Al Gore’s Beard

Precipitation is a big deal here. And it is raining. And yes, I AM one of those people who slows down and drives like a cautious bitch when the roads are wet. I am very down on hyroplaning. You should be too.

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Being without cable and working from until about 10 p.m. has made me a devout Charlie Rose viewer. I was alarmed at how well John Edwards came across in his session at the table. I then remembered being a compelling candidate has very little to do with whether one is an effective administrator or not. Seriously, shouldn’t we be hiring the mid-level management geeks we all hate but who know how to make institutions work? Screw vision…We need effective bureaucrats.

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We try to provide insight and impetus for personal growth here at the Beard. Thus, I give you the Snack Food Personality Quiz. I learned…SO MUCH…

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Thank you, Sudanese Muslim fundamentalists. You just gave the West carte blanche to continue to misunderstand and make war upon the one billion of your faith. Calling for the execution of a teacher? That’s just bad policy, bro. Just as an aside, can you begin to quantify how weak-sauce a deity is that worries about a teddy bear bearing its name? I never heard Lao Tzu sweating shit like this…

Ay, carramba. Los Latinos pueden hablar Ingles. Possiblemente igualmente a los blancos. El invasion es completemente. Este es el fin del mundo para los gavachos.

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Trent Lott might be bailing 5 years early because his shizz-nit is about to get all publissified and stuff. Corruption never surfaces in Washington, bro…

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Somehow, Charles Bukowski’s Hollywood pad is being held up on the way to historical preservation because someone has floated stories he was a Nazi sympathizer. As a) a huge Bukowski fan and b) someone who is not predisposed to take anti-semitism lightly, let me say this: y’all are high. Bukowski the Nazi sympathizer is as absurd as Jim Brown being pro segregation. Anyone who has read the smallest sample of Bukowski’s work would know that the pervasive nihilistic tone and philosophy would completely rule out any of meat-headed Facist agenda. Are people stupid on purpose?

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Now Henry Hyde can finally meet all those dead fetuses he was so fucking worried about.

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World War 3 was quietly avoided thanks to some prime and quiet naval diplomacy. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along…

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The best of 2007.

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 Russia is still fucked.

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Oh, and it’s AIDS day. Glad we’re still on top of that epidemic. Millions dying, you know.

7.16 : A nice, light subject for the CSPAN blog this time. Chinese dissidents! Wang Dan, speaking through an interpreter is criticizing the Chinese government. 2 thoughts so far…

1) Wang Dan is funny, but Dan Wang would be better and 2) I really need to figure out this whole Mandarin vs Cantonese deal. How ignorant can I really, ethically, remain about such a huge populace? Incredible, white man.

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7.19: Wang’s interpreter sounds hot, but there has been no sign of her. More as events warrant.

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7.20: Wang’s tag on the CSPAN chyron simply says “Wang Dan” with his title as “Chinese Dissident”. Do his business cards say this? How cool would that be? How’d you like to drop that at a cocktail party? “Oh REALLY…my cousin practices law too…Myself, I’m a (insert nationality here) Dissident…”

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7.22: Answering a question about the possibility of a repeat of

Tiananmen Square…(with a far too brief wide-shot featuring the apparently SLIM translator)…Wang does not see any large-scale student demonstration on the horizon. Any future movements will not be concentrated in a big city, says Wang, but more spread throughout in more atomized communities. Well, at least he’s thought about it.

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7.24: Thank god for Wikipedia. Thanks to Wiki, I know everything. A little background on Wang…Wang Dan (Chinese: 王丹; Pinyin: Wáng Dān) (born February 26, 1969), a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, was one of the most visible of the student leaders in the

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

 

That’s nice. I’ve been making dick jokes about his name, and this guy’s like a supreme icon of democracy. That’s like finding out the guy in history class you’ve been calling a loser and a nerd ends up being Thomas Jefferson. Awesome.

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7.28: Wang is wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and a vivid blue tie…very nicely put together. Meanwhile, it’s hard to tell if he’s advocating radicalism or merely explaining why it would and could exist in

China.

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7.29: All the egg brains in the audience (wherever this is taking place) can’t come up with one freaking question for this guy. Way to go, establishment.

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7.31: Wang says he’d love to see a democratic reform movement percolate up through the existing Chinese communist party structure. He then says this is as likely as a monkey flying out of his ass.  

—  7.33: Well, I’ll say this for Wang. He’s awfully polite in enumerating the shortcomings of the Chinese government. He’s now critiquing the Chinese relationship with

Tibet with unfailing cheer and restraint. He says China is trying to wait out the Dalai Lama, until he dies, and then renegotiate their terms with

Tibet. Hmm. Interesting.

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 7.34: Someone asks for Wang’s idea about how many were killed after Tiananmen. This should be interesting. He said that even though he trusts the Chinese investigated the whole affair thoroughly, we’ll never know the truth. He does cite the Red Cross of China’s figure, which says at least 2000 people were killed, and says he believes it.  Shit, what a bummer this

China thing is when you pay like half-a-minute of attention to it. Good thing we’re in bed with them thanks to trade and their hosting the next Olympics and stuff.

 That’s all for now…

The Democratic presidential debate at Los Angeles’ Television City has been cancelled because the candidates won’t cross a picket line. Good.   

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The Broadway folks seem ready to go back to work. Now more saps from Jersey can overpay for bad musicals. Tis the season…

But seriously…PAY YOUR PEOPLE, people!

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Some hired geek mutters in a quixotic fashion about some byzantinne economic sentiment, and wall street goes apeshit. I love america.

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Fattys on the decline. Clearly they didn’t survey Ohio.

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As impressive a political clinic as the cool, competent, calculating Hillary campaign in the general election would be, I would still be pretty down with Obama as the nominee. And I don’t think he’s finished, by the way.

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John Beatty, hero.

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A missing Kansas Junior College student may have been an adult film actress. I think being an 18 year old stuck in El Dorado, Kansas would tempt me to go into porn, too.

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Jason Whitlock, as he is wont to do, raises an outstanding question: Why are we so less outraged when blacks terrorize blacks rather than whites terorrizing blacks?

More unrest in France. Look I’m down with youthful angst and the existential crises of the young and on and on and on and I don’t want to sound unsympathetic…but chill out, you suburbanites…at least your French!

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Google gets greener. How do we know? Can anyone prove to me this isn’t just complete PR horseshit taking up space on a slow news day? Hell, news organizations I’m familiar with ran with this story but I saw no research done on it beyond the wire copy. Don’t forget, kids, that this might all be one HUGE lie…

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The UN obviously confused “desirable” with “un-black”.  Just FYI, bros…I love the UN, and all the countries listed above the U.S. in the list (we were 12). But there is no way I’d rather live in Iceland than Spain. None.

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The hottest Spice Girl lost on Dancing With the Stars. I didn’t even know she was on…I would have totally watched.

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Christopher Hitchens is a complete pain in the ass until he makes a point you agree with. Then you’re superstoked to have such an articulate bulldog on your side. Yeah, take THAT Romney-heads! it IS okay to wonder wtf about being Mormon and stuff…

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Happy Birthday, Jimi Hendrix.

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Now that I said it was okay to ask Romney about being Mormon, and how that faith might inform his presidency, let’s also take time to remind people it’s not cool hate on people’s beliefs.

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Fossilized Texas Oilman heads to jail for his role in the Oil-For-Food scandal. Sheesh…who rips off the 3rd World?

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