BLCKDGRD

On Warfare

What started as a compliment to Landru's musical taste

which was chosen cause this better song is one sucktacularly lameass video

and prompted him to post this

which caused me to post a link to this in his comments

escalated into this and this and this.

Now, perhaps this signifies nothing other than two old farts whose emotional growth atrophied twenty five years and seven wives ago and who are bored out of our brains at work, but since we're both giggling about this, and we've left ourselves no graceful way out, let me just say this:

We're very very sorry for causing that upcoming bombing of Iran and the global conflagration that will follow, along with all that nuisance of America becoming a third world authoritarian banana republic. At least we care, because apathy, after all, is a.....

Consider Mimi. She's on the beach:

Pardon the Disruption of Regular Programming, But Landrustan has Attacked and I Must Prove My Denture Adhesive is Superior

Let THAT be a warning, Herr Cornetplayer.

And yes, youtube wars are juvenile. I know you are but what am I?

I attack:

Elric-7 is 46 Today, Took Dog and Planet to Hockey Game Last Night Where Dog Sees Live Hockey For the First Time. Hockey? Feh.

But a good time was had. And the best part - Verizon Center is literally two blocks from the old 930, where Elric and I spent the early 1980s. Which dominated the conversation. Happy Birthday, B:

WednesdayStoitchkovWednesday

Word that Robbie Fowler might leave Liverpool for Foxboro reminded me of the invaluably valueless Ugly Footballer website, home of cruel and gratuitous fun, the kind only ugly people like me can have at even uglier people's expense.

Having said that, I'd rather have Robbie Fowler at the same price as David Beckham, and since Fowler will come much cheaper, you do the math.

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My live memory of Hristo Stoitchkov were the fits he threw in Germantown, in a US Cup game vs the Virginia Beach Mariners in 2003, before he scored the winning goal in overtime.

Earlier that year Stoitchkov broke the leg of an American University player in a scrimmage, and that player is now suing MLS, DCU, and Stoitchkov for damages.

I have no idea of the merits of the case, but I hadn't thought about Stoitchkov in a couple of years (other than I saw him on the sideline as Bulgarian coach in a Euro-08 qualifier against - I think - Romania). What I remember thinking, watching Stoitchkov's bullying and ugly performance in Germantown, is here is a guy, 1994 player of the year, hero of Barca, bullying a referee and dirty-chopping opponents' knees in a weeknight game before 2,800 for a minor team playing an even more minor team in a minor tournament, his body shot, his skills - his 1994 skills - gone, whose awareness was furiously creeping towards his anger.

Think of this when thinking about MLS' pursuit of old and broken Euro-greyhounds.

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DCU news here and here and here. Tomorrow night, 45 degrees, chance of showers. One of the four of us will probably beg off because of work, so if you have my number and want to go, give a call. (At the very least you can hitch a ride, buy a ticket at the game, come sit with us.)

Al's Joe

Joe Lieberman. Every time I feel warm and glowy towards Al Gore I stop and think about Joe Lieberman.

HIllary Clinton is being pressed to apologize for and recant her 02 vote giving Bush authorization to use force. Does Al Gore have to recant and apologize or at least explain Joe Lieberman?

Lieberman wasn't whacko in 2000 as far as we knew or know now, though it's true Gore picked Lieberman to fumigate the party room after the Clenis - it was Lieberman's sanctimonious scolding of Clenis that got him the job as odor-eater.

Lieberman's vote for war in 2002 is no better or worse than HRC's but is worse by quadruple now by his virulent case of joeliebermanese. If the 2000 election had been fairly counted and something had happened to Al Gore post-911, Joe Frakalaka Lieberman would be president now, and our only hope for unclvsterfvck would be if Lieberman is just craven, not crazy.

It's said that the first telling choice a presidential candidate makes is his running-mate. I'm not anti-Gore, and if he wins the Nobel Peace prize too, and rides into the race on that horse, with the momentum he's generating now, well - good.

But Joe Frakalaka Lieberman. Has anyone asked Al about that choice lately?

Work Is Draining My Lifeforce One Drip of Will to Live Every Second Driveby-Mondaggregator

Seymour Hersh's much-discussed article plus yesterday's Frank Rich column (courtesy of the fabulous Potterville) plus today's NYT article on Cheney flying to Pakistan to bitchslap Musharaff plus news that - get this - the IAEA says US lying about Iran nuclear capability plus various and cumulative and too many to remember and recite again outrages equals INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE THAT CHENEY-antiAMERICANS WOULD RATHER SACRIFICE THIS COUNTRY THAN SACRIFICE THEIR POWER.

Really.

Meanwhile, David Broder

who is STILL the Official Pontificator for Those Who Miss the Eisenhower Administration, calls for civility, dammit.

Meanwhile, yesterday, watching TV, I see this dog

dancing to the guitar opening of Magnetic Field's "I Think I Need a New Heart" for a bowl of Cesar Canine Cuisine.

Time stands still, all I can feel is the time standing still. 

FRIDAYMUSICSATURDAY

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NEW! Richard Thompson! NEW!

