i dont know about that.

but definately proof that Blacks will (and should) dominate the position of QB

the nyt today ran an op-ed that she wrote about the big scandal in dc

Political Theatre of the Absurd
By ANA MARIE COX
Washington

THE bad guy with a fondness for quoting the most extortionary lines of “The Godfather” walks out of the courtroom dressed like a film noir villain. He was there because his pretty-boy partner had already dropped a dime on him. Lying, cheating, stealing, gambling … and Indians. By Washington standards, the Jack Abramoff scandal is about as theatrical as you can get without having sex in the headline. (The last scandal here to involve costumes was Abscam: we were due for something that would offer better material for fancy-dress parties than blue dresses and scooters.)

Until Tuesday, Mr. Abramoff’s elaborate web of corruption was an inside-the-Beltway story: we were the only ones with the patience for it. But nothing simplifies a scandal like a guilty plea. Now, the queasily intricate dance of payoffs, favors and influence-peddling that seems to implicate people from the White House on down has the nation on edge.

Yet despite predictions that Mr. Abramoff’s deal is the beginning and not the end of the story, it’s difficult to see if this one will end with the satisfying clink of handcuffs.

True, we are told, repeatedly, that the case has half of Washington’s powerbrokers looking over their shoulder and the other half salivating for a parade of perp walks. And in Washington, a high body count gets everyone’s attention (except maybe the president’s). Mr. Abramoff’s connections seem infinite; attempts to follow the money give you something looking less like a flow chart than like spaghetti. Delicious, felonious spaghetti.

But who is actually going to receive Jack Abramoff’s Lady-and-the-Tramp-style kiss of death? The only plausible candidate at the moment is Representative Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican who appears to be a rather ham-fisted bungler. Mr. Abramoff had dealings with dozens of Washington bigwigs, yet Representative Ney is the only one to make a (pseudonymous) appearance in the indictment.

What Mr. Ney did was either very bad or very stupid, likely both. But he hardly needed Mr. Abramoff to besmirch his reputation: he has recently drawn scrutiny for the unlikely feat of winning $34,000 on an initial $100 bet during a London casino romp, and on another junket he met with a convicted con artist whom MSNBC reported had “cheated on his taxes and was involved in a deal to swindle Elvis Presley.” Mr. Ney refused to discuss these issues with the press because of “national security implications.” Well, Richard Nixon did give Elvis a federal drug agent’s badge.

Despite the desperate glee of the editorializers and the almost-as-desperate rinsing of Abramoff funds from Republican coffers, the smell in the air is panic, not blood. In order to cast their net beyond Diamond Bob Ney, the feds would have to, as one Republican source told the Times, “pursue a different definition of bribery” – that is, prove that “if somebody were to give a gift or a campaign contribution in the same time period as a member took an official action, that in and of itself would constitute bribery.” And you thought Patrick Fitzgerald was criminalizing politics.

Sad to admit it, but most of what Jack Abramoff did with politicians (as opposed to his outright fraud with Indian tribes) wasn’t criminal so much as extreme. The Hollywood arc would have a chain-gang of Congressmen breaking rocks by the final reel, but we are unlikely to get such satisfaction outside of celluloid.

The best we can do is hope that the lack of so cinematic a finish will not mean that the Abramoff affair will be irrelevant or even forgettable. For one thing, Mr. Abramoff may go down as the first man in American history too corrupt to be a lobbyist. Poor Paul Miller, who as president of the American League of Lobbyists (that’s the one with the designated-hitter rule) has the thankless task of defending his trade, told reporters he was reluctant to say that Mr. Abramoff even deserved to be called a member of the profession. O.K., but he deserves to be called other things. Some of them unprintable in family newspapers.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Other modern Congressional kerfuffles have not been as flashy. Neither the Congressional check-kiting scandal, the Keating Five imbroglio nor Dan Rostenkowski’s thrilling run-in over postal franking privileges are likely to be made into a mini-series any time soon. But these past episodes did have the advantage of being prosecutable.

With his casinos, phony charities and Scottish golfing trips, Jack Abramoff has drawn attention to Washington’s fascinatingly filthy underbelly. One can only hope that the melodrama will keep people watching. While we should hesitate before defining corruption still further down (“No chiseler left behind!”), we don’t need to pause before throwing the bums out. Ask any lawmaker: the harshest penalty one can receive isn’t prison; it’s losing.

