fact that doing so will destroy what is left of our nation's battered economy. The voters made it clear in the last election that they oppose this and Congress has blocked passage of laws allowing this, so the EPA has simply issues regulations, without benefit of law, doing it anyway. This gives the EPA power over not only every company in America, but every American citizen, as we all expel carbon dioxide every time we exhale. Thus, we are all guilty of a crime and need EPA approval and permission to breathe. See how this shit works? It's all about power and control, baby.
It's Christmastime again, this time for the year 2010. We're expecting snow on Christmas Day, which would be cool, in more ways than one. I'm going to take some time off from work and try to rest, although God only knows what I'm actually going to end up doing. There's always a list of things to be done, whether at home or at work. I suspect when we all get up to Heaven someday, God will greet us with a list of things to do along with a requirement that we fill in estimates of when we think we'll have them done. The list will continually grow and we will spend our eternity doing this damn list. Yeah, and that's Heaven. Hell is no doubt even worse and probably involves project managers and perpetual 'scope creep', where your original task keeps growing with more and more requirements. Meanwhile, other things are added to the list and you're expected to somehow get them all done at the same time. Demons nag the shit out of you for being behind. And there's no internet in hell so you can't blog about it. And no days off. And no toilet paper in the bathrooms. And no coffee, except decaff, which you finally learn is just demons pissing in a dirty coffee pot, as you had always suspected.
I wish I was a real boy
Anyway, enough about that. What else is going on for Christmas this year? Oh yeah, President Obama is trying to push through a bunch of new appointees to our Justice Department and other top posts with great power. It's not being widely publicized (Wall Street Journal page A2, Dec 22), but I couldn't help noticing that every single one of them are Jewish women with heavy feminazi ties, and by feminazi I mean Ashkenazi, which is German for 'face like a rat.' And then I started researching a little (got lost in Googleland) and I discovered that the vast majority of Obama appointees are feminazi Jewish women. And living in Memphis as I do, I had to ask, where are all the high-ranking jobs for black men and women that he promised? Why are only a handful of his closest and highest-ranking appointees black men and black women? Why does he so often appear to be totally beholden to (owned and operated by) Jewish misandric feminist women specifically? These women didn't vote for him, not a single one. They voted for Hillary. And Hillary isn't dead (where's Dorothy with that bucket of water?) or even out of the running for the next presidential race. Yes, yes, I know that Obama is George Soros' houseboy and George Soros is a huge Ashkenazi feminazi communist momma's boy who gives millions to female supremacist hate groups around the world in the mistaken belief that one day, if he gives enough money, these man-hating Marxist mostly-lesbian womyn will magically love him and only him the way his momma never did. But even so, you would think, what with all the rap songs about "bros before hos" and shit, that Obama would take care of the brothas first, and pay back his master, Voldemort, second. But if you thought this, you would be wrong. Never underestimate the power of the Dark Side, and by 'Dark Side' I don't mean black people, because as I just said, he's not really paying back the black people very well, which was the whole point of that entire gigantic paragraph.
Barney Claus
Also happening just in time for Christmas, our Democrat-controlled Congress, with their dying breath, set free all the gay soldiers in the military (Democrats created Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell under Clinton and The very gay Press celebrated it), took over the internet so they could censor blogs like mine, sold our national security to the Russians with a Jimmy-Carter-like treaty straight out of the drug-fueled, disco 1970s, and swore to their goddess, Lilith, that they didn't mean to lie about Global Warming. And then those Death Eaters disapparated and returned to Voldemort's lair to plot their eventual return and revenge.
Pump till you puke
What else is going on? Oh yes, I have joined a new gym, where women in workout tights stand in front of a room wearing a Britney Spears-like headset and force entire groups of people to do torturous and agonizing things involving stretchy cables, dumbbells, plastic step-ups and foam mats. Meanwhile, just outside the torture room, visible through the glass windows, college girls in tiny tank-tops and shorts are sweating and exercising with weights for upcoming volleyball/basketball/softball/soccer matches against other colleges with teams of similarly sweaty girls. Alongside the sweaty college girls, old fat men are attempting to powerlift the same weight they did while they were younger while struggling not to stare too hard at the college girls. Elsewhere in the new gym, there is a tiny dark room filled with sweaty, panting people on bicycles that go nowhere. Another Britney-Spears-like person, this one a man, forces them to ride their bicycles to nowhere as fast as possible while he shouts at them and blares technopop music through giant speakers. Upstairs, people ride similar bicycles to nowhere, run treadmills to nowhere, and ellipticize on ellipticals to nowhere, all while watching big-screen TVs (checking each other out) and listening to iPods. Down below, a group of white men play basketball against one another (badly) and silently pray to God for the ability to slam dunk like Michael Jordan (never gonna happen.) And because I have joined in on all of this, I am now paying less money (I'm broke) while working out harder (vomiting) than I was before (no interruptions to listen to monologues about conspiracy theories), and as a result, I am today in severe pain unlike anything I ever experienced with the conspiracy master, LaRaza, who was my previous trainer.
Drugs? I ain't on no drugs. Whatchew tawkin' 'bout, boy?
