Tuesday, January 30, 2007

On Politics and Wires

I have often stated before that I love even numbered years, because that's when the real party of American democracy is staged. A year long extravaganza of the great battle between Democratic and Republican party for control of our great republic. With the internet now an essential tool in following the massive playing field that this contest encompasses, a central source is needed for all of this information. I swear by the sites that I keep in my links section, but there was no more indispensable tool in the 2006 Congressional election than Taegan Goddard's Political Wire. Political Wire takes the best of political reporting and news and presents it in an orderly fashion. But with 2006 over and the Democrats in charge on Capitol Hill, now is not the time to look away. With roughly 1723 people expected to declare a candidacy for the Presidency between now and the Iowa caucuses you need Taegan more than ever. But we here at the Sunshine Empire would like to see a few things added to enhance the experience. We enjoyed the ongoing series where several professional political analysts where put the same question regarding bellwether races to watch on election night. The same kind of occasional guest commentary from gentlemen like Stu Rothenburg and Charlie Cook would add addtional insights of the business and historical ramifications of events that pass by the average voter. Such questions could be, "who's the next to declare?" and "Primaries beyond New Hampshire that could tip the balance in crowded fields on both sides of the race to the White House."

Such questions could help, but some might enjoy having a properly sourced and branded way to share content from this source as discussion starters in their own blogs, much like material of the Wire appears on sites like cqpolitics.com. But I would love an avenue to share certain stories on political wire with friends as well. Some kind of easy way to email a story to a work friend, because there is no more water cooler. People now hoard their 16 gallon bottles of Deer Park in their little work holes. We don't communicate anymore, but we can change that. Politicians are fond of saying that we live in dangerous times, and that may be. But we must stay informed for the good of our society, and I know we are up to it. Because we were Time's people of the year.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

TSE Music Explosion

Emerson, Lake and Palmer from 1972.

Debit or Credit

This far along into the age of credit I am constantly bothered by cashiers that instruct me to put in my pin after I request debit. That's kinda the deal. Sorta why I asked for debit in the first place. I'm either having my intelligence insulted, or their are people dumb enough to not know the deal. Like those insufferable people in the express line that wait for all of their items to be rung up before they start to write out their check in illuminated calligraphy. First off, if you are still using checks to purchase groceries, we're seven years past Y2K so get with the fucking program. Second, you know what store you are in you can start filling that crap out while the cashier rings up your 17 miniature cans of cat food.

The next time that lady tells me to punch in my pin I am going to ask for a pen to write my pin with on the keypad.

Tarot Cards

"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."

Steven Wright

On Iran and Ahmadinejad

Bush and Ahmadinejad, both in similar situations.


As Bush and Ahmadinejad square off, how many support them?.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Picard vs. Vader

Thought they would stop with Alien vs Predator?

TSE '70's Retrospective

The Bushs and The Clintons

Do you realize that if hypothetically Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2008, that there will have been a Bush or a Clinton in either the office of President or Vice President from 1980 to at least 2012? We need someone else. We also know that Jeb has to try at least once. We should try our best not to do that. That's the type of thing they do in India where they will elect anyone with the last name Ghandi. There is not really a Democrat that excites me and Chuck Hagel would have my vote in a second.

On the Vice President and You

Friday, January 26, 2007

Sunset

Civilization

"One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person."

William Feather (1908 - 1976)

Mitch lives

This was someone with a great deal of time on their hands. Plus Mitch Hedburg kicks ass.


Tommorow, Sunday, and into the Future.

Tomorrow marks a sad day in the Sunshine Empire. Our friends over at Jolemite Blog are moving their operations to the other side of this great continent, and will not be seen in the bold new city of the south for quite some time. Joe has been an inspiration and a dear friend to me and I count myself among the blessed to have had such a monopoly on his time. The good people in the shadow of Mt. Hood will now have the good fortune of hearing those two fingers snap, and will know the chorus of Glad you're Gone. And babies in Oregon will have two more loving hands to enter the World upon with Lauren in tow. We here at The Sunshine Empire feel we have not seen the last of the Mackenzie's living on the St. Johns, but we will certainly miss them dearly while they are not.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Fluffy Puff

History as Literature

"I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I'm wrong, I am inclined to agree with him."

Henry Adams

Sesquecentenial Post, and it's Precious Roy

What's in a name?

What is the name of the party that controls the House of Representitives and the Senate in the United States Congress?


THE “IC” FACTOR.

More Chuck

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Late in the evening

Life in a video game.


Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Meanwhile at the Leak trial


Lawyers Paint Libby As Sacrificial Lamb.

Number 1 again.


Top-ranked Gators survive near collapse, feisty Ole Miss.

On the St. Johns

TSE Bandstand

Veruca Salt is not just the girl in the chocolate factory.

Cribs

Solid

Dissent

"With the distance of time, we find ourselves debating the causes of conflict and the course we have followed. Such debates are essential when a great democracy faces great questions."

George W. Bush
State of the Union address to Congress
January 23, 2007

Notes on the State Of The Union

Special thanks to Biggus Rickus over at The Thoughts of Biggus Rickus Blog for joining our commentary.



Matthew
it was a decent speech overall. nothing spectacular nor bad
Biggus
I can't believe you watched it all.

Matthew
It was not my intention, but at the end I was like, "damn, I watched it all"
I'm a political nerd
Bush was conciliatory at the beginning and made a minor deal of the Pelosi first woman speaker thing, congrats to the dems, called them the "democrat congressional majority" continuing that childish parroting of Limbaugh. There was none of the histrionics of the last few years from the audience but nobody sat on their hands either.
He gave his same terrorism stump speech but not the doom and brimstone of previous years
Nothing on New Orleans, and promised to cut gas consumption by 20% in 10 years.
Biggus
Why would there be something on New Orleans?

Matthew
it's a major American city still half in ruins
The Sugar Bowl is played there
Biggus
Half in ruins is a bit much.

Matthew
I don't want to have a Katrina discussion but it would have made good politics if anything else
Cheney and Bush drank a glass of water as if they were synchronized swimming too
Biggus
You mentioned.

Matthew
I think that proves it's actually Cheneny's voice through a cia mike
Biggus
I think you pay far too close attention to minutiae.

Matthew
that's what they saw from behind in that debate
under his jacket
maybe I do
I love watching the dueling of the networks thought. Right afterward CNN had Barak Obama, I flipped to Foxnews and they had some ex-mayor of some city. I think his name is Guiliani.
Right as the speech ended, the back camera caught John Kerry sprinting out like the media whore he is.
Biggus
I would be a media whore, but they refuse to pay me, and I refuse to just be a media slut.

Monday, January 22, 2007

On a Cloudy Day

TSE Symphony Orchestra

Dimitri Shostakovitch's No 11 movement 4

Superbowl Sunday

The Superbowl is almost here and I could really care less. My team's year is over, and my college squad won it all. I also hate Payton Manning. He's Jesus Christ to all those nattering idiots that make up the Nation's sporting press. A bunch of prattling teenage girls at a high school basketball game. I'll be rooting for the team in orange and blue. Especially for Rex Grossman. He may have played below average for most of the year, but he had the Heisman robbed from him because in the dusty heads of Heismen voters you just don't vote for a sophomore. The person who beat him was a crying girl anyway. So in closing, I'm going to try not to watch it. Go Rexie.

It Was For Charity

The Fate Of Society

"The people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave him "a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself." In the first place, the most horrifying fact in many of our lives is that our ex-spouse has gotten ahold of our ATM card. And civilization has always been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine."

P.J. O'Rourke (1994), All the trouble in the world. The lighter side of famine, pestilence, destruction and death.

On The State Of Our Union

Tomorrow George W. Bush will give yet another address on the state of our union. I find it tragic in a way. Take my personal political feelings out of it, and I still feel for him in a purely professional way. There was a day when Dubya could have gone live on Foxnews and eaten the heart of a newborn, and would have only dropped two points down to 80% approval. In just a few short years he has become one of the most historically unpopular Presidents ever. We have not seen our chief executive come before the annual rave with congress this unpopular since Nixon in '74. It could almost be a Shakespearian tragedy if it were not happening in front of our very eyes. I once wrote a paper in college comparing Richard Nixon with the character Macbeth, and it is always Nixon that I have thought of comparing to Bush. So many people dislike him, many who enthusiastically voted for him just two short years ago. More so I believe because it has become fashionable to do so. Will he give us bio-diesel and attempt to placate the one group that has hated him from the beginning? Our situation in the world becomes more dangerous the more irrelevant he becomes, and he only has himself to blame for that.

On The Merits Of The Surge

Droopy Dog attacks Chuck

Saturday, January 20, 2007

TSE Music Factory - '90's Retrospective

Possibly one of the best songs ever.

