P.S. A Column On Things

Outsourcing Journalism, Clay Felker, Dan Grobstein File

Silly me, I always thought you couldn't outsource journalism: OC Register to outsource some editing to India

My mentor, Edwin Diamond, served as Clay Felker's right-hand man for years. We lost Edwin a decade ago, and now Clay's gone too.

California requires hands free phones while driving as of July 1.

Dan Grobstein File

• BUSINESS
| June 30, 2008
Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug keeps the milk fresher and holds costs down.

• The War on Tourism
• Harvey Weinstein's Trash
• Someone stole the copper plumbing from one of the [Detroit's] most visible landmarks. A six-figure repair bill for a few bucks in scrap metal.

• Christopher Hitchens tries waterboarding and says it is torture. Maybe Rush "I think waterboarding is not even close to torture...worse things happen during frat house initiations" Limbaugh would like to try it.
• Pac Man cake with cupcake ghosts

• Contrasting Obama ; Mcsame:
  "As everyone knows, Democrats have struggled for generations with the perception that they're out of touch elitists. Barack Obama is no exception."
  and
  "By contrast, John McCain is an all-American regular guy who, like most people, earns his keep by marrying an heiress."

New Marjorie Wolfe column, Sedaris on Sinter Claus, Stumbleupon, Dan Grobstein File

Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe has been kind enough to make another contribution to my web site: Mama, I Got 80% On The Ap Physics Exam; And, By The Way, I'm "Shvanger"*

Dave Sedaris writes an essay about Santa Claus's Dutch counterpart! He somehow makes Sinter Claus seem absurd!

Rest in peace, George Carlin, complete and utter genius. Who but a genius could go from "Al Sleet, the hippy dippy weatherman," to "The 7 words you can't say on television" in just under a decade. You didn't believe in God, so I won't say you're in my thoughts--because if I did say that, you'd ask me where.

Thanks nephew Paul. Not. He turned me on to stumbleupon.com, which in turn led me to the street sign generator, and will, no doubt, kill countless thousands of house in the future.

Dan Grobstein passed along this:

• OPINION
| June 24, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor: Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.
By JERRY SEINFELD
George Carlin with comedy was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody.

Dan Grobstein File

• Citizenship test. [Editor's note: Passing is 24. Dan got a 29. I got a 28, and I teach U.S. History. Neither of us knew how many amendments have passed congress but not been ratified (six, including the ERA), and I thought Bush jr. was born in Texas. I don't think either of those questions are fair.]
• People will lie to you
• quote:
  
  The Office of Management and Budget, President Bush's administrative arm, has shot down a service plan to add five active-duty generals who would oversee purchasing and monitor contractor performance.
  
  The boost in brass was a key recommendation from a blue-ribbon panel that last fall criticized the Army for contracting failures that undermined the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, wasted U.S. tax dollars, and sparked dozens of procurement fraud investigations.
  
  unquote
• The republicans vote their supporters bread and circuses while Rome burns.
• By the way, last week I saw Bill Clinton give a talk and then was interviewed at Radio City in NYC. I found out about the series too late to see John Edwards speak. The blurb said that Anderson Cooper and Tim Russert would share the interviewing duties for the series. I guess Russert was scheduled for my talk because the guy who did interview President Clinton was one of his appointees. I didn't recognize the name.
  
  Clinton did not mention Obama by name. He did talk about what the "next president" faces and said that Dubya will have to find something to spend the rest of his life on that interests. Clinton said that one of his own problems is that he's interested in everything. He said he was very proud of Hillary and did mention McSame by name when he said that Hillary had gone with him on a fact finding trip to the northernmost point in the US to investigate global warming. I guess Clinton is in the "former presidents shall speak no ill of the current or other former presidents" mode.
• A Fair and Balanced Tim Russert Obit
• Four Centuries of Letters
  quote:
  CENTREVILLE, Md. (AP) -- For four centuries, they were the ultimate pack rats. Now a Maryland family's massive collection of letters, maps and printed bills has surfaced in the attic of a former plantation, providing a firsthand account of life from the 1660s through World War II.
  "Historians are used to dealing with political records and military documents," said Adam Goodheart, a history professor at nearby Washington College. "But what they aren't used to is political letters and military documents kept right alongside bills for laundry or directions for building a washing machine."
  unquote
• [Ed. note: God, I love the Internet. Best hypocrisy detector ever.] Who wrote this?
  Aside from getting himself impeached, President Clinton's most signal impact on the Constitution, and the rule of law it embraces, will have been in the area of foreign affairs. As his domestic agenda met with frustration in a Republican Congress, President Clinton exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the utmost in the area in which those powers are already at their height--in our dealings with foreign nations. Unfortunately, the record of the administration has not been a happy one, in light of its costs to the Constitution and the American legal system. On a series of different international relations matters, such as war, international institutions, and treaties, President Clinton has accelerated disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law.
• [Ed. note: I am proud to say this is true]
  quote:
  