Yesterday, as I was driving home from work, I got behind a white Toyota Celica going 40 in the passing lane on the highway. Traffic was just blowing past this turd until we came to a red light. When the light turned green, he just sat there for a minute until I had to tap my horn. Then he slooooowly accelerated up to a crawl. With all the traffic blowing past us, there was no way to get around him. When I flashed my brights, indicating to all who passed their driver's test that you are in the passing lane and clearly not passing anyone so move it or get over, he began tapping his brakes. Yeah, in a Celica. And I'm in a giant 4x4 with a steel grill-guard just right for pushing Japanese shit-piles into a ditch. He tapped his brakes and I didn't tap mine. My grill-guard went up over his rear bumper and hatch and was nearly tapping his rear window when it suddenly occurred to him that he'd better speed the fuck up or he might be visiting a bodyshop and/or hospital for Christmas. At this point, Bo Duke there stuck his fist out the window and began shaking it. Yes, seriously. And then, not satisfied with shaking his fist, he himself began to climb out of his window, turn around backwards, and scream at me. I have no idea who was steering his car at this point, but he was going so slowly anyway that it is entirely possible that no one was. The fist-shaking gentlemen had a long white beard and scraggly long hair, well matched to his sunken pale eyes, pale wrinkly skin, and bad teeth. He looked like someone who might have been kicked out of ZZ Top at some point. I had to laugh at this comical cunt going totally apeshit in front of me as a consequence of his own bad, and likely drunken, driving. But I did go ahead and sit on my horn while turning on my high beams to make absolutely certain he understood that I was not his sister and thus he should stop trying to fuck with me. I suppose he got the point. He slipped back into his seat and continued his agonizing crawl down the highway. I had reached my destination at this point and turned left to go home. At the rate he was traveling, I'll bet he's still driving right now, trying to get to wherever he was going. That is, unless someone has shot him by now.
As many are aware, political opponents of Barack Obama have made an issue over his birth certificate. Various organizations, maybe most notably the so-called 'birthers', maintain that the birth certificate presented while he was running for president wasn't actually his, even though the Hawaii state government, the state of his birth, says that it is.
It goes further. Through various research efforts, many conspiracy theorists say that Barack Obama is actually Barry Soetoro and that somewhere along the way he changed his name to Barack Obama.
These believing that Barack Obama is actually Barry Soetoro allege that President Obama was not born in the United States. According to them, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Kenya, moved to the United States as a young man, and changed his name from Barry Soetoro to Barack Obama. Their basic premise is that they believe he was not born in the United States and therefore is ineligible to be President of the United States. Their other point is that each time President Obama signs his name, it shouldn't count since he really isn't Barack Obama, but is actually Barry Soetoro.
Furthermore, they say, since Barack Obama took the oath of office using the name Barck Obama, he never really took the oath of office since his actual name is Barry Soetoro.
Make sense?
Generally speaking, the questions of whether Barack Obama is a natural born United States citizen and whether or not his actual name is indeed Barack Obama are raised by fringe groups. The mainstream media pays little attention to the questions at this point as they are thought to have been well researched and ultimately discredited.
But today, something is up as the name "Barry Soetoro" has rocketed to the top position of Internet searches. Sometimes, some of the groups trying to promote awareness of their cause figure out ways to manipulate search volumes, thereby gaining exposure for their topics.
So, I'm sick. Again. And this time I have no fucking clue what this is. I feel like I have the flu. But I'm coughing. And my throat feels like I've been gargling with gasoline every morning when I wake up.
On the plus side, I think this toxic sickness has driven the poison ivy right out of me. It just couldn't handle the competition. Pussy!
So yesterday I missed work, being sick and all. I had some important things to do, too. Today I missed half a day of work. I basically had enough time to wrap up a huge project, deal with some emergencies downstairs on "the floor", and update my status report showing that I have finished one giant mother of a task, but not completed another task I had scheduled to be done by today. Awesome. There's nothing quite like the feeling of walking into work to begin a new week and already be behind.
Infiniti G35 vs Nissan 350Z
My nephew has bought himself a new car. He told me it is an Infiniti G35, but when I got in it, it clearly said it is a Nissan 350Z on the back, so I'm not sure what he's talking about. I'm a musclecar man, myself, so I don't actually care - Nissan or Infiniti - I couldn't give a shit. I mean, it's a cool car, and he's having fun tearing around out in the country as far from the cops as possible with his 270 or so horsepower. The car handles like it's on rails. And it damned well better with the ungodly expensive aftermarket rims and tires he's got on the thing, plus lowering the suspension. And he's got speakers in the trunk that point outward to vibrate the trunklid and maximize the enjoyment of whatever tunes he's listening to for everyone else in traffic. I can't say I'm thrilled about that, but as long as I know what car he drives I'll be sure not to put a bullet in it when he pulls next to me in traffic with his stereo thumping and his trunklid buzzing. He's a good kid, after all, and his biological dad was always a putz, so he does the best he can considering. And it is a fun car, which is the most important thing.