Rudy and the Republicans

Polls indicate that respondents are wild for Rudy Guiliani in the early race for the Republican nomination in 2008. But he will eventually become the Howard Dean of this election cycle. The 9/11 aura fades every day, and he has a record. The Master Blaster of politics Stu Rothenburg puts it best in his blog Rothenburg Report,

"And second, his personal life would be a problem. It’s not merely that he is on his third marriage. It is that just before the World Trade Center attacks, New York tabloids were filled with stories about the mayor’s marital troubles and his apparent adultery. The former mayor’s personal and professional relationship with former New York City Police Chief Bernie Kerick, who has his own legal troubles, also could pose problems for Giuliani, who understands that all of his business dealings would be fair game as a presidential hopeful."

I think the same amount of care should be taken with Barak Obama. He seems to be able to do no wrong this early in the game. But as much as she is not my choice it seems to point to Hillary in the Democratic race. Not the Democrat race for all of you schoolyard childish wing nuts that insist on parroting Rush Limbaugh's sad attempt at an insult. Hillary has the full team from her husband's regime and even the stragglers that are with other campaigns would coalesce around her once she secured the nomination. Her fund raising prowess is unmatched and she has proven she can charge both the base and the opposition. She will probably lose either Iowa or New Hampshire, but her husband came in third in New Hampshire in '92 and won the Presidency. Would she win though? Not against my favorite Republican Chuck Hagel. Her husband had a knack for beating Republicans when they had the upper hand, and also that's assuming they nominate someone like the power whore McCain. Straight talk must be Arizonan for bullshit. I am amazed that at one time in my life I was ready to cast a vote for him, and where it not for him dropping out and ending the primary season I would have. It will make for a brawl unprecedented in American Presidential Election history. I can't wait.

No Dude, that had not occured to us.

"I'll tell you what I'm blathering about... I've got information man! New shit has come to light! And shit... man, she kidnapped herself. Well sure, man. Look at it... a young trophy wife, in the parlance of our times, you know, and she, uh, uh, owes money all over town, including to known pornographers, and that's cool... that's, that's cool, I'm, I'm saying, she needs money, man. And of course they're going to say that they didn't get it, because... she wants more, man! She's got to feed the monkey, I mean uh... hasn't that ever occurred to you, man? Sir?"

Jeffery "The Dude" Lebowski

A Tribute To Johnny

Dave and Johnny

TSE Music Factory

Some good old Stone Temple Pilots.

The Track Record

The media is good at shoving down our collective throats the idea that Republicans are great with the economy and war. It's the Democrats that we look to for all the lovey squishy issues like education and the poor. But over the last twenty years the Republicans that have had their claws on the levers of power in the District have quite a track record that seems to say otherwise. Since 1980 we have been told by the new conservatives of the "reagan revolution" that supply-side economics were the way of the future. After 26 years the way of Reagan Christ has produced zero balanced or surplus budgets. That ignorant redneck from Arkansas balanced a couple in between but nobody seems to notice that.

In the course of the time that has elapsed from 1898 onward, Republican Presidents have won exactly one meaningful war, the Spanish-American War. They have now lost us the only two wars that this great republic has ever sustained. I know some will say that it was actually the liberal media that lost the Vietnam War, but how can one fathom the possibility of wining a battle with Seymour Hirsch and David Halberstam? They both wear glasses, and you can't hit people with glasses. It's like they are invincible. The confusion could force someone to listen to Beck for hours. But Democrats won two world wars. Common sense would say that the Democrats should be trusted more. But the "liberal media" seems to think they are weak. They are obviously biased. Thank God for Fox News. As Steven Colbert says, "the facts have a well known liberal bias." Common sense bias free.

Friday, January 19, 2007

Weekend

I have a theory that the truth is never told during the 9 to 5 hours.

Hunter S. Thompson

A New Bond

If something happens to Daniel Craig, have no fear my friends.

Bond Family Reunion

Special thanks to the staff over at Jolemite Blog for these.

The Real Growing Danger

This week China destroyed an aging weather satellite in space with a ballistic missile. This news was missed by the liberal media, which is currently enthralled in the apparent grand conspiracy to lose the war on terror. The New York Times did have a piece that looks at the situation, and nobody seems to notice. The Chinese are growing their overflowing coffers on the deficit spending by our government and the consumerism of my countrymen and myself. As the Times states the United States depends heavily on satellites for every aspect of warfare, and the Chinese understand this. Saddam Hussain will mean nothing when Hu Jintao is rolling across Kansas and shooting down GPS satellites. I know there are those that view the situation with China as not as large a situation as I do, but I challenge them to prove to me that they are just our benevolent friends with no global ambitions. They really resemble the United States of late 1800's. We can beat them now, but for how long?

