Odds 'n Sods

No, we didn't forget about this blog once we got on the Facebook thingy. Been a busy summer, but the graduate is now off to Chicago for a year with Lutheran Volunteer Corps, so after a great summer, things are quieting down around TWDQ HQ once again.

(Speaking of Lutherans, here's a big shout-out to the ELCA, which voted last week to allow openly gay clergy to serve churches. As a result of another of vote last week, the ELCA is now in full communion with our brand, which, sadly, is not yet as enlightened on this issue.)

As such, we thought we'd dump out some random thoughts that have crossed our minds over the summer, so feel free to discuss them if you'd like.

Quotes of the summer:

Michelle Cottle, on the theory that the Obama Administration's program of soliciting tips about health care disinformation so they could fight the b.s. was really encouraging "informants" to help them build an "enemies list":

"I have given up hope for a loyal opposition. I'd settle for a sane one."

Next, Minnesota Twins first base coach Jerry White, who also works with the outfielders. LaVelle E. Neal first related this story in his blog, but here's the tidied-up version that ran in the dead-tree edition:

The MLB Network aired a replay of the 1981 National League Division Series between the Dodgers and Expos. Since Jerry White played for Montreal at the time -- he hit .313 with a homer in the series -- the clubhouse television was turned up.

"Hey, Jerry, did you play in this game?'' Carlos Gomez asked. "I just wanna know if you did anything in this game.''

Gomez asked the question again, and White couldn't resist.

"I hit the cutoff man!'' White fired back, "I know that for sure!''

Jon Stewart, who, after running clips of Glenn Beck moaning about his rectal surgery ordeal to his tiny CNN Headline News audience and how the U.S. health care system nearly killed him, juxtaposed with his Fox "News" cheerleading for the totally excellent U.S. health care system, summed it up:

"I'll tell you what really doesn't speak well of our health care system: That in those 16 months, the hole that they stitched up in Glenn Beck's ass hasn't healed enough for him to stop talking out of it."

And we'll close by saying that we're pleased that Eric Holder's taking baby steps toward doing the right thing on torture. Here's dday, with the most hopeful paragraph we've read in a long time:

We know that none of the torture here happened by happenstance, but through a directed policy emanating from the top. Instead of prosecuting "bad apples" who were young MPs on the night shift in Baghdad, we're talking about mid-level career CIA. They aren't dupes, and they know how to shift the attention up the chain of command. I don't think these interrogators will live with being the scapegoats. It may take some time, but we really could see some legitimate accountability here. And I hope so - because otherwise this will remain a black mark that can never wash out.

We hope so, too.

More soon...

Messing with My Head

Went to the Twins game last night and saw The Great .400 Hope Joe Mauer bang into four ground outs to the second baseman, one of which became a 4-6-3 double play. Today, he whiffs four times in five hitless trips to the dish, bringing us to This Week's Discussion Question:

Can you screw up your swing before being in the Home Run Derby?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "I sure hope the left field fence is low," or "Weekly, huh? Been about nine weeks, dude."

Discuss.

Reason #50809 Why Baseball is Better...

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to bring you yet another reason why--despite one of its biggest stars being booted for 50 games for testing positive for a female fertility drug--baseball is still the Best. Game. Ever.

Pioneer Press beat writer Phil Miller had this excellent item in his ugly road trip wrap-up blog post this morning:

-- Speaking of (Manny) Ramirez, (Michael) Cuddyer was generous with his time in talking about the case, and about how careful players have to be to protect themselves. And it led to a pretty funny moment. In asking him about how much players really know about what they're taking, I pointed to a bottle on the shelf of his locker. "How sure can you be that that's safe?" I said, pointing to the bottle. Cuddyer laughed, and said, "Pretty sure, since I only put that stuff on my glove." Good answer.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, already in progress.

Is This Thing Working?

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to note that after reading this fine piece of "journalism", we breathlessly await Politico's upcoming pieces in the series, "Does human trafficking work?" and "Does genocide work?"

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, already in progress.

Drift Away

We interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to reassure Minnesotans that Senator-in-waiting Al Franken doesn't stand a snowball's chance of snaring the title of "America's Most Embarrassing Congressperson" when there's competition like this, kids. (And it's not Crazy Michele this time!)

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, already in progress.

Update: Giant Blooming Pansies!* This dim bulb thinks he outwitted the Nobel Prize-winning Secretary of Energy.

*We saw that on a florist's sign this weekend and are trying it out as a catchphrase.

