Author: Stagger Lee

Sardonic, contemptuous, angry political commentary below. No one should click the link for any reason.

Continue reading “No Future”

4 tree-sitters remain; all but 3 trees gone near Memorial Stadium

Simple solution: hollow-points.

I’m as environmentally conscious as the next guy, but I’ve had enough of this bullshit.

Hang the DJ: Black & White, Birmingham’s City Paper:

Men at Work and Duran Duran were just starting to put a harmless face on edgier pop. Meanwhile, Coyote—fresh from California—was quietly staking out airtime on 95 Rock with a playlist worthy of any Los Angeles DJ steeped in the hippest scenes. But in 1982, not everybody was ready for Romeo Void, an unknown band called The Cure, or even a post-punk oldies act like Joy Division. “There were death threats,” Coyote recalls. “I was called a fag many times. Some of the locals considered my playing Soft Cell to be promoting the gay lifestyle.”

***

This is why it took until 2001-02 for me to discover most of New Wave. Anything I did know – which was mostly late-80s stuff like Gene Loves Jezebel, Love and Rockets, later Cure and Smiths – was all because of the Coyote.

24-17. Took the lead in the second half and never relinquished it. For the second year in a row, Steve Superior’s top-25 South Carolina Gamecocks founder on the rock that is the Vanderbilt Commodores. Jared Hawkins is the Vanilla Hammer of Thor and I take back 2/3 of everything I ever said against the state of Texas.

Stand by for a slew of LOL-Dores in tomorrow’s RSS feed. Tonight? Black and gold, baby.

CHEW TOBACCO CHEW TOBACCO SPIT SPIT SPIT, IF YOU AIN’T A COMMODORE…

ETA: The highlight reel =)

It’s the Atwater offense. Just remember 1988 and you’ll know how it’s going to go. By those lights, Palin makes much more sense: her job isn’t to win over disaffected Hillary voters or persuadable moderates, it’s to light a fire under the base and keep them at a steady froth and hope that turnout is enough to make up the difference. That’s what Quayle ended up doing, and that seems to have worked out OK at the time.

It might be enough. Then again, it might not. Problem is, you don’t know how many of the Perot 19% will eventually walk back to the GOP and how many will stick with the Ds over the economic issues. In years past I would say that the Perot vote is almost 2-to-1 Republican, but given the changes in economic positions over the last 16 years, I think that independent fiscal conservatives who are ambivalent at best about the social stuff will break hard for the Democrats this time.

Too close to call at this point. I wouldn’t put too much faith in polls until the end of September or so, and even then…grain of salt. Nobody knows what the ground game will produce, especially if it all turns on get-out-the-vote.

By the way, the night of a convention speech is a SUCKTASTIC time to be setting up an over-the-air antenna for your TV.

The great Jerry Reed, dead at 71. Everyone knows the movie role, but I still remember him most for such country classics as “She Got The Gold Mine, I Got The Shaft.”

1) Family members = noncombatants. Free pass. I realize I cannot expect the same courtesy from everyone (e.g. a certain idiot drama queen, who is no less an ass clown than when he was wailing about the fifth column, and don’t think switching sides gives you a pass – who the hell is checking green cards around here?) but rules are rules, and while I reluctantly concede that the spouse is tough to work around these last 20 years or so, the kids are off limits. Period. Paragraph.
2) I would feel a lot better if I could shake the nagging notion that I give more thought to what kind of toilet paper to pick up at Safeway than John McCain gave to making his selection for the second slot. Then again, I doubt the contemporary GOP considers “secessionist” a liability…

…if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay the hell out of California.

=) =) =)

* Yes, I know it’s not actually “alright,” but that’s the way the Who spelled it on their album, and the Cal Band did a Who tribute show Saturday (and a damn fine job, although a Union Jack formation would have been a nice touch).