Dammit
I hear the USA was eliminated in the World Cup by Ghana. I'm not thrilled that we lost to Ghana. I'd rather we lost to Germany or Brazil. I mean, everybody loses to Brazil, right? But no, we lost to some shithole country out in the middle of nowhere where people have nothing else to do but kick a ball around and elbow each other in the throat while fighting for an advantage. And also, every ref from Africa has sucked donkey balls, so I'm not going to be cheering for Ghana in any of their remaining matches. Not that it matters. Brazil is going to stomp them if they should get that far, shitty refs or no shitty refs.
Al "Happy Ending" Gore
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is currently being accused of aggressively sexually harassing a massage therapist that he hired to come to his hotel room and give him a standard massage. He apparently is unfamiliar with regular, ordinary, legal massages and thus assumed she was a prostitute. She, not being a prostitute, but a regular masseuse, assumed that he was not a rapist, but a regular American former Vice President and thus left her pepper spray with the Secret Service agents who would not allow her to have it with her while she was with the former VP. Thus, she was unarmed and greatly offended and frightened by his alleged angry, aggressive advances. Apparently the Clinton Legacy lives on!
Obamunist
It has become evident even to the most militant of left-wing Obama supporters in the financial district that President Billy-boy Obama has absolutely no intention of doing anything to get our economy back on track. Some have even begun to suspect that he is wrecking it intentionally in order to return us to the time of Roosevelt and his Great Depression. Apparently President Obama is under the mistaken impression that "Great Depression" indicates that this was a lovely time of happiness and prosperity for all. Either that or he believes it was a wonderful time to be a Big-Government Marxist who exploits government-created suffering to expand and further empower Big Brother at the expense of The People. Either way, the market is reflecting this awareness as everything I own except gold is taking a giant dive into the shitter. Thanks Barry, you suck.
Twins
President Obama's latest pantsuit-wearing girlfriend, Elena Kagan, is currently lying her ass off in front of the United States Senate. "Oh no, I believe in the Constitution." "No, I never tried to prevent the U.S. military from recruiting on campus at Harvard." "No, I never shit on a copy of the Constitution at an all-grrl 'licking' party in Connecticut while high on meth and Grey Goose." Yeah, whatever. The one thing Kagan can't fool anyone about is that she is clearly the long lost twin of Kevin James. They could be brothers.
Earl no more
Jason Lee, who played Earl on "My Name Is Earl," has a new TV show on. It's called "Memphis Beat" and it's partially filmed in Memphis. Hey, I loved "My Name Is Earl" and I've seen Jason in several "Mall Rats" films, or one. I really wanted to like this show. But so far it's just PC bullshit and boredom. Granted, he has a cool GTO in the show. But other than that, there's nothing. Not one damn thing of any interest to me. If I want PC cops I'll flip over to "CSI" or "Law and Order" or any one of a zillion shitty cop shows on network TV. No thanks.
"Great" meaning "shitty"
Our esteemed teachers union, the National Education Association, a labor union consisting entirely of hippies from the 60s and a few crackheads from the ghetto, has decided that it is imperative for them to send a message to all the children of the United States of America that having friends is bad.
Now hear me out. I know this sounds fucking batshit crazy, but keep in mind, this is America and ... yes, it's fucking batshit crazy.
You see, the thinking here is that kids who have friends, especially 'best' friends, form a sort of clique, sometimes only a clique of two, but a clique nonetheless. And all the fuckwads in the NEA were, not surprisingly, losers and outcasts who didn't have any friends, largely because they were misfits who were lousy friends to the few people who tried to be nice to them. Narcissists tend to be that way, you know, and narcissism is what modern American labor unions and most 'civil rights' groups are all about. It's most certainly what the NEA is about.
So anyway, the Education Establishment has deemed that friendship is bad and must be discouraged. So, along with teaching our nation's children that competition in which there are winners and losers is bad, and that gay sex and bestiality is good, they are now teaching our fatherless, aimless children that forming potential lifelong friendships with their fellow students is also bad, because lifelong friendships cause selfish, me-first, me-only cunts to feel bad about the fact that they don't have any real friends due to their view that other human beings are only there to serve as allies (partners in crime) or targets (victims.) Sociopaths often find it hard to comprehend real friends and true friendships because their personality disorder makes it impossible for them to be a friend except when it serves some alternate, and purely selfish, purpose.
Thus, the message our nation's schoolchildren will be learning in the upcoming school year, along with 'gay is good, God is bad' and 'if someone can win then everyone loses', our public schools will be teaching that friendship is bad and those who form close, healthy, normal friendships with anyone, especially a classmate, are to be despised and shunned, sort of like the Amish do to heretics and unbelievers, or like California and the Federal Government are currently doing to Arizona. In fact, exactly like that.
Hotness
And speaking of personality disorders, Angelina Jolie has a new movie out. She plays a CIA spy who is wrongly accused of being a ... get this ... spy and must spend the entire movie running around in tight black outfits beating up helpless men and generally shooting lots of guns in slow motion while doing gymnastics. I'm sure this will be absolutely nothing like all her other films or anything. Yep.