  A group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.
  
  unquote
• OPINION
| June 25, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist: More Phony Myths
By MAUREEN DOWD
Karl Rove is trying to spin his myths, as he used to do with such devastating effect, but it won’t work this time.
• US
| June 25, 2008
Religion and Its Role Are in Dispute at the Service Academies
By NEELA BANERJEE
Students and staff at West Point and the Naval Academy are raising questions about the military’s commitment to policies against imposing religion on its members.
• quoting DailyKos:
  At the presidential level, Democrats haven't won more than 50 percent of the vote since 1976, and they have won more than 50.1 percent of the vote just once (1964) since 1944.
  Get that? In the last 64 years and 16 presidential elections, Democrats have won more than 50.1 percent of the vote just once. Woeful.
  Obama aims to change that.
  Never will a campaign predict a landslide, but if only, say, half of the assumptions that guide Obama's general election strategy are true, his campaign is, in essence, preparing for a landslide in the popular vote. There's no way that 10,000 Obama volunteers in Texas won't influence his vote totals there even if he doesn't win.
  If Obama can score, say, a 10-point victory in the popular vote (running up margins in states like Illinois, New York and California and losing Texas by narrower margins), it will have real-world implications not just to down-ballot races, but also to his agenda.

Sex in old age, Lasusa Links, Dan Grobstein File

Peggy Coquet passed this on:

• An Affair To Remember
  She was 82. He was 95. They had dementia. They fell in love. And then they started having sex.
• A shy friend sends word of the world's oddest Star Wars video.

Tom Lasusa and his friends surf the web so you don't have to: Mobile Phone Popcorn [ed: turns out not to be true..Cuba approves free sex-change operations . .(Thanks Dawn)...Antarctica base gets 16,500 condoms before darkness. ..Baby Born with Two, er, rattles.. ..This Guy's Just a Headbutt away from a Darwin Award. ..BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions. .Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish. ..Forget the Plutonium -- Real Life 'Doc Brown's' DeLorean runs on Batteries. ..Single-horned 'Unicorn' deer found in Italy.

Dan Grobstein File

• WASHINGTON
| June 17, 2008
Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir
By JAMES RISEN
The official who managed the Pentagon’s largest contract in Iraq said he was fired when he would not approve over $1 billion in questionable charges.
• Another parody of airline service fees.
• We're still arguing about whether women should change their names when they get married. Be sure to read the comments as well.

Intel A.T. case, Lasusa Links, Funny Airline Fees Parody, Dan Grobstein File

We, the American People, lost US V. Microsoft; maybe the government can do better against Intel.

Tom Lasusa surfs the web so you don't have to: Lighthouse, presumed destroyed, found on opposite coast....Back to the Thrash Metal Future...At least For Today, I believe in Miracles: Baby Born Twice....Drive-in movie theater gallery...Restaurant lays off waitress who shaved head for cancer charity...Albino Squirrel Heaven...Planet of the Apes? Blame Stalin...Ballmer predicts the death of all print media in 10 years.

