Nuanced Differences

"A riot is a spontaneous outburst. A war is subject to advance planning."

-Richard M. Nixon

Sunshine Empire Top Ten Comic

In the forthcoming Ten Part series "Top Ten Comics" of The Sunshine Empire, Daniel Tosh will be a featured member. Here he is on some awful morning zoo crew bullshit bandwagon. It's brilliant his segment. Enjoy.

On Politics and Football

"There is not much difference in basic temperament between a good tight end and a successful politician. They will both go down in the pit and do whatever has to be done --- then come up smiling, and occasionally licking blood off their teeth."

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72

Tetris in the wild

I've been playing too much Tetris.

Is is rabbit season, or duck season?

Arguing about this country's conflict in Iraq is getting to be as normal as baseball season and American Idol. But as long as the war has been going on the fog of history is starting to obscure what some were saying in 2003. Our friends at Jolemite Blog have long since spoke of how almost everything that the anti-war movement had said would happen, has happened. They stated that there were no illegal weapons stockpiles, there was no connection between Iraq's government and the September 11th attacks, that it would cause regional instability, and that it would make terrorism worse before better. My great country's own weapons inspectors have determined that there were no weapons, Tony Snow stated on the White House lawn this morning that they have never claimed that there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11, and the State Department released a study today stating that worldwide terror attacks where up 29% this past year. But one that was stated was that the conflict could possibly spill over into other regional allies' countries. Most conservatives almost uniformly belittled these beliefs as coming from a "pre-9/11" mindset. All of this nonsense has all come to this evening. I was watching CSPAN tonight because my life is a pinata filled with electric dynamite, and Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona was speaking on the floor of the Senate. He was making a pronouncement about Iraq as new as the Macarena on VHS, but I was struck by one thing he said. He claimed that one of the dangers of pulling U.S. troops out of the civil war zone was the risk of spillover. The argument has gone on so long that it has looped itself. It's as if a vital and historic national argument has become that Bugs Bunny cartoon when both he and Daffy are looking down the barrel of Elmer Fudd's shotgun. "It's rabbit season, duck season, rabbit season, duck season, duck season, It's duck season!" Kyl's argument essentially was predicated upon a key pre-war claim of those opposed to the incursion. We've got our finger in the dike and we're either there forever, or somebody's going to get wet.

Washington On Government

"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."

George Washington

Bill Moyers with Jon

More Wisdom from David

The Sunshine Empire Remembers

"Memory is often less about the truth than about what we want it to be."

-David Halberstam

Bush vs. Lincoln

Robot Chicken is loved in The Sunshine Empire.

Sunshine Empire Presents:

Biggus Rickus and I went drinking with a girl named Sabrina and my sister on Friday at Jax Beach. I couldn't get this song out of my head. I wish I could watch this British guy's show, he has great taste in music.

The Past Days

I am finally back in business after an outage to a major piece of your computer puzzle. Namely the monitor. I now have a monitor that has such a bizarre shape I feel I'm trapped on the set of some mid-morning CNBC show about bonds. But I can see my work as I type it and not have to trust The Force.

Our Boy Tom

“I cannot support a failed foreign policy. … President Clinton has never explained to the American people why he was involving the US military in a civil war in a sovereign nation, other than to say it is for humanitarian reasons, a new military-foreign policy precedent. Was it worth it to stay in Vietnam to save face? What good has been accomplished so far? Absolutely nothing.”

— Tom DeLay on the House floor in April 1999, when US troops were a month into their three-month mission in Kosovo

and today he calls Democrats treasonous.

Another great mind that will be missed

Please join all of us here at The Sunshine Empire in mourning the loss of David Halberstam. This accomplished reporter and historian covered such divergent topics such as the Vietnam War, 9/11, and Michael Jordan. He was, to steal a line from his most legendary work, on of our best and brightest. Although he had lived a full life having he taken in such a violent manner has shaken us all. Please keep his family in your prayers, and may we have more like him in the future.

These Kids Are Funny

Literary Obituary

The Sunshine Empire mourns the death of Kurt.

This guy was good at smoking cigars

"When asked to name the chief qualification a
politician should have. "It's the ability to
foretell what will happen tomorrow, next month,
and next year --- and to explain afterward why it
didn't happen."
- Sir Winston Churchill

Flea and Chad Put Their Weight On it

There was a time when this was the only music played in The Sunshine Empire.

I Mail Myself The Constitution : The Sushine Empire Celebrates 300 Posts

The Victim In Culture

The horrible tragedy in Blacksburg has brought out the usual media roving plague of Satellite trucks and plastic people. The Sunshine Empire understands that in our new culture of media warfare the opinions have come from the talking heads. Wing nuts say this proves guns are good, and the liberal wack-jobs say it means to ban them. There again we are witness to yet another George W. Bush tragedy speech. When discussing the speech with our friend Jolemite it occurred that he seems to have made twice the average of a normal president. Reagan had the Challenger, Clinton had Oklahoma City. George W. Bush has presided over September 11Th, The Columbia, Hurricane Katrina, and now this. They are not his fault but they do seem to give his presidency a somber mood. They seem to fit the pattern of things out of control. But there are even those who have blamed the victims for not seeming to have fought back. Many have correctly criticized the left for worshiping at the alter of victim hood. There are big evil bad guys lurking to destroy you. But it seems the right has a nasty opposite to this. Individualism made my country great, but this is militarized individualism. If you did not get out of Katrina's way, it was your fucking fault. You may not have the luxury of spending a week out of town by way of your car that you don't have, but fuck you you should have worked harder. If you didn't get out of that gunman's way then you must have been week. He cant possibly been a good shot, he only killed 32 people. But those people were weak, and deserved to die for their sheer un-adulterated meakness. The meak are supposed to inherit the Earth, but you would not know it looking at us today.