Not an Obama Czar
So President Obama has bragged openly that he has surrounded himself with more lesbians than any President in history. So fine, he thinks this is something to be proud of. I have to ask, then, based on this assumption of his, where are all the gay men in his cabinet? I mean, if he's so fucking awesome because he's "family" to the gay community, where are all the gay men with positions of power and authority in the White House? Aside from Joe Biden and Rahm Emmanuel I don't know of any. I think someone likes to brag that he's all "tolerant" and shit, but in reality he's only "tolerant" of lesbians whose votes he needs to get his ass re-elected. When it comes to gay men, though, Obama is a flaming homophobe. There, I said it.
Gaybama
Speaking of gay, I was just watching the "gay and lesbian comedy jam" on Showtime. It had an old, old, OLD gay host, Bruce Villanch, who opened up the show with Cher jokes, which were pretty good, leading into 4 comedians, 2 gay guys and 2 lesbians. I have to be honest, the first gay comedian, Alec Maca, was hilarious. And the first lesbian comic, Sandra Valls, was pretty damned funny, too. The 2nd lesbian, Poppy Champlin, was also fairly funny. But the 2nd gay comic wasn't very funny. He asked how many people in the audience weren't gay, and then singled out one straight guy to harass and threaten with rape. Then he made fun of straight people in general, basically insulting over half his audience in a not funny way. Most good comics realize that this is a bad idea, but he seemed clueless. Oh well, 3 out of 4 isn't bad, especially considering that it was on Showtime, which usually just sucks.
Gay Comedy outside of the White House
Speaking of funny, Geico has a new commercial out where they compare their level of honesty to that of former President Abraham Lincoln. Then they show an old film clip of Abe's infamously crazy-assed wife asking him if her dress makes her ass look fat. Abe stands there dead silent for a long time, glancing at her ass and looking uncomfortable. Finally, he says "perhaps a little bit" and she storms off in a rage.
President Obama interrupted the very popular program, "Glee", to make a speech in which he said "I", "Me", "My", and "Mine" over 14,000 times. Reports are that fans of "Glee" rioted in the streets for over 6 hours before being Tasered to death in the genitals by riot police in several American cities. Obama dismissed these reports by waving his hand and stating, "we don't torture. That is to say, we don't torture terrorists or people from other countries. Our own citizens is another matter. We definitely torture them. I mean, that's what the Taser's for. Everybody knows that."
North Korea began firing artillery at South Korea today, loading their guns with Disney movies rather than artillery shells in order to save costs. A North Korean general whose name no one can pronounce said that the 'childrens' movies, which feature many scenes of sexual violence against males, are ridiculous, destructive and offensive and thus make good weapons to fire into enemy territory because their message corrupts society and normalizes sexual violence against the fathers, husbands and sons of that society, ultimately destroying the entire civilization from within.
American colleges and universities have suffered enormous amounts of shrinkage, partly as a result of the stress of financial hardship, but mostly because of the effects of radical feminism, which drives away all healthy males and leaves only pathetic men with small penises to serve as professors and "male feminists." Studies show that the average male college professor of today has a penis over 5 inches shorter than the average male penis of years past. Scientists theorize that this "Tiny Penis Syndrome" might explain why they are perpetually angry at other males.
John Edwards, the Great American Breck Girl of the Democratic Party, has left his wife to engage in a full-blown affair with Elin Woods, current wife of Tiger Woods. Tiger, meanwhile, is said to be shacking up with Angelina Jolie, who is rumored to have separated from Brad Pitt for the twelve thousandth time by TMZ. Brad, according to Angelina, is content to masturbate and not be with anyone at this point in his life. "He just finds all that work in having full blown sex to be more trouble than it's worth. I guess older men really don't give a shit. Or maybe it's all the pot he smokes?" Rumors have already begun circulating that Jennifer Aniston has moved back in with Brad and is busily disproving Angelina's claim that Brad prefers masturbation over full blown heterosexual sex.
A majority of California citizens, in what is perhaps the largest ever example of stating the obvious, say that their state is on the wrong course and is likely headed for a very liberalized, green, diverse, tolerant total disaster. As of this writing, no one could be found who disagreed with the basic sentiment, although many chose to blame George Bush rather than California residents' own excessive idealism.
A man who stands accused of shooting both an abortion doctor and an abortion protester has agreed to testify at his own trial. Through his attorney he has already stated that he was "just really damn confused and didn't know whether he was strongly for or against abortion, but he knew he felt strongly about it in some way. He just couldn't decide so he shot them both." Regardless of his testimony, he is expected to receive a lot of sexual abuse and torture while in prison and then, once thoroughly traumatized and completely transformed into a real monster, set free again. That's just how we do it here in America cuz we reel smart.
The man convicted of viciously slaughtering a field full of onions has been denied parole once again following sometimes violent protests by vegans outside the prison where he is being raped and tortured every day, both by criminally insane inmates as well as sociopathic guards, prior to his ultimate release sometime when no one is paying attention anymore. "We'll wait until the media gets bored with him," warden Linda Tripp said, "and then we'll just quietly send him home. He'll be so crazy by the time he gets out of here that he'll probably kill himself anyway. He's no threat. Unless you get him around a bunch of onions. He really hates those onions."