• Funniest ever parody of airline fees

Dan Grobstein File

• I have a Kindle. I have at least 1/2 dozen books on it that I also own in hardcover. I bought some Kindle books first and then the hardcover versions and some hardcovers first and then the Kindle versions. Some I want to read again and some I haven't read yet and figure if it's on the Kindle I can read it when I want to. Pictures and illustrations basically suck on the Kindle. Sometimes they aren't included. For example Peter Delacorte's "Time on My Hands" about going back to Hollywood in the 1930s via time machine has no pictures and they're part of the story. Dan Koeppel's "Banana" has pictures but they're pretty bad. The hardcover is much clearer. " 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann needs the printed version to make out the illustrations. But you can search the Kindle version. You can get it in a minute. You can change the point size if your eyes are tired. You can come back to the book and not lose your place. The newspapers and ma! gazines should give you more content. Overall recommended.
  
  BOOKS | June 2, 2008
  Electronic Device Stirs Unease at Book Fair
  By EDWARD WYATT
  Is the electronic book approaching the tipping point? That topic both energized and unnerved people attending BookExpo America in Los Angeles.
• VR camera/goggle kit for radio controlled models
• quoting atrios:
  
  I've really never quite understood why drivers' licenses and bank accounts drive the Lou Dobbs crowd insane. If you think that deporting 10 million people, many with dependents and many others who came here as children, is sound policy then I suppose it makes sense, but otherwise I think it's pretty obvious that keeping people in the system, instead of in the shadows, is preferable.
  
  Unquote
• self-described conservative woman
  quote:
  
  A few of you reader folks have been saying, in comments, that I'm a liberal/socialist for supporting Obama, and I'd like to correct that, although I wonder why I bother, because I suspect some of you would describe anyone to the left of Dick Cheney as such, but here goes: I'm not supporting the Democratic ticket, whatever it shapes up to be, for lots of specific policy reasons. I want us to start developing some sort of solution to the health-care mess, and to get out of Iraq, and to figure out what we're going to do with the part of the country that has been cut out the American bargain in recent years. That's a heavy load, and I don't know if the Illinois senator can carry it all on those slender shoulders of his. But I do know this: No one running for president today can be worse at the job than the current occupant of the Oval Office. So all the talk about whether Obama's ready or if he's been tested or if he did something in Chicago that isn't absolutely kosher good-government best-practices seems irrelevant at this point. All the candidates are imperfect, but for Republican in particular to say, 'He's not qualified,' after eight years of blood-drenched fiascos just seems, I dunno, galling. I'm not getting a tattoo. I'm not buying a T-shirt. But I'm pulling the lever with the sense that whoever wins will be an improvement, and some will represent more improvement than others.
  
  Unquote
• The Nation Magazine Institute sponsored this talk at the Town Hall in NYC:
  
  TRUE CRIMES: THE UNTOLD STORY BEHIND THE DEVASTATION OF IRAQ
  
  Probe behind the headlines of the occupation of Iraq with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Chris Hedges, journalist Laila Al-Arian, bestselling author Jeremy Scahill and The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh as they discuss the untold story of the occupation of Iraq, the daily plight of Iraqi civilians and the ongoing role of private mercenaries in America's "War on Terror."
  The event is a dual book launch for Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian and the updated paperback edition of Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Army by Jeremy Scahill.
  
  Seymour Hersh says that dubya could attack Iran any time up to 11:59 on 1/20/09. Chris Hedges says that when dubya was in Israel the Jerusalem Post had a story up on the web for just a short time saying that dubya had told the prime minister that he was going to attack Iran before he leaves office. Jeremy Scahill says that the military has been hollowed out. The trained people have retired and gone to work for Blackwater and the other contractors for much more money. Also there are many messianic christians in the service. There are more contractors than US troops in Iraq. Hedges says that we're two terrorist attacks from a police state. Hersh is working on an article about Iran and doesn't want to scoop himself. He says it isn't professional to talk about his article before it's published. Scahill says he has lots of friends who are in love with Obama but Obama is still talking about leaving 70,000 troops in Iraq and keeping the contractors. However he says that Obama and his advisors really understand what is going on. Possibly he has to talk that way to be elected. They brought up DeGaulle and Eisenhower who both campaigned supporting the Algerian war and Korean war respectively and then turned 180 degrees once in office. The panel agrees that the US should pull out unconditionally. Laila Al-Arian didn't get much in. She spoke about the plight of the Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan. I think it was Hersh who said that this administration has systematically gutted the oversight process. Hedges says it's a slow motion coup.
  