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Black Keys

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Relay

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You Say Party! We Say Die!

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Bright Eyes

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Victor Vector and the Lovely Lovelies

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Trapped in a parking lot outside the Garydome talking about music playing on the Landrupod?

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Hey, KEXP is fundraising. If you listen, you know what to do.

Aarghjonesing (or, Three Days W/O Aargh - AIEEE! the Spiders!)

If you didn't think the MSM deliriously drools at an Obama/Clinton slapfight, this past week's hysteria over David Geffin's anti-HRC remarks and Maureen Dowd's moist and pantingly catty column should convince you.

George Bush's wetdream squared infinitely, obliterating chatter about the ratings-crusher in Iraq: Hillary times Obama times Bill times Hollywood times media-predators let loose again in their natural habitat. Jeebusmeow.

Broder wrote about Bush-revival, stupidly and cravenly crediting Bush, but what will bounce Bush is his irrelevant disappearance behind the tigerbeat-shrieking of Hillary vs Obama times the gravitational blackhole that is all things Clintonialist. What is the British withdraw from Basra compared to a Hillary spat against Obamamania?

So stop it. Both HRC and Obama campaigns are fully engaged in the necessary KY-jellying modern prezruns require, and handbagging each other - in public - is uncut heroin to a media jonesing for a scandalclinton to push those war correspondents to A2. Who doesn't think that every Hollywood lefty with a yapper has been called for comment about Geffen's comment? When one opens his mouth, both HRC and Obama need to shut theirs. Dionne offers the same advice.

Imagine HRC and Obama turning the media's obsession with them into fabulous free PR by debating -  in substance - their differences on how best to unclvsterfvck the clvsterfvck. Well, that's not going to happen. If they're not going to debate the specific distinctions between their respective policies they should fut the shuck up about the other's sluttiness, mmkay?

Talk like this about this.

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Dick Cheney. Potentially, possibly, one of the three or four pivotal humans in history. Chills the soul.

I've been trying, terribly unsuccessfully, to write coherently about a thought that's just out of grasp: the Dick Cheney's of the world have to be as capable of what they imagine their enemies are capable of - and then think they have to be capable of more to win.

There is evil in the world. Some of us don't think evil is necessary to meet and defeat evil. But I'm just an immoral atheist; what the fvck do I know?

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Great moments in Conservative thought:

See, Islamafascists so hate America's freedoms that to defeat the Islamafascists and protect our freedoms we have to abolish our freedoms to show the Islamafascists they can't end our freedoms.

The fact Conservatives don't sprain their brains pretzeling their logic is proof it's all fat and no muscle.

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Vilsack out. Please cease the Gore talk. Digby on the distinction between religion and tribalism. A seemingly honest try at reevaluation. The Poor Man is 87% worse than Hitler.

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FMF? Satorsunday.

Olimpia 1, DCU 4

It took all of four minutes twenty seconds for me to shout this season's first "Shoot the fricking ball, Jaime!" and six minutes forty seconds for me to scream at the season's first erpenfart and all of twenty-seven minutes for me to holler at the season's first display of Gomez' brilliance and all of forty-five minutes for me to be assured that Emilio is a classy and significant upgrade up top.

It is, of course, way too above me to not note someone said the game had a 3-1 or 1-3 feel. But 1-4?

My concerns about the midfield remain. Benny was abused defensively and didn't look comfortable on the wing. Simms' play was encouraging and Carroll was steady. I had mentioned to Planet just two minutes before Gros crossed to Emilio that I hardly noticed he was out there: it looked to me that Soehn was almost playing a 4-4-2, pulling Gros back and urging Erpen to go forward. And for long stretches of the game the midfield had trouble moving the ball from back to front. The new triangle of Gomez-Moreno-Emilio may be magical, but the ball has to get to one of them first.

And Boswell had some howling erpenfarts too, and Erpen was erpenfartfuller than usual. Namoff (note to Christian Miles: it's NAY-moff, not NAH-moff) was his usual steady. Perkins was great, though I wonder why Olimpia never tried anything at his feet.

I know I sound more negative than the result warrants, both in terms of considering United's short run up of preparation and margin of victory, but a first game of the season is about identifying areas that need improvement. Be happy with the win, but....

(And how do you think Olimpia will play if it's 20 degrees next Thursday and they're down 1-0/5-1 after ten minutes. Yikes!)

FSC announcers: in the 51st minute Gomez was brutalized to the ground. After two minutes of writhing, he was helped to his feet, and as he limped off the field Paul Caliguiri said, and I quote:

Gomez is walking off on his own recognizance.

Imagine my sigh of relief.

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UPDATE: Here's Screaming Eagle Podcast's take. Here's DCenters', who passes along other links. Here's MLS Underground's.

If you're wondering how he eats and breathes

Doghouse Riley reminds us that yesterday was Joel's 47th birthday.

American culture has been in decline ever since Joel left the Satellite of Love, begging the crucial question: Why the refrigerator doesn't Comedy Central (or any refrigerating body) run MST3K (Joel episodes only) reruns?

No, really. I'm asking.