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Black Mountain

Love Palace

It's cool, just call.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Borrow and Spend

This from our friends over at Crooks and Liars, who have dubbed the Republican establishment the Borrow and Spend crowd. They call "liberals" the Tax and spenders, while they just borrow and spend. They also had this quote from the Comptroller General of The United States;

"The picture I will lay out for you today is not a pretty one and it's getting worse with the passage of time," said David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, in a Thursday morning hearing of the Senate's Budget Committee. "Continuing on our current fiscal path would gradually erode, if not suddenly damage, our economy, our standard of living, and ultimately even our domestic tranquility and our national security,"

Check out www.crooksandliars.com

Teddy's Cousin

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."

Franklin D. Roosevelt

PSA

Beasties Vs Warhols

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Simmer Down

What?


Dr. Multimillionaire vs. Karl Rove.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Fuck Johnny Quest, he doesn't know me

Pride or Predjudice?

Put aside partisanship for a moment and answer this question. What would be the public reaction if George W. Bush were to address the Nation tomorrow and state that the war was no longer winnable and that he was pulling all troops out by the fall of next year? Not so much in those words exactly, but fatalistic statements made and actions taken. Could his approval ratings sink further? The Democrats are certainly not giving the Nation to Cheney. Does that leave legacy as the enduring reason to trudge on?

What honestly would the reaction be?

Monday, January 08, 2007

Alma Mater

After every home game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium the football team sings the Florida Alma Mater and the fight song Orange and Blue at the corner of the stadium. Since I was not able to be in Glendale with them I bring this to you. This is the singing of Florida Alma Mater and Orange and Blue right after the end of Florida's win over South Carolina on a last second field goal block.

BCS

They said they would be lucky to be within ten points. They said they did not deserve to even be in the game. They said this was a mis-match. They were wrong.



Go Gators.

2006 NCAA Basketball Champions
2006 BCS National Football Champions.


University of Florida 41, Ohio State University 14

Saturday, January 06, 2007

I've Got Mine

Bitches

The wisdom of HST

“For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.”

Hunter S. Thompson

Journalism?

This appeared on the front page of ESPN.com:

"Star Gazing Remember Vince Young's look leading into last year's Rose Bowl? Look out Florida, Troy Smith's got that same glint."

Since when did they start employing 12 year old girls ensconed in braces with schoolyard crushes to write for the worldwide leader in sports. I love sports but I think most of the reporting for it is done by vapid latent homosexual retards. People that belong over at Extra doing the coverage of the BCS National Title Game. Plus, FUCK Vince Young. That no talent ass clown stole the rookie of the year award from Maurice Jones-Drew.

Friday, January 05, 2007

The Party of Fiscal Responsibility

From today's Washington Post:

"Although the GOP has portrayed itself as the party of fiscal restraint, it has presided over sharp increases in pork-barrel spending since Republicans won majorities in the House and Senate in the 1994 elections.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based watchdog group that compiles an annual list of pork-barrel projects in the federal budget, 1,318 such projects cost taxpayers $7.8 billion in fiscal 1994. By 2000, the group recorded 4,326 pork barrel projects worth $17.7 billion.

The surge continued under the Bush administration. In its 2006 Congressional Pig Book, Citizens Against Government Waste identified 9,963 pork projects in the 11 appropriations bills that make up the discretionary portion of the fiscal 2006 budget. Their total cost came to $29 billion. Although the number of projects dropped 29 percent from the previous year, their value went up by 6.2 percent from the 2005 total of $27.3 billion, the group reported."

Can we stop the charade and call them the spend and spend conservatives. The party of fiscal responsibility my ass.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Shark-Man on a Rocket

Edenpure

I'm watching the most twisted infomercial that has ever been produced. It's for the Edenpure space heater. It's set up not like the standard infomercial. They have the same concepts, it's just that they're not trying hard at all. That have a "testimonial" from a "doctor" with the worst affected dinner theater accent and a rug on his head that is the kind that they put on characters in sketch comedy shows. The host says, "It's will keep you warm" with extreme malice. Kind of like if a wrestler were to say defensively "I'm not gay." The woman was slightly normal, which made her stand out. Check them out.

http://www.edenpureheater.com/tv/

Monday, January 01, 2007

Our Fallen Boys and Girls

Happy New Years to all. I thought as we work off our hangovers, and I have one to be sure, that we should really take a moment to consider those who will not be joining us in the world of 2007.

God bless them and all of you and yours.


The Faces of our soldiers in Iraq