Kilgore, Kilgore Uber Alles!

So apparently Bush attended a Kilgore rally out in Virginia. I think this photo is from the rally:

I'm not sure which one is Kilgore. Here's what a Washington Post reporter has to say from her interview with one of the attendees:

Mary Bria, 58, a consultant from Midlothian, said she came to support Kilgore with a red-white-and-blue kerchief around her neck because she identified with his values.
"We’re conservative by nature," said the grandmother of 10, who recently moved to Virginia from upstate New York. "And we live our lives pretty conservatively. And Virginia has a history of that."
Asked what about Kilgore represented her values, she said "fiscal responsibility and family values." While even some Republicans questioned whether appearing with Bush was a great idea while the president’s poll numbers are so low, Bria looked around at the rock-concert-like environment and shook her head.
"They say the Bush bear market is over, so it’s a good time to buy. I am a strong supporter of the president."

The Bush bear market? This analogy explains a good bit about how Capitalism has co-opted every component of our culture. Serious dishonesty can be explained in terms of an economic downturn. Pathetic. And she calls herself a values voter. The best part about these fools is that every time they open their mouths they get dumber. Case in point: she presents herself as a believer in "fiscal responsibility" then turns around and announces she's a "strong supporter of the President." Hasn't she been paying attention? This President has sold the future generation into hock to pay for his Middle East adventures. How can you even talk about Bush and fiscal responsibility in the same sentence without choking on your vomit? I'll tell you how: stick your head so far up your ass you can taste your dinner.

This will probably bore all three of my readers.

First, a view of the game. It's opening kickoff, the last time Wisconsin would see the game tied...

After the game we headed to the Creamery, where $2.10 (tax included) will buy you this (and that's my hand, not my son's little hand):

Two dollars and ten cents, tax included, OK? And it's made right there. What you see in my hand is a little number called "Apple Cobbler Crunch." I chose it over the "Peachy Paterno," which I must add is very good.

No trip would be complete without an attempt to steal student mail. You never know when parents are going to send a cash infusion. He uses the stick as a diversion tactic.

Rifling through several hundred mailboxes helps you workup an appetite, so we had to eat some pizza and watch the very satisfying stomping of Virginia Tech. While it's true I hate Miami, I can't fathom why Va Tech was ranked above #5 ever. They're the UCLA of the East. I didn't take a photo of us eating, but after the meal we wandered out to the intramural athletic fields where we parked our car and took one last photo with the stadium in the background.

PSU v. Wisconsin, Part 2 (by popular demand)

I will begin by patting my own back, thank you very much, for my call of the PSU v. Wisconsin game. My prediction that Calhoun would have 65 yards rushing and 30 yards receiving proved to be a bit optimistic (for Calhoun that is). The Penn State defense held him to 38 yards rushing on 20 carries. My friends, that's an average of 1.9 yards per carry. He did manage 48 yards receiving. I called 95 total combined yards; he gained 86 combined yards.

And my friends, I was there.

Through feverish phone calls I managed to locate two tickets and a parking pass gratis. Pictures will follow, because I know everyone's excited. Anyway, the long and short is that I didn't have to sell either kid and in fact took my son to the game with the second ticket. After the game he got along great with the college kiddies as we traversed the campus. As for how I actually got the tickets, the simplest way to explain it is that the town I'm from is close to Penn State and full of Penn State season ticket holders and I'm still close to many people in town. I spread the nets wide for this one and luckily caught something around 1:30 p.m. Friday.

Can We Please Impeach this Asshole Now?

Bush, whose grandiose war plans have driven this country into record deficits -- what kind of economic policy is it anyway to cut taxes AND go to war at the same time? -- now applauds as the non-indicted Republican members of Congress hand him a budget targeting those who are unlikely to vote for him anyway:

Bush didn't make too much of the veto threat issued in his name, instead thanking the Senate for the cuts to health care programs for the elderly, poor and disabled while leaving food stamps untouched.

