Tell me how this ends.

Does anyone remember the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon? Does anyone remember how, in the wake of the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, thousands of Lebanese people took to the streets in protest and -- almost completely on their own -- worked their way out from under the oppressive thumb of Syria? Does anyone remember how happy everybody was about that, these average Lebanese Joes and Josephines rising up to prove that democracy could exist in the Middle East? That all happened in February and March of last year. Based on the events of the past few days, though, I'd have thought it was a lot longer.

I don't want to be seen as a knee-jerk pessimistic Eeyore, immediately jumping to the worst-case scenario no matter what, but it looks like all that progress is currently in the process of being blown into oblivion. If there's even a Lebanon left after the Israel-Hezbollah war is over with, who knows what it's going to look like? Maybe some Lebanese George Washington will magically rise up to rebuild the country into something beautiful again, but it seems just as likely that Syria or Iran will find a way to take advantage of the chaos and weasel another puppet regime back in there. Whatever kind of government emerges from the ashes, it's hard to imagine the people of Lebanon having many kind feelings toward Israel after the IDF blows their country to bits.

That, I think, is what makes me the most angry about all of this. Here's a country, once called "the Paris of the Middle East" for its culture and intellectual openness, that survived a brutal 15-year civil war and another 15 years of Syrian oppression to emerge as perhaps the best hope for actual democracy in the Middle East -- and both Hezbollah and Israel have evidently decided that all that progress and all that hope are worth erasing if it means they get to continue blasting the hell out of each other.

Obviously Hezbollah carries the lion's share of the blame in all this. They knew exactly what they were doing by kidnapping those two Israeli soldiers last month, and probably knew full well how much the conflict was going to widen itself over the ensuing weeks. Which meant that they had a good idea just how much destruction was going to be rained down on Lebanon from both sides, and were willing to allow that to happen just so that they could start an unwinnable war with the Israelis.

But Israel, for their part, obediently fell for the Hezbollah trap hook, line, and sinker: For want of two kidnapped soldiers, they gave Hezbollah the war it wanted. Look, I'm one of the last people who's going to sit here and argue that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself, and I'm certainly not going to say that the kidnapping of two citizens is something Israel should've ignored. But look, I'm just going to come out and say it -- is reducing entire cities to rubble their idea of a proportional response to two kidnappings? And can the Israelis hold their heads high and feel like they haven't been drawn into something terribly pointless in all this?

For all we know, the kidnappings were all a plan hatched by Syria to goad Israel into a conflict that would sow chaos in Lebanon and create an environment in which Syria could sneak back in and re-install a friendly puppet government. Is that what Israel, or anyone else, wants?

Meanwhile, aside from dropping four-letter words in front of fellow world leaders and saying they're not going to tell the Israelis how to run their country, the U.S. government appears to be doing nothing. And back here in America, some of the same people who self-righteously hailed the sweep of democracy through Lebanon 17 months ago are now shrugging their shoulders and insinuating that the Lebanese should just shut up and take what's coming to them. So that's as long as your attention span lasted re the Cedar Revolution, huh? Seventeen months ago you were chiding us liberals for not being happy enough for the Lebanese, and now you're blasting us for supposedly being too concerned with their welfare. Seventeen months ago you hailed Lebanon's progress as a vindication for Bush's pro-democracy policies, and now you cheer as that progress is reduced to dust.

I don't want to beat a dead horse (or a dead Arab) here, but I think it bears repeating: Eventually the neo-con kill-'em-all-let