* It’s also an apt title if you look at the relative youth that Cal has rolled out (and Vandy and Bama, albeit to a lesser extent). But the tradition lives at Cal: last year’s backup becomes this year’s star running back, and another star-in-waiting shows up as the backup. Keep an eye on Shane Vereen, if you can, and you probably can’t. You sure can’t on Jahvid Best, who moves like a streak of lightning and is so electrifying that he cannot go in the shower for fear of electrocuting his teammates.

* The boos that cascaded down from the east stands following Longshore’s second INT should not have been directed at him – and to be honest, probably weren’t. They should have been directed (and rightly so) at Jeff Tedford, who cannot seem to grasp that the Golden Bears are a football team and not Nate Longshore’s personal group therapy exercise. Continuing to put Longshore in that position is bad for morale – for the fans, for the team and doubtless for Longshore himself. I am sure Nate is a fine gentleman and is doing his best, but that ship has sailed, for better or worse – this is Kevin Riley’s offense now, and the sooner everyone comes to terms with it, the better.

* Man, but Bama sonned Clemson something awful. Freshman running back piled up almost 100 yards, the much-vaunted Julio Jones scores a TD in his debut, and John Parker Jimbo Billy Bo Bob Wilson passes Brodie Croyle for completions. (I still despise Dennis Franchione and Mike Price, because the tumult they caused the Crimson Tide wasted the career of somebody who should have been his generation’s Namath or Sloan or Hollingsworth or Barker.) The ACC has reverted to the Almost College Conference for football purposes and will remain so until forcibly proven otherwise, because that was just ugly. (East Carolina? East F-ing Carolina?)

* Vanderbilt finally breaks the streak against the very team they last got a win against. I wouldn’t say they clowned Miami of Ohio, but any SEC team should be favored against any MAC team, and at least the ‘Dores didn’t let the side down. Not sanguine about next week, though – I am sure that after the humiliation last year, Spurrier will have the Gamecocks loaded for bear and will be looking to administer the beatdown.

* Yes, Ess-Eee-See and all that, but I won’t shed one single tear if Tennessee gets their ass handed to them on the West Coast by a team with an ursine mascot for the second consecutive year.

* Celtic lost the first Old Firm derby of the year, 4-2, although it’s a relief that Venegoor of Hesselink was healthy enough to play as a sub after being stretchered off against Falkirk last week.

* And to cap everything off, the Redskins are limping to the starting line after two absolutely anemic performances down the stretch. The problem with preseason is that you look good playing third-string on third-string with guys that aren’t even going to make the practice squad, and all those great runs by Marcus Mason or traffic catches by Billy McMullin or great passing from Colt Brennan are all meaningless come Thursday night, when Washington becomes the latest stop on the NFL’s “Messiah Mannings” tour.

* Advice to anyone playing the Colts or Giants this year: come out in gold jerseys and black helmets with a “V” on the side. Mannings tend to freeze up and choke when they see it, and there’s proof if you look it up.

* All my peeps on the Dirty Coast: stay dry and shoot first.

Illinois/Delaware vs Arizona/Alaska.

When’s the last time there was no Southerner in any of the four spots on the national ticket? You have to go back to 1984, and even then, George H.W. Bush claimed a Houston hotel as his legal residence (and tried to sell himself hard as a Texan). Before that, you have to debate whether Maryland counts as the South or not (slave state, lots of Southern cultural influences, but never seceded). If it doesn’t, you’re looking at 1972 (Nixon/Agnew vs. McGovern/Eagleton/Shriver, and no, Eagleton’s 3 days as VP candidate and being from the border state of Missouri doesn’t count). But if it does, then you have to go all the way back to…1944, when FDR (New York) and Truman (from Missouri, but Kansas City which is far from the secessionist regions) squared off against Thomas Dewey (New York) and John Bricker (Ohio).

Obama’s final list seems to have been Biden, Bayh, and Sebelius – Delaware, Indiana and Kansas.

McCain’s final four were Romney (Utah/Massachusetts), Pawlenty (Minnesota), Lieberman (Connecticut) and Palin (Alaska).

Is it possible that for the first time, we might actually be approaching a repudiation of the Confederatist political culture?