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

One of the great things about participating in a community of faith that worships at 5 p.m. Sundays is that you can sleep in a bit, then lounge around in your bathrobe on Sunday mornings. The downside is that if you have the teevee on, you can frequently catch something that'll make you spit your Cheerios across the room.

Like when Serious Person Peggy Noonan said this to George, George, Cokie, and Sam about the decision to release the OLC torture memos:

"It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that."

Now here's Charles Pierce checking in last Friday, chez Alterman:

I have now lived through three major episodes in my life where the political elite have told me quite plainly that neither I nor my fellow citizens are sufficiently mature to suffer the public prosecution of major crimes committed within my government. The first was when Gerry Ford told me I wasn't strong enough to handle the sight of Richard Nixon in the dock. (Ed. note--I would have thrown a parade.) Dick Cheney looked at this episode and determined that the only thing Nixon did wrong was get caught. The second time was when the entire government went into spasm over the crimes of the Iran-Contra gang and I was told that I wasn't strong enough to see Ronald Reagan impeached or his men packed off to Danbury. Dick Cheney looked at this and determined that the only thing Reagan and his men did wrong was get caught and, by then, Cheney had decided that even that wasn't really so very wrong and everybody should shut up. Now, Barack Obama, who won election by telling the country and its people that they were great because of all they'd done for him, has told me that I am not strong enough to handle the prosecution of pale and vicious bureaucrats, many of them acting at the behest of Dick Cheney, who decided that the only thing he was doing wrong was nothing at all, who have broken the law, disgraced their oaths, and manifestly belong in a one-room suite at the Hague. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm sick and goddamn tired of being told that, as a citizen, I am too fragile to bear the horrible burden of watching public criminals pay for their crimes and that, as a political entity, my fellow citizens and I are delicate flowers encased in candy-glass who must be kept away from the sight of men in fine suits weeping as they are ripped from the arms of their families and sent off to penal institutions manifestly more kind than those in which they arranged to get their rocks off vicariously while driving other men mad.

Hey, Mr. President. Put these barbarians on trial and watch me. I'll be the guy out in front of the courtroom with a lawn chair, some sandwiches, and a cooler of fine beer. I'll be the guy who hires the brass band to serenade these criminal bastards on their way off to the big house. I'll be the one who shows up at every one of their probation hearings with a copy of the Constitution, the way crime victims show up at the parole board when their attacker comes up for release. I'll declare a national holiday -- Victory Over Torture Day -- and lead the parade right up whatever gated street it is that Cheney lives on these days. Trust me, Mr. President. I can take it.

So here's This Week's Discussion Question:

What would you give to see Pierce at that table with Noonan, Roberts, and Will?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "Man, it'd make yesterday's 14-run top of the second at Yankee Stadium look like a 1-0 pitchers' duel" or "Yeah! And wearin' Levi's!"

Discuss.

Update: Jon Stewart takes Ms. Noonan downtown in the last bit of this segment and Stephen Colbert just put Mr. Will's anti-denim nonsense through the wringer a few moments ago. Link coming...

Update: As promised, here's the Colbert link.

I'm Gonna D.J.

We're only five games into the new baseball season and we're pleased to present another Greatest. Sport. Ever. edition of This Week's Discussion Question:

We've heard of bench jockeying, but how cool is a sport where players are disk jockeying?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "The Cell? They call it the Cell?"

Discuss.

Houses of the Holy

Because we're sick of Crazy Michele and would rather think about Opening Day, here's This Week's Discussion Question:

Why do we have the feeling that no one will do anything like this for the Metrodome?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "$4 box seats? Last year a beer was $9" or "Yogi's right--it does get late early out there in left."

Discuss.

Idiot Wind

No, we didn't give up blogging for Lent. Crazy busy around here.

Speaking of crazy, we interrupt This Week's Discussion Question to exclaim yet again how glad we are that this piece of work is no longer our representative in Congress.

Go watch the video. (We especially love the fantastic double-take our former pastor does in the second part of the clip.)

Holy mother of pearl, if that wasn't the dumbest question anyone's ever asked in a congressional hearing, there was no doubt about it after the THIRD FREAKING TIME she asked it.

To think that there are people who'll think Minnesota will become a laughing stock when Al Franken finally gets his certificate of election.

Too late, kids. We already are.

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, already in progress.

