Why Lord, Why?!?!?!?

Columbia Pictures is set to release Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Watch a trailer, if you dare! What morons are footing the bill for this one? I mean, not only was the first movie stupid and bad, it was long enough ago that surely what little buzz there may have been for a sequel has died off. Rob Schneider, this is why you're the homeless man's Adam Sandler! Damn you to hell!

Loving Freedom

All the news outlets are reporting that Capitol Police jumped a guy in a black suit carrying luggage near the Capitol Building. The latest reports don't tell us what was in those bags or anything. And the picture accompanying the Reuters story hardly extolls the virtues of the freedom for which our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Leaky Mel

Florida Senator Mel Martinez's office called the Terry Schiavo situation "a great political issue." It isn't the cynicism in the memo that is shocking. Issues are reduced to political formulae all the time. What is shocking, however is the hypocrisy in that memo. Conservatives have tried to paint those who sided with Mr. Schiavo as immoral, part of the "culture of death." The memo trumpeted the Schiavo affair as "a great political issue ... and a tough issue for Democrats." To me, though, there is nothing more anti-life than trying to make political hay a legitimate dispute over end-of-life issues. If the politics didn't appear right, I guess Mr. Martinez's office wouldn't have given the Schindlers the time of day. What's lost in this is Mel's yellow-bellied description of how the memo turned up in the first place. Here's the CNN.com description:

Martinez, in his statement, said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, had asked for background information on the bill ordering a federal court to review the Schiavo case. He said he pulled a one-page document from his coat pocket and handed to Harkin. "Unbeknownst to me ... I had given him a copy of the now infamous memo." He said Harkin had called him earlier Wednesday to say he believes the memo had been given to him by Martinez. The Florida senator said he then ordered an internal investigation in his office.

Boy, it's too bad a U.S. Senator can't keep his papers straight. I can see the headline now, "With Egg on Face, Senator Martinez Scrambles to Poach Aide."

Dissension in the Ranks?

It seems like some members of the GOP are publicizing the internal squabbles over the heart and soul of the Republican Party. The party usually does a great job of keeping such fights secret, but Connecticut Senator Chris Shays is not easily gagged, I guess. He is now publicly calling for the resignation of Tom DeLay.

I don't know if this is a resurgeance or merely the final death throes of the sane wing of the GOP. I know a lot of people like me, who would like to vote Republican, or at least think they could, but who are so turned off by the Bible-thumping, Deficit-inflating GOP personified by W and DeLay that they get physically sick at the thought of doing so. How bizarre is it to long for the relatively moderate politics of Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich....

Interstingly, even arch-conservative Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania admonished the House Majority Leader: "I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves." Et tu, Rick?

Back after a Hiatus and Mourning Period

I've been pretty slack on the posts lately. But after a weekend in St. Louis and a week of mourning the Fighting Illini, I'm back.