Ana Marie Cox is the editor of the Wonkette blog, author of the novel “Dog Days“, and met tony and sk smith in ’05

who i adore, who is wonderful, who is sexier than you know

play in her archives

read her get interviewed by sk smith

give her props

in the jack in the box drive through and curled around to the back and paused there as i collected my things.

and i tried to start the car up and it wouldnt turn over so i got out and lifted the hood and saw that those slippery battery cables were loose again.

and right before i lifted my foot to stomp the cables down, out of the corner of my eye i noticed two young latin dudes one with a bright crimson and mustard usc football jersey

and since today is the rosebowl game, i thought, oh thats nice, la isnt usually known for its outward gestures to the sports teams, so its nice to see a little love on game day.

and then i mashed the cables into place and slammed the hood i looked at his jersey again as he walked to his car and saw that, yes, indeed it was a 32 oj simpson jersey!

dude, who ever you are, you win for the day.

tremendous.

yesterdays man of the day was mr david letterman who shook bill o’reilly around verbally on the late show last night.

dave wasnt as harsh on the host of the factor as phil donahue was earlier this year, but he did conclude with the blunt statement that he felt that o’reilly is mostly full of shit.

but to really be shocked, take a look at these people who are convinced that o’reilly schooled dave!

notice the lack of hypocracy they feel as they argue that letterman treated his guest unfairly or unkindly… the guest being the king of “shut up”.

and watch how they attack cindy sheehan.

maybe i will do a review of 2005 so maybe i can figure out how it could be the first year where millions of people turned their back on a greiving mother of a fallen son so that they could instead support the president in his phony war about weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

two thousand and five.

i remember being a little kid thinking about what life would be like in 2000.

never would i think that a mother would be attacked simply because she wants peace.

in a hundred years people will think that this story was made up

well johnny once there was a woman who was cursed at because after her son died in war she became passionate about being anti war.

they said no way does she really believe those things, shes being co-opted by socialists and hippies and fat movie directors, no way in hell is her point of view reasonable or believable.

and johnny will ask, you mean president sheehan?

and johnnys mom will say, before she was president, she will earn the anna as the busblog woman of the year for 2005.

sadly i have no photos of ms sheehan, so model actress caprice will have to work as a placeholder.

amy + anti + jmo + birthday

my burrito is giving me heartburn, but all is good in the hood because the First Annual Buzzblog Death Pool is on the air.

my official title at Buzznet is Community Manager, and what a better way to bring the community together than through death?

and since the Gorilla Mask seems to have dropped the ball in regards to the Death Pool, i have taken it upon myself to carry the torch.

so what i have done, quite cleverly if i do say so myself, is utilized four different parts of Buzznet to orchestrate this particular Death Pool.

what you do first if youre a Buzznet user (if youre not a user, the very first thing you do is sign up – it takes about 30 seconds) is write your list into your journal and before you hit Save make sure to use the buzzword “death pool 2006”.

then you number your likely suspects from 1-10.

#10 is the person who you think is most likely to kick it.

if that person dies in 2006 you get 10 points, etc

then you find pictures of these 10 people and post them on your picture page.

then you put a comment on the Buzzblog post (http://www.buzznet.com/buzzblog/9295/) with your list of 10 – this prevents cheating since you cannot edit your comments.

then you get on your knees and pray for death!

just kidding.

sorta.

heres my list

10. Dick Cheney
9. Gerald Ford
8. Abe Vigoda
7. The Queen of England
6. Mickey Rooney
5. Michael Jackson
4. Elizabeth Taylor
3. Les Paul
2. Dick Clark
1. Tom Delay

there will be a winner and that winner will get a prize.

its her birthday today

wish mia a happy 25th birthday, wont you?

and when it was restored the interweb wouldnt work. i was able to drive to a local hotel and sit in their parkinglot to put up that last post to keep the bus rolling, but i wasnt able to start my annual 2005 year end review.

that will begin tonight if all goes well.

now im off to work across town at Buzznet. i want to thank everyone who sent me gifts and cards and bought my book(s) and sent me nice messages and flowed the roadtrip. if you feel like perhaps you didnt give that gift that you wanted to flow the busblog, feel free to sign up for Buzznet and thats a killer present.

or if you already have Buzznet, put some pics up from your holidays.