Tinted Windows

Okay, it's fairly well-known that Fountains of Wayne are minor deities at TWDQ HQ. It's also no secret that Hanson was played heavily and enjoyed by everyone at what would someday become TWDQ HQ. Some of us saw Cheap Trick play live long before Budokan and shortly thereafter, and there's a copy of Smashing Pumpkins' best-of CD chez TWDQ.

So here's This Week's Discussion Question:

How did these guys get together and decide to form a band?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "What?" or "Huh?"

Discuss.

Naked

In the debate over the economic stimulus bill, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) said this:

"The emperor has no clothes! Somebody has to say it. I'm referring to this additional bailout, this spending bill that spends everything we've got on nothing we are sure about."

That prompts us to drop the veil from This Week's Discussion Question:

After eight long years of a petulant little dictator wanna-be preening and prancing around nekkid as a jaybird to the cheers of his fellow Republicans while flushing away trillions on a war we were lied into and tax cuts for the fabulously wealthy, are you joking, Senator?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "Could we please have a lot more of that 'Whaddya think stimulus is?' snark?" or "We caught a bit of Rep. Mike Pence on Meet the Press Sunday and think that he and Crazy Michele could have a epic stupid-off. We hope Rep. Barney Frank didn't get some 'contact dumb' just from sitting next to him."

Discuss.

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You

In a Politico interview, former Vice President Cheney fired a shot (ba-dum-boom) across President Obama's bow, warning that we'll all die in our beds there's a "high probability" of a terrorist attack if we don't leave the Constitution in tatters Bush administration policies of illegal surveillance and torture in place.

Cheney said Obama would put the country at risk if he backtracked on Bush administration security policies.

"When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney said.

Protecting the country's security is "a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business," he said. "These are evil people. And we're not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek."

And who would know tough, mean, dirty, nasty, and evil better than the former Vice President? But we digress. What we really came to do is toss out This Week's Discussion Question:

Who gives a damn what Dick Cheney thinks anymore?

Please keep the discussion civil and do feel free to wander off into "Dick, when we want to hear from you again, we'll send around someone with a subpoena--and we'll ensure that your rights are read loudly and clearly enough that even you might understand them."

Discuss.

Supernatural Superserious

This afternoon is an American High Holy Day, with just about everyone in the United States hunkered down in front of a television set pondering This Week's Discussion Question:

What'll Bruce play at halftime?

Please keep the discussion civil and feel free to wander off into "Pitchers and catchers report in 13 days," or "...One! Two! Three!...the highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last-chance power drive..."

Discuss.

Update: Cool. Couldn't have asked for a better set, outside of giving them an additional 2.75 hours. The great "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" with horns, The Anthem, a brief snippet of the title cut of the new album (which is growing on me slowly), and "Glory Days", with some terrific Bruce and Miami Steve interplay to wrap it up. (Some day we'll go on at length about the theology of two or three people leaning in to share a microphone.)

And if, from this day forward, the football/Hail Mary couplet replaces the baseball/speedball lines that kick off "Glory Days", it'll be okay with us.

"I'm goin' to Disneyland!"

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Now back to the guacamole dip...

Hope

We believe that you couldn't have picked a more apt piece of scripture to cite in an inaugural address at this moment in history than 1 Corinthians 13, proclaiming this is the time to set aside childish things.

With this in mind, here's the first Inauguration Day edition of This Week's Discussion Question:

Whad'ya say we all grow up?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander back into childish things. (Choosing hope over fear was a damn good start, America.)

Discuss.

Like grownups.

And on the other side, it didn't say nothin'...

I'm going to step out of the first-person plural briefly to say that I don't think I've ever been prouder to be an American than I was yesterday afternoon:



That said, this may get a run for its money tomorrow.

I got a timebomb in my mind, Mom...

During last week's confirmation hearings for Attorney General nominee Eric Holder, Sen. John Cornyn (R-watches too much "24") pressed Holder to answer a hypothetical question about what interrogation methods he'd approve to get the setter of a ticking time bomb to spill his or her guts in time to save "tens of thousands" of American lives. With a straight face, he asked this.

Holder did an admirable job of not telling him to turn the damn television off and take a long walk off a short pier. We're not so generous, ourselves, which brings us to This Week's Discussion Question:

How could anyone possibly think that Al Franken is going to make Minnesota a laughing stock while this clown is in the Senate?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "Okay, forget that hypothetical. If Obama had to waterboard the Joker to save everybody on the..." or "Tuesday? Is it Tuesday yet?"

Discuss.