  Scary evening.
• quote:
  
  Were you aware that John McCain wrote the foreword to an edition of The Best And the Brightest? And were you aware that it said this?
  
  It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn?t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.
  
  Will anyone ask him about this?
  
  Unquote

Obama Spot, Lasusa Links, Dan Grobstein File

A friend found a funny 30 second Obama spot.

Tom Lasusa surfs the web so you don't have to: When Good Transformers Go Bad: Whatever Happened to Soundwave?. ..The end of Hulkamania. ..Someone spliced Kermit's genes with Wolverine. ..Stonehenge Was Used as a Cemetery for 500 Years . ...Incredible pictures of one of Earth's last uncontacted tribe. ..The Shatner Recordings. ..Japan man discovers woman living in his closet. ..Vietnam reports "UFO" explosion. ..U.S. Butterflies on the Decline . ..Vatican Says They Will Excommunicate Women Priests

Dan Grobstein File

• The White House is upset at the New York Times.
  
  quote from white house statement:
  
  Though readers of the New York Times editorial page wouldn't know it, President Bush looks forward to signing a GI bill that supports our troops and their families, and preserves the experience and skill of our forces.
  
  unquote.
  
  Old Man McSame amp; Dubya don't want to give too many GI Benefits because they're afraid that people will leave the service after their enlistment is up to take advantage of the benefits.
  
  However you have a lots of highly trained service members leaving to join Blackwater and the other contractors so that they can make vast multiples of their military pay. The American taxpayer will eventually pay for all this when we repay the Chinese loans.
  
  The World War II GI Bill was the foundation for 30 years of prosperity. Why can't we just pass it again after adjusting for current costs? And bring the contractors back under government control. That would really preserve the experience and skill of our forces. It would be much cheaper.
• James Fallows talking about Obama's commencement speech that he pinch hit for Ted Kennedy.
  
  quote:
  
  No important political leader can personally perform a lot of the tasks that are carried out in his or her name. The test is whether he can motivate, lead, and manage teams of people to perform in the way, and at the level, he would do himself -- if he had a million hours in each day rather than 24.
  
  unquote.
  
  Ted Sorensen makes the same point in his book. He says that he and JFK agreed on most issues and he was able to write as if Kennedy wrote the speech himself. Sorensen said that he doesn't however remember writing the Ich bin ein Berliner line though a German politician, in his memoirs, says that Sorensen did.
• Against Going to War with Iraq (2002)

• Stupid federal regulation impedes public transit agencies. Also in the Washington Post. I'm sure that the Republicans will be all for local control once the Democrats get power.

• quote
  
  A milestone of sorts was reached earlier this year, when Obama, the Illinois senator whose revolutionary online fundraising has overwhelmed Clinton, filed an electronic fundraising report so large it could not be processed by popular basic spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel 2003 and Lotus 1-2-3.
  
  Those programs can't download data files with more than 65,536 rows or 256 columns.
  
  Obama's January fundraising report, detailing the $23 million he raised and $41 million he spent in the last three months of 2007, far exceeded 65,536 rows listing contributions, refunds, expenditures, debts, reimbursements and other details.
  
  Unquote

• Somehow i don't expect old man McSame to denounce this waste of money.

• Is Barack Obama Muslim (No!)

• Dan likes this quote:
  
  Katherine Merck, 84, of Lexington, Mass., preferred not to recall her donations of $2,000 to Bush in 1999 and $2,000 in 2004.
  
  "I just can't get over it that my name is in there for sending money to that miserable president," she said. "I think Obama is something we all need badly, really badly. I think that people need to grow up more and learn how to get on in the world without resorting to killing people. I'm talking about the war in Iraq."
  
  unquote

Dan Grobstein File

• Cindy McCain doesn't give much. Dan Grobstein notes: he gives more, and the senior Bushes max out for their children. Is Cindy really a homemaker? Maybe "Anheuser-Busch heiress" isn't an FEC category.
• Welcome To An Edition Of "If A Democrat Did This It’d Be On The Evening News"
• If It Was That Long Ago, How Come It Seems Like Only Yesterday?
• Little Corporate Dishonesties

• Josh Marshall, publisher of talkingpointsmemo.com, winner of the Polk Award will be speaking on the Stanford campus Wednesday about the state of journalism and the effect the internet is having on it. Wish I could be there.