2006 is going to be very different than 2005 for me, mainly because of my new gig, so i am extremely grateful for that. i have gotten to meet some of you through this new job, and i hope that 2006 allows me to meet many more of you. and of course drink rum with you. and then kiss your sister(s).

the sun is out here in Los Angeles this morning, the rains have gone, and there are promises of 80 degree temps tomorrow. so when you watch the rose bowl tomorrow remember all the hell that broke loose here over the last two days and how it almost washed away the world’s second greatest parade.

when my Internet doesnt work i gravitate to the television. last night i watched The Gauntlet II which was somewhat interesting. i like seeing all my Real World people back together again. of course theres some id rather not see but its still ok. i cant believe how many people milk the two weeks that they were on the show, but whatever. and of course i wish Puck would find his way back on my TV. but alas, viacom is viacom.

i listened to a few hours of the Adam Corrolla show this morning on 97.1, and i dont know about you, but if i was to replace Howard Stern, i wouldnt copy one of his bits on my first day.

about two weeks before Howard left terrestrial-censored radio he invited his father into the studio and quizzed him on various aspects of Howard’s career and life. his father didnt fare well.

So for some reason Corrolla decided to do the same thing with his papa, with equal results. unless of course you had heard the Stern show. for if you had the Corrolla imitation seemed warmed over.

dont get me wrong, im a big fan of crank yankers, the man show, and of course the legendary Love Lines. in fact im old enough to remember when Poorman was Corrolla before Corrolla was Corrolla and i was there when adam replaced poorman after he was kicked off for giving the address for a kroq morning man over the air.

but if Adam is going to just do the Howard Stern Show in the morning hes in for some huge disappointments because only Howard – it has been proven – can be Howard.

adam is a very funny, quick-witted, and talented dude. it’s my hope that he finds himself a good sidekick and goes the road less traveled instead of simply walking in Howard’s footsteps. minus the strippers, midgets, and freaks.

hun + paxgitmo + emmanuelle + sx70

when you move your lips or type your blog you sound like dana rohrabacher

fyi

aka the tournament of roses parade
pasadena, california

in these parts the motto is the show must go on. and even though it hasnt rained on the rose parade in fifty years the show marched on without even a delay.

over the last two weeks ive been driving all over the pacific northwest and northern california braving some of the strongest and wettest storms in decades.

but going to work this morning i saw floods like ive never seen in the streets of the city of angels.

no they were not as comparable as certain parts of central oregon where overwhelmed rivers climbed their banks and turned farmlands in the floodplane into instant lakes

but theres no greenhouse effect i said to myself as i zoomed past barns barey peeking above the muddy brown waters and orchards of apple trees up to their tallest branches in the murk

as i drove home from work because nobody was there because it was so freaky fucked up in la with power outtages on sunset and thirty foot palm trees whipping in the strong winds voilently shedding themselves of dead palms which slammed ontop of sogging parked cars below.

stoplights flashed red black red or didnt flash at all.

los angeles shuts down in the rain even though it rains every winter.

thus the famous tune “la winter rain” written by dan from tsar

people complain that no one knows how to drive in la in the rain but thats not true, these two weeks have shown me that nobody knows how to drive in the rain.

except me.

i drive slowly in the rain.

everywhere i went, from northern california to oregon to washington and canada everyone drove fast, or at least the posted speed limits, like fools.

do these people have that horrible of lives that they wouldnt mind being dead on the side of the road after clipping someone, swerving headon into a rocky ditch at 65 miles per hour and putting a nice crack into a dripping wet boulder nose first.

my advertisers wouldnt like that shit, so i drive slow.

hundreds of thousands drove to pasadena today to see the rose parade and they had raincoats and umbrellas and hats and foul weather gear and they shivvered and the floats floated past and the bands played on.

i put on my pajamas and right before the disney float appeared i heard three short staccatto beeps, ktlas audio dropped out and a man who sounded like he was in an underground lair said this is the national weather service, theres a winter storm warning for central los angeles and la county or some shit who knows, it was just awesome so i hit pause, lit a fire in the fireplace and took some pictures off my tv for my buzznet page.

at first i was a little perplexxed by the warning because they dont do that very often unless shit is fucked. but meanwhile you see all these people totally hanging in there at the parade.

and then i looked closely at the pictures i took and they were telling us not that shit was fucked, but that it would indeed only be fucked for another half hour.

and then a half hour later the rains slowed up but the winds kicked in, but then they died off and now the sun is out for those of us who at 2:30p wouldnt mind going to zancau chicken for some lunch.

at the end of each post this month i will link buzznet pages