"Today, the Senate took an important step forward in cutting the deficit," Bush said in a statement from Mar del Plata, Argentina, where he is attending a conference. "Congress needs to send me a spending-reduction package this year to keep us on track to cutting the deficit in half."

If you were serious about cutting the deficit, Mr. President, you wouldn't be spending billions in Iraq you fucking fucktard. Oh, and the veto threat? It's because Congress was considering cutting subsidies to insurance companies. What the fuck is going on in America?

And if you were keeping score, here's what this mean-spirited budget would accomplish:

The Senate bill is estimated to trim $36 billion, or 2 percent, from budget deficits forecast at $1.6 trillion over five years. The cuts total $6 billion for the plan's first year, with deficits predicted to exceed $300 billion.

Can you say drop in a bucket? The well-kept media, by the way, bury this news deep in their reports, if they report it at all. It would be interesting to survey U.S. citizens to see how they think budget dollars are divided up. I'm willing to bet most of them would think that cutting welfare entirely would balance the budget or create huge surpluses. Fucking morons.

PSU v. Wisconsin...wish I was there.

I was going to post something really soul searching and intense, but that's too much work. Instead, I'll explain why it is that Penn State will beat Wisconsin this weekend: Wisconsin relies on one player, Brian Calhoun, and Penn State will shut him down. I'm suggesting he rushes for 65 yards and maybe picks up 30 more in receptions. Calhoun accounts for 21 of the Badgers 42 touchdowns this year.

Penn State's defense is better than any the Badgers have faced this year. PSU has given up an average of 16.1 points a game this year. The next toughest defense the Badgers had to face was Michigan's, which gives up 19.2 points per game (and Penn State's average would be even lower if Lloyd Carr hadn't been given 2 more seconds to score an extra 6 points).

I'm trying to sell one of my kids to get tickets to the game, but so far no luck. I may have to sell both.*

At the very least, I'm probably going to have to drive to Pennsylvania to watch the game. Around here, the television programmers seem to think ACC football is actually watchable. If it hadn't been for all the Big East defections, the ACC would remain a one team league (why do you think that dirtbag Bowden joined the ACC back in the early nineties? -- so he could pad his win column).

*OK to be honest, I'm trying to get tickets for free or at least lower than face value.

House for Sale in Adams Morgan

Last night I was coming home and saw a "For Sale" sign up in front of a neighbor's house. That's not terribly unusual, since in the six years we've lived in our house I would say that seventeen houses on our block have changed hands. These are all two story row houses, and for the most part they've been sold to youngish (30 and below) couples, many of whom now have a child or two. However, this particular house-for-sale surprised me, because the people who live there have been mainstays of the block for decades.

In retrospect, I should have seen it coming: they own a car repair shop up the road and developers have been buying up all the little businesses such as theirs in that area to make way for another "luxury loft" project. Their grandchildren used to stay at their house all the time and played with our son nearly every day, but at the end of the summer, the kids and their mother moved away to North Carolina. I suspect they're probably following their grandchildren. Still it's a shock.

As far as block seniority goes now, we'll be one of the "long established" residents, with just over half a decade's tenure. There's one man on the block who lives alone in the house in which he was raised. After travelling the world in the U.S. Army and raising his own family, he came back to take care of his mother, who has since died. He is probably in his late seventies. He and the family moving away contain much of the institutional memory of the block, remembering a time when Adams Morgan contained light industries, gas stations (plural), a lumber yard, a roller rink, and of course segregated schools.

Maybe it's the Faulknerian in me, but when I talk to these individuals and they paint the neighborhood as it was 30 or 50 years ago, or to tell you the truth even 15 years ago, I understand Faulkner's statement that "The past isn't past. It isn't even dead."

Two Dynasties in Decline

Two men born into wealth and their consorts.

The main difference is that Charles doesn't have the authority to abuse political power.