Zac Efron, in an attempt to escape from the pedophiles at Walt Disney, is producing and starring in his own film, "Fire," in which he plays a spy who hunts down and kills homosexual pedophiles who prey on young boys in the entertainment industry. When asked if there was any connection between his time with Disney and the rather angry message of the film he stated simply, "what the hell do you think?"
artnet Launches Icons: 20th-21st Century Photographic Portraits Sale Featuring 200 Photographs of Legends from Madonna to Obama
200 photographs by 70 renowned photographers Estimates from $1,000 to $20,000
June 15 - 25, 2009
Actress Grace Kelly, 1955 New York / Berlin, June 15, 2009 - From June 15-25 artnet Auctions will feature Icons: 20th-21st Century Photographic Portraits, a special sale of 200 original fine art photographs of legendary figures including The Beatles, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, President Barack Obama and Elvis Presley.
Screen Sirens Leading the sale is an exceptional group of fifteen photographs of screen stars Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe from the 1950s-1960s. Highlights include a rare photograph of Audrey Hepburn taken at the pinnacle of her career in 1956 by renowned portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh. This work has never before been seen at auction and is offered in pristine condition (estimate: $15,000-$20,000). Also featured in this section are two luminous portraits of Grace Kelly taken in 1955 by fashion photographer Howell Conant shortly before she became Princess of Monaco (estimates: $3,000-$3,500 each). Among the other highlights are some of the most recognizable photographs ever taken of Marilyn Monroe, including Marilyn Monroe Singing "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy, 1962 by Bill Ray (estimate: $2,500-$3,500) and Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder On The Set Of The Seven Year Itch, 1954 by George Zimbel (estimate: $5,000-$6,000).
Music Legends The sale celebrates music legends including Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Johnny Cash, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan and Madonna. Madonna's rise from a virtual unknown to pop icon is chronicled in five photographs by artists from Lee Friedlander to David LaChapelle. Friedlander's Nude (Madonna) is a rare nude portrait taken of Madonna in 1979 before she became famous (estimate: $25,000-$35,000) while LaChapelle's Madonna: Mythical Swans, 1998 captures the radiant pop megastar two decades later (estimate: $12,000-$14,000).
The sale also chronicles the evolution of Rock 'n Roll in the 1960s and 1970s featuring classic photographs of the Beatles, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix. The Beatles Land in Los Angeles, 1964 by Bill Ray captures the young musicians on their second world tour (estimate: $2,500-$3,500) while John Lennon, New York City taken by Bob Gruen in 1974 reflects the change in both the artist and the times (estimate: $1,400-$1,600).
Fashion Icons Fashion icons also figure prominently in the auction, with works ranging from the 1930s to the present. Leading this group is a collection of 20 rare vintage portraits by Louise Dahl-Wolfe from the 1930s to 1950s. One of the great fashion photographers of the 20th century, Dahl-Wolfe photographed a cross-section of fashion and film stars for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. The collection includes photographs of Lauren Bacall, Josephine Baker, Balenciaga, Christian Dior, and Spencer Tracy (estimates: $1,000-$3,000 each). Also featured in the sale are contemporary fashion icons such as Kate Moss Veiled, 1993 by Albert Watson (estimate: $7,000-$9,000) and Naomi Campbell, 1995 by Sante D'Orazio (estimate: $8,000-$10,000).
United States Presidents Two U.S. Presidents are also the subject of photographs in the sale, including a pensive 2008 profile of Barack Obama taken by Kwaku Alston, who photographed the Obama family extensively on the 2008 campaign trail (estimate: $3,000-$3,500). President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy are the subject of five photographs in the sale, including John Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, a beaming 1960 photograph by Bill Ray (estimate: $1,000-2,000) and Will McBride's John F. Kennedy, Willy Brandt & Konrad Adenauer, Brandenburg Gate Berlin, which documents Kennedy's historic 1963 trip to Berlin (estimate: $2,500-$3,500).
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LONDON, June 15/PRNewswire/ -- US president Barack Obama was yesterday named the most stylish man in a poll of men.
The 47-year-old father of two, who moved into the White House in January, has wowed people across the globe with his sharp suits and smooth sense of style.
Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt came second thanks to his ability to look stylish in a sharp suit and dressed down jeans.
His chiselled looks and good style have bagged him a string of beauties including Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie.
Jonathan Heilbron, President & CEO of luxury shirt company Thomas Pink, which carried out the poll, said: "Barack Obama has a great sense of style, which no doubt adds to his popularity. World leaders and politicians are not known for their dress sense, so it's refreshing to have Obama who seems to genuinely care about his appearance."
Third place in the poll of 3,000 men is footballer David Beckham, whose trendy style has seen him become one of the most photographed men in the world.
But the AC Milan player hasn't always been so stylish - previously stepping out in a sarong and wearing a matching PVC outfit with wife Victoria.
James Bond star Daniel Craig is at number four, followed by The Godfather actor Al Pacino.
Suave George Clooney was voted into sixth place, with designer Giorgio Armani even saying that the former ER star makes a suit look "simply fantastic".
Bill Nighy, who has recently been on the big screen in The Boat That Rocked, came seventh, while painter and filmmaker Andy Warhol was at eight.
Clint Eastwood and Will Smith completed the top ten.
Other style icons to feature in the poll include actor Danny Dyer at 11, former 007 Pierce Brosnan at 15 and Elvis Presley at 16.
The poll also asked what they considered to be the most essential fashion items in a man's wardrobe; a crisp white shirt came first followed by a pair of blue jeans and a casual t-shirt. The nominated 'most stylish' men have all been photographed numerous times wearing white shirts, each adding their own individual stamp to this most timeless of looks.
Jonathan Heilbron, President & CEO of Thomas Pink, added: "These guys have access to the latest designer trends and can get away with wearing virtually anything, yet time and time again they are seen in a sharp white shirt with jeans or a suit. And they have all dated or married the world's most beautiful women - it would seem that simple good taste wins out over extreme fashion when it comes to sex appeal for a man."
Thomas Pink now has a White Shirt Bar at its flagship Jermyn Street store and online, which offers men a choice of 21 year round styles plus seasonal limited editions. The White Shirt Bar offers men a one stop shop, where they can choose the perfect white shirt whether it's for work, the weekend or a special occasion.
TOP TWENTY MALE STYLE ICONS
1. Barack Obama 2. Brad Pitt 3. David Beckham 4. Daniel Craig 5. Al Pacino 6. George Clooney 7. Bill Nighy 8. Andy Warhol 9. Clint Eastwood 10. Will Smith 11. Danny Dyer 12. Johnny Depp 13. Dean Martin 14. David Bowie 15. Pierce Brosnan 16. Elvis Presley 17. Justin Timberlake 18. Sean Connery 19. Steve McQueen 20. Vernon Kay
Notes to editors:
3,000 men aged 25-55 took part in the poll which quizzed them on their fashion habits and views on stylish male icons. Conducted by market specialists OnePoll.com, the survey was commissioned by Thomas Pink, the British luxury shirt brand.
I was just sitting here on the computer Tuesday night, Twittering and Facebooking while President Obama made his 1000th speech this month. It was an interesting experience. Everyone was writing their reactions to his speech in real time.
For several years I worked at one of the largest banks in the Southeastern United States. I looked at the mountains of bad mortgages, and the incredible huge black holes of financial debt Americans were happily piling onto their futures in order to 'live the dream'. I saw all of this, along with the reports of how alongside the debt was a near complete lack of money in savings, simply so they could drive a BMW SUV and wear something with 'Prada' written on it, and I wondered, has the average American really become this reckless, this foolish, this superficial, this low class, this blind to the consequences of the path we're on?
Tonight I saw a glimpse into my answer.
For twelve years, former President Roosevelt insisted that the incredibly long, drawn out Depression wasn't his fault. Oh no, it was the fault of the previous administration, President Hoover's administration. Yes, for twelve long years. And people bought it. Enough Americans believed that horseshit to reelect him more times than any other president in U.S. history. Roosevelt loved making speeches and was an expert at bullshitting his way free of blame, relying heavily on his charisma. Today, President Obama and the Press regularly compare Barack and his policies to President Roosevelt. And this despite the fact that economists looking back at Roosevelt's policies and their impact have concluded that he didn't solve the Depression at all. He made it worse. He made it much, much worse.
Historians defend President Roosevelt from the economists by saying "he didn't know. No one knew back then. He did what seemed like the best idea at the time."
Fine, he did what they thought was best at the time, lacking any better information to go on. I'll give them that, even though it isn't entirely correct. It most certainly isn't true anymore. We know why it was a mistake and specifically what aspects of Roosevelt's ever-expanding Federal Government were the worst mistakes of all. We know, but we've learned nothing from it. We're doing it again, only this time we're doing it on a much larger scale, and in response to a much smaller crisis.
Yes, we have a big crisis. But the Depression was dramatically worse than this. Rahm Emanuel spelled out Obama's strategy clearly when he said "don't waste this crisis." Everyone who knows who Rahm Emanuel is knows exactly what he meant:
'While Americans are emotional, while Americans are enjoying the soap opera and the drama and not thinking clearly, logically, objectively, let us build the Socialist Dream that Saul Alinsky envisioned. Let us complete the castration of the West and turn the Shining City on a Hill into the biggest Nanny State in Western history.'
And so we shall.
Sure, France and Germany have been slowly moving away from this model for a Nursery Nation because it has been such a huge failure, sucking them down into obscurity with the resulting mass temper tantrums and utter lack of masculine character that it inspires, but so what? If there's one thing we know about Progressives, it's that Progressives are slaves to the power of Denial. Failure is not simply ignored, it's denied violently. And so, even as we move to 'Universal Health care', which must be paid for by an ever-shrinking body of American workers who already can't afford health care, we are simultaneously rebuilding the Welfare State that was partially dismantled in the 1990s by Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress. How ironic to see a day when Republicans might wish for Bill Clinton to return. And yet, that day is here. I watched a documentary the other night on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. I watched the people, all dressed in red, cheering with tears in their eyes for their 'great leader' while he gave an emotional rah rah speech. I watched as he strutted around, steadily growing accustomed to the power and the adoration. I listened to excerpts from several of his speeches in which he lectured the nation like a mother hen, pecking at them for buying things which he didn't feel they needed, things like Prada purses and SUVs, finally making it illegal to do so. His arrogance grew steadily and noticeably in the clips they showed, stepping from one year to the next so that you could easily see the progression in his ego and his arrogance and most of all, in his power and control over The People. He made lots and lots of speeches. The longer he remained in power, the more speeches he made, rambling on and on about what everyone should and shouldn't do, should and shouldn't want, like a drunken man who simply enjoys the sound of his own voice.
At the end of the documentary, they showed some of the younger generation of Venezuelans. They showed how they were disgusted with their parents who blindly worshipped and followed Chavez despite the glaring failures of socialism and all his empty, emotion-driven broken promises. They rolled their eyes as their mothers praised Chavez for his ability to bring them to tears with his words of hope and 'yes we can'. The old ladies didn't care that his policies had brought a rich and prosperous nation to ruin. All that mattered to them was the fact that his words were like a Hallmark card, making them cry with emotion.
The more I learn about the roots of the current financial crisis, the angrier I get. Bill Clinton himself, in an incredibly uncharacteristic statement, admitted his share of the blame for the subprime mortgage crisis. He even called on the rest of the Democratic Party to do likewise. They, of course, refused. Still, the subprime mortgage crisis isn't the whole crisis. It's just one piece to a much larger puzzle.
Barack Obama's own Black Congressional Caucus, working hand-in-hand with ACORN, a political racketeering organization known to openly and illegally stuff ballot boxes and blackmail financial institutions, in blatant violation of the law, also bears a large portion of blame.
George Bush and the Republican Party, increasing spending on socialist programs that they knew damn well their supporters did not support, bear a share of the blame, too. And for the Republicans part, they were kicked out by those same former supporters. But so far they have been the only ones to suffer any punishment for these abuses of power.
The feeding frenzy in Washington, D.C. has been growing out of control for decades. My father once gave me a book written by a former member of the House of Representatives. In the book the author warned about the "pigs at the trough" who were growing in number and in power in Washington, sucking the blood out of our nation's economy. The former Congressman warned that if they weren't stopped, they would grow and grow until they brought the entire economy to its knees. It was an old book, written around 1980. Things weren't even half as bad then as they are today.
Barack Obama's speaking abilities are excellent. He's as good as any televangelist I've ever heard, and far better than either former Presidents named Bush or any of the current Republicans. But the emotional response to his empty rhetoric by The People in this country is disturbing. It's also dangerous. I wish I could believe that Americans are too smart to be taken in by the likes of Nancy "raging ego" Pelosi, Joe "vagina" Biden, Rahm "don't waste this crisis" Emanuel, or any of the host of other scam artists who perpetually surround our new President like a dark shadow. But the statistics on the steady rise in personal debt willingly embraced by the average American citizen over the past many years following the stock market crash of 2000, so strongly contrasted with the near complete absence of savings, tells me otherwise. I'm not talking about debt taken on out of necessity. I'm talking about enormous personal debt taken on in order to buy, buy, buy without ever stopping simply because shopping is fun and exciting and feels good. I'm talking about a nation of shopaholics who buy things because Oprah recommended it, because it's shiny, because the ads for it appealed to their "strong, independent" ego, or simply because the feeling of buying something new was the only good feeling left in their empty, me-first and me-only lives.
Many years ago, Osama bin Laden and his Oxford-educated Muslim jihad advisers, very intelligently and correctly surmised that a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, if successful, would bring the Western financial world to its knees. They hit it in 1993 using a truck bomb, hoping that by blowing up the base of one of the two tallest towers, they could cause it to fall into the other of the tallest towers, bringing both towers crashing down. The bomb exploded successfully, but it didn't bring either tower down. For eight years the White House under Bill Clinton, did very little about the attack. They let Osama go without giving him any trouble at all.
And then, on September 11th, 2001, Osama's soldiers tried again. They had studied and planned for eight additional years why their initial attack had failed and what sort of attack would be necessary to succeed. Despite the political cartoons depicting them as towel-headed morons, the reality is that despite their emotion-laden, tear jerking, "Yes-We-Can" jihad speeches, the men leading them are not fools at all. They are generals. And they knew what they were doing when they successfully brought down both Tower One and Tower Two of the World Trade Center. It was an enormous rock thrown into the center of a sea of trade, and the ripples kept right on flowing across the oceans of trade for years after, building into a tidal wave.
Couple the terrorist destruction of the financial trade center of the Western World with the housing crisis made infinitely worse by the Democratic Party, Barack Obama's Congressional Black Caucus, and the ACORN-pirates, and you have major disaster on your hands. Add to that the dramatic expansion of Government under the Clinton White House and Republican Congress of the late '90s, and later continuing under the Bush White House and formerly Republican Congress in the early 21st Century, and you begin to see more causes of the current unraveling of our economy.
Throw in Bernard Madoff and his hedge fund, stealing over $50 billion from the world's richest few, add a dash of other crooks just like him, but on a smaller scale, and it's like gasoline on an already huge raging fire.
No, it wasn't a failure of capitalism that created this mess, as Barack Obama claims. It was corruption, massive out-of-control corruption at the highest levels of government.