Good Old Boys

Last week, the Justice Department's Inspector General released a report on the partisan shenanigans in the Civil Rights division, with a lovely little tidbit in the middle:

In that incident in August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Schlozman asking Schlozman to bring coffee for him to a meeting both were scheduled to attend. Schlozman replied asking Tanner how he liked his coffee. Tanner's response was, "Mary Frances Berry style - black and bitter." Berry is an African-American who was the Chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from November 1993 until late 2004. Schlozman forwarded the e-mail chain to several Department officials (including Principal DAAG Bradshaw) but not Acosta, with the comment, "Y'all will appreciate Tanner's response." Acosta said that when he was made aware of the incident, he required Schlozman to make a written apology to him for his role in forwarding the e-mail and that Schlozman did so.

This leads us to the long overdue premiere of the 2009 season of This Week's Discussion Question:

And that was IT? An apology to the boss and they let these moral midgets continue to work on Voting Rights and Civil Rights? Tanner and Schlozman and the DAAG weren't called into the AG's office and asked if they thought defending our most treasured and essential rights is a good fit for any of them? That the apology didn't go to everyone on the original distribution list with a blatant warning that if anybody that ever pulled anything as stupid as this again, they should start emptying their desk after hitting "Send"?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "Well, police departments have a Vice Squad that tries to stamp out vice, so maybe Schlozman thought the Civil Rights Division..." or "Tuesday, man. Come on, Tuesday."

Discuss.

Poor Poor Pitiful Me

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had lunch with the Wall Street Journal recently and raised a couple of questions that have been nagging him. Well, questions are what we do around here, kids, so we're pleased to help out:

"What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" he said during an interview Tuesday, offering his most extensive comments since leaving government.

Well, for starters, Al, let's go back to this handy chart. Your name's in the center, having had your fingers into the authorizing of:

• Warrantless wiretapping
• Coercive interrogation (we prefer the less polite term "torture")
• The CIA's destruction of tapes of "coercive interrogations"
• Hiring political hacks to fill the ranks at the DoJ
• Firing U.S. Attorneys who were insufficiently political
  

That was easy, wasn't it? (Here's a friendly tip regarding #2: Stay in the U.S.. For the rest of your life.) The next one's even easier.

During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that "for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

You poor baby.

Alberto, this goes beyond disagreement. When you're formulating policies that are evil, such as torture, you get portrayed as evil. Comes with the territory.

Oh yeah, we had a question our own selves. Mr. Gonzales also mentioned that he's writing a book about his time in office, which brings us to This Week's Discussion Question:

How can someone who, while under oath, couldn't remember a damned thing, write a freaking memoir?

Please keep the discussion civil and feel free to wander off into suggesting a title for former AG AG's misty water-colored memories.

Discuss.

Beginnings

News of the passing of Mark Felt, Watergate's "Deep Throat", reminded us of how the TWDQ concept originated, so we thought we'd share that historic moment with our faithful readers. (We should really have the three of you over for dinner sometime.)

Shortly after Mr. Felt acknowledged that he was the character who surreptitiously fed Bob Woodward information that helped him and colleague Carl Bernstein unravel the scandal, we ranted to some close friends on YahooGroups. We remember it like it was only yesterday (rub chin, dissolve to flashback):

After catching a few episodes over the past few days of yammering pundits kicking about the ethics of Deep Throat's actions in a darkened D.C. parking garage in 1973, here's today's discussion question:

"If I take Chuck Colson or G. Gordon Liddy's opinions on Mark 'Deep Throat' Felt to my local coffee house, how much cash will I still have to come up with for a $1.60 cup of java?"

Please do not wander off into "When Vincent Bugliosi dies, will they go to Charlie Manson for his thoughts, too?" or "Mr. Colson, would you ask the president that 'Do the ends justify the means?' question you asked Mr. Ben-Veniste this morning, with reference to either Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or the Downing Street Memo?"

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, already in progress.

Update: Fixed the blockquote so IE doesn't splatter it across the screen.

Boom Boom

At this moment, Sen. Norm Coleman's lead over him, Al Franken, in the MN Senate recount has dropped to single digits--single digits that one could count on one hand--as the Canvassing Board plows through Norm's stack of challenged ballots. This doesn't bode well for the senator's reelection bid, so here's a "Senator Al Franken" edition of This Week's Discussion Question:

What kind of sound will Sean Hannity's head make when it explodes?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into, well, fits of giggling.

Discuss.