• Newsweek: Support for terrorist groups is way down. Terrorism itself is way down over the past five years. it's reported as increasing because they include iraq war civilian casualties in the total. But Iraq's a war zone. Terrorism down doesn't fit into the narrative that the government pushes. Terrorist groups that lose the support of the public can be marginalized and defeated. You just have to have a government that isn't blinded by certainty.

Lasusa Links, Jon Carroll Cat Column, Best Rap Video Ever, Truth in Fiction, BPP on CCTV, Malchman on the Flu, Marjorie Wolfe Column, Obama Endorsement, Dan Grobstein File

Tom Lasusa surfs the web so you don't have to: Onion Exclusive: 'Museum' Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past....Woman's dead body lies in flat for 35 years....Transformers 2: Electric Boogaloo....Why Won't Vader Leave those poor Padawans Alone?....Billions of electronic-eating 'crazy ants' invade Texas....Graduating New York University Student ejected from commencement at Yankee Stadium For trying to steal home.....When Life Imitates South Park -- Girl's twin found inside her stomach....Darvaz: The Door to Hell....And let's wrap this one up with some Dancing Zombie Puppets

Jon Carroll can sure write a cat column. He starts out rehashing an idea, familiar to his readers as well as to those of Douglas Adams, that we are put here on Earth without an owner's manual, but then he switches it up and makes it into another of his brilliant cat columns. Once again, the finest daily columnist in America.

Lost cat
Jon Carroll
We none of us got a handbook. We arrived on Earth, opened our eyes, noticed there was no handbook, and started screaming. Some years later, for unknown reasons, we decided that everyone else had a handbook...

Phil Proctor, whose work I have loved in every medium since I first heard him with the Firesign Theater 40 years ago, has a guest-star role in the world's funniest rap video as Dr. Proctor the Proctologist.

A friend of mine is being driven crazy by her first office job; she thinks this clip from the movie "Office Space" really says it all, in the section about the TPS report cover sheet that's about 30 seconds in.

There are 4.2 million surveillance cameras in Great Britain, creating the "surveillance society." So, of course, an unsigned band wandered all over Manchester and played, then obtained the tapes with freedom of information requests. I heard about it on the podcast of the Bryant Park Project, the best daily NPR morning news program you're not listening to: In Surveillance Video, Band Rocks Big Brother. While you're there, subscribe to the two-hour daily podcast!

For a guy who refused to believe that CERN is going to create a black hole that will swallow the Earth, my credulity detector went on the fritz when it came to the danger of an accidental releases of the 1918 flu virus, according to Robert Malchman:

I don't know the publication you cite to (it looks kinda eco-nutty), but the article is from 2004, hardly breaking news. Moreover, in 2005, the fruits of the research were published in Science and Nature. http://depts.washington.edu/einet/?a=printArticle print=928 The EICs of both publications (which, as I'm sure you know, are the most respected in the world) believe the benefits outweigh the risks -- indeed, as one of the authors points out, since many flu strains derive from the 1918 virus, it's unlikely that, even if it did escape, it would wreak the destruction it did 90 years ago.

Marjorie Wolfe has a seasonal column: The commencement speaker is "Robot Redford"

Daniel Dern passes along Lt. Worf's endorsement of Obama.

Dan Grobstein

• The big conservative lies of the last two decades
• How things change... imagine it is 2001

• Dan found this at Salon, from G.K. Chesterton's Heretics:
  
  It may be said with rough accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become a small power itself.

• McCain's acceptance speech will happen the same night as the NFL opener. (not sure what percentage of the fans would normally be watching political coverage.). On the other hand, Obama's acceptance speech will happen on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.

Greatest Living American, Lasusa Links, Dan Grobstein File

Google "Greatest Living American." Steven Colbert, God bless him, Google-bombed himself to the top. "Worst President Ever" produces expectable results, which I don't think had to be Google-bombed into place... Ah, the wisdom of crowds...