Still, the fire could be put out. The worst has hit us and we know who and what our enemy is. We know what has to be done. We also know what the worst possible thing we could do is. The worst possible thing we could do is to allow politicians, the very same politicians whose faces are still covered in golden pork from having their heads buried deep in the trough of taxpayer money for so many years, to exploit this crisis, their crisis for which they bear so much personal blame. To allow these pigs to exploit the emotion and the fear of the American people in order to explode the size of the Federal Government into the single largest entity in the nation, producing nothing while devouring everything, including the Constitution and all the rights and powers of The People, is nothing short of treason. And if the word 'treason' bothers you, then replace it with 'suicide'. The end result is the same.
I'd like to believe that Americans are too smart to allow our nation to be transformed into one of the most ineffective lumbering socialist regimes in the Western hemisphere. I'd like to believe that we're smarter than the people of Venezuela, smarter than the people of Cuba, smarter than the people of China with its infamous purges of which our history books say virtually nothing. I'd especially like to believe that Americans today are smarter than the people of Germany in the 1930s, where socialism's greatest emotional orator of the 20th Century rose to power amid a sea of worshipful tears, screaming fans, and enthusiastic chants of "social justice" and "hail the victory".
I'd like to believe it. But I've just read that President Obama is doing away with President Bush's tax cuts, the only thing proven to effectively stimulate the economy. I've just read how he is rebuilding the Welfare State, bigger and badder than it was before, with states being rewarded not for encouraging the disadvantaged to work and become self-sufficient, but instead for dragging as many citizens as possible onto the roles of welfare, adding as many as possible and receiving Federal Money in return for each and every one. In other words, if the States are able to sign up every single formerly working citizen for welfare, Obama's new policy rewards them for all of them. Not even Roosevelt envisioned this.
Some call it 'hope'. Some call it 'change'. Some call it 'yes we can'. I'll be curious to hear what they're calling it 4 years from now.
NASCAR NEWS ... Jeff Gordon fires his entire pit crew
This announcement followed Gordon's decision to take advantage of the government's scheme to employ Harlem youngsters.
The decision to hire them was brought about by a recent documentary on how unemployed youths from Harlem were able to remove a set of wheels in less than 6 seconds without proper equipment, whereas Gordon's existing crew could only do it in 8 seconds with millions of dollars worth of high tech equipment. It was thought to be an excellent and bold move by Gordon's management team as most races are won or lost in the pits.
However-Gordon got more than he bargained for!
At the crew's first practice session, not only was the inexperienced crew able to change all 4 wheels in under 6 seconds, but within 12 seconds they had changed the paint scheme, altered the Vin number, and sold the car to Dale Jr. for 10 cases of Bud, a bag of weed, and some photos of Jeff Gordon's wife in the shower.
Jeff Gordon's wife - not in shower
Does anyone else besides me see a problem with the fact that the entire Western hemisphere seems to be celebrating the United States for electing a black man? The celebrations are based solely on the color of his skin. At first it was the fact that he could sing-song like an old black preacher, but people have quickly forgotten every word he said (luckily for him). Now all anyone remembers is that we elected a man because he is black.
Yes, I realize that at the time many people were actually voting for him because they liked the way he spoke or the way his suit hung on him or because they hated John McCain, or one of several other reasons, but that was a long time ago in Media Time and The Press has forgotten already. All anyone in The Press remembers anymore is that we elected "The First Black President" for being black. That's how it is here in The Land of Confusion. And they are quite happy about it. Nevermind what it reveals about The Press and their personal bigotry. Nevermind what it implies about the voters who swore up and down that they weren't voting for Obama based on skin color, because if they weren't then they'd be damned insulted about the implications of what The Press is saying now.
So, are they? Thus far the only person I have heard say anything against this celebration of skin color has been columnist Thomas Sowell, a black professor living in San Francisco. He openly says how stupid he thinks it is, and how destructive for our nation that we would celebrate a national leader based on something so unimportant to the job at hand.
How long have we been hearing from on high that prefering anyone based on skin color is wrong? It's been all of my life. That's a damn long time. And yet everyone is so excited about the color of this one man's skin. The fact that this man is as white as he is black has been ignored. We're not allowed to acknowledge that. Oh no, that would be bad. We don't want no white in our first black whatever.
Too bad for his mama, because she's a honky and thus has to be ignored. If she were only the 'right' color we could hold her up as an icon of feminist success, a single mother who hooked up with a 'typical' worthless man and had his baby all by herself. We can't acknowledge her because it would mean acknowledging that Our First Black President is half white.
And yet it's there, an inconvenient truth.
Now every time he appoints another semi-black person to some other position of power we hear it all over again, "the first black whatever" and the crowd goes wild.
My friends, THIS is what racism is, celebrating someone for their skin color and not for their qualifications or personal achievements. It's just plain arrogant. It's insulting. And it's stupid.
Of course, these same twats didn't celebrate Condaleeza Rice. No, they ranted on and on about how ugly she is. And they didn't celebrate Colin Powell, either. Until he endorsed Barack Obama. Then suddenly they stopped calling him "Uncle Tom" and started patting him on the back and calling him "pal". Yeah, with friends like these you'd best start working on a secret hiding place in your home where you can go when the seasons change and you suddenly find yourself out of fashion. This sort of thinking can make life very interesting.