Tom LaSusa surfs the web so you don't have to: Iron Man and Batman Debate the Summer Movie Season.. [Also, see Craig Ferguson's Iron Man preview].Hackers attack epilepsy forum (In the words of Kevin Meany, "That's Not RIGHT!"..Origins of exercise equipment...Artist plans to draw every single person in New York City...Isabella Rossellini's 'Green Porno'...The Love Boat -- Doctor Who Style..

Dan Grobstein File

• HEALTH | May 7, 2008
  Irregular Sleep Tied to Obesity, Other Health Problems
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
  Getting too little sleep, or too much, is linked to poor health in a new federal study.

• SCIENCE | May 8, 2008
  Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too
  By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
  The platypus genome is an amalgam of genes reflecting significant branching in evolution, scientists reported.

• Dan reports:
  
  I saw Ted Sorensen last night being interviewed about his new book published yesterday. Sounds very interesting. I would have bought a copy and had him sign it if I wanted to get home at 12:30. Sleep won out so I'm ordering it from Amazon.
  
  He's very frail (had a stroke a few years ago) but is still sharp and speaks perfectly clearly. He's an Obama guy. He says that Obama is the only candidate since JFK who reminds him of JFK. New ideas, brings young voters into the process. He thinks that Obama has a chance to change things where the other candidates do not.
  
  Somebody asked him what is his opinion of dubya. After a grimace, he told the story of Senator Sherman's comment about James Buchanan: "The Constitution provides for every accidental contingency in the Executive - except a vacancy in the mind of the President."
  
  I looked it up on the google and it turns out that JFK used the story in a speech that could basically be given today:
  
  Mr. Nixon has repeatedly stated that he intends to carry on the policies of this Administration. Let us hold him to that - because I predict on November 8th the American people are going to reject that tradition. Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed a Lincoln - after Taft we needed a Wilson - after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt?And after eight years of this Administration, this nation needs a strong creative Democrat in the White House.
  
  Today our very survival depends on that man in the White House - on his strength, his wisdom and his creative imagination.
  
  We can no longer afford a William McKinley, whose backbone according to Teddy Roosevelt was "as firm as a chocolate éclair."
  
  We can no longer afford a Calvin Coolidge, who caused a White House usher with 42 years service to say: "No other President in my time ever slept so much."
  
  We can no longer afford a Warren G. Harding, who reportedly said he saw no real problem in the Middle East "that the Arabs and Jews couldn?t settle around a table, in the good old Christian way."
  
  We can no longer afford a Ulysses S. Grant, complaining that he didn?t want to be President - he just wanted to be the Mayor of Galena, Illinois long enough to build a sidewalk from his house to the station?
  
  And we can no longer afford a James Buchanan, whose performance caused Ohio?s Senator Sherman to say: "The Constitution provides for every accidental contingency in the Executive - except a vacancy in the mind of the President."
  
  But the facts of the matter are that only a creative national party can provide a strong, creative President. The Republican Party is not a national party. It does not represent all sections, all interest groups, all voters. And that is why - historically and inevitably - the forces of inertia and reaction in the Republican Party oppose any powerful voice in the White House, Republican or Democratic that tries to speak for the nation as a whole.
  
  Theodore Roosevelt discovered that. Herbert Hoover discovered that. And, even before he could become a candidate, Nelson Rockefeller discovered it.
  
  But the Democratic Party is a national party - it believes in strong leadership - and, with your help, we will give the nation that leadership in January 1961.

LaSusa Links, Another Newspaper Dies, GOP Ignores Clinton, Centenerian Columnist, BC Tribute, Clemens Spoof

Tom Lasusa surfs the web so you don't have to:

• Ukulele Blitzkrieg Bop http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFpOh2seqo
• Superheroes in Real Life http://articles.citypages.com/2008-01-16/feature/superheroes-in-real-life/3/ (bonus link -- a google map of their locations across the globe)
• Now THIS is a Last Supper http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/46462/
• Why Life On Mars May Foretell Our Doom http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=20569
• Man tries to cash check worth $360,000,000,000 http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050108dnmetbillion.b623795f.html
• Half an inch away from a Darwin Award http://youtube.com/watch?v=YLTvUNn3Suo
• Tired of Jesus or Mary images in trees and potato chips? http://www.nbc10.com/slideshows/15663013/detail.html
• And yet I can't give my kid a slap on the wrist in a store without nasty glances http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=81490
• And now for something completely different -- Five cats that look like actor Wilford Brimley http://gatoisland.com/archive/wilfordbrimleycats/
• Remember the Good Ol Days When Ben Stein was that funny guy from "Ferris Bueller?" http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/15402.html
• What to do when you have an Injured Stormtrooper http://youtube.com/watch?v=98qmflLdOpI

Another one bites the dust: Reluctantly, a Daily Stops Its Presses, Living Online. As the former curator of the museum of dead magazines (editor of Byte.com and winmag.com), I am here to tell you that once you close down the print, the online tends to wither and die. Jefferson was right: we need newspapers. We'll be poorer when they're all gone. "All will be well," the paper wrote. I don't think so.

Peggy Coquet checks in with word for a centenarian newspaper columnist.

Daniel Dern reports a Little Orphan Annie tribute to the BC comic strip. Me? I had no idea Annie was still around. I haven't seen that strip in decades. Is Mutt and Jeff out there, careening zombie-like around some comics page?

Bob Nilsson found a funny Roger Clemens video, in the form of a movie trailer that spoofs I am Legend.

Dan Grobstein File

• Quote:      
  Here's what Obama should do: Find a lapel pin of the Liberty Bell and wear that.      What's it a symbol of? Why American liberty, of course! You know, that thing liberals defend. You heard it here first.      
       unquote

• BUSINESS |      April 25, 2008
       Peltz Offer Is Accepted by Wendy's
       By MICHAEL J. de la MERCED
       After more than two years of bickering, Wendy’s International and Nelson W. Peltz [Arby's] have tied the knot for about $2.3 billion.

• OPINION |      April 27, 2008
       Op-Ed Contributor: Bowling 1, Health Care 0
       By ELIZABETH EDWARDS
       If voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, we will have to demand it, by talking constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility. [Dan notes: "She's right."

I'm from Holland, Supply Chain Video, Lasusa Links, Dan Grobstein File

My daughter Marlow shared two very funny videos with me, since she used to live in Holland. The first, I'm From Holland, is, I think, intended as serious music. The remix, by Boom Chicago, and English-speaking comedy troop in Amsterdam, is intentionally funny. Very much so.

On a more serious note, Marlow forwarded a video link:

What really happens between the time that a crop is grown/product is designed and the moment you pay for it over the counter? What happens after you're done using it? These are all things we'll need to be conscious of in the new era of sustainable business, and it directly applies to certain aspects of our business. http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Tom Lasusa surfs the web so you don't have to: Water Balloon Exploding at 2,000 Frames per Second . ..Vertical Farms of the Future?. ..Where are the Goonies?. ..Yes, but could you get you medical insurance to pay for a 'Happy Ending'?. ..London's Underground a hot 'Tunnel of Love' . ..Why DOES Pizza Suck so Bad anywhere else but NY?. ..Jessica Rabbit untooned. ..Human Beings Were Nearly Extinct 70,000 Years Ago. .

George Carlin's Earth Day Celebration from my friend Mark Mason.

Dan Grobstein File

News from the Big Apple:

Just back from NYC where I saw Laura and Jenna bush introduce their new children's book. They also read the thing and projected the pages on the screen behind them. It actually isn't a bad book and has great illustrations. They also brought the illustrator out at the end and introduced her.

It was a pleasant evening. Laura said that they were selling the "ranch" and looking for a house in Dallas. (guess they don't need the election prop any more). She also says she's a great fan of harry potter and reads a lot of mysteries. Jenna and Barbara aren't interested in Harry Potter.

I'm reading Michener's south pacific again after about 40 years. Can't say I remember anything from it and I didn't originally notice the disfavor he has for the white officers being interested in the native women. he mentions that he met Admiral Mccain (McSame's grandfather). I saw the new south pacific production at Lincoln Center about a month ago (ordered my tickets in November for the preview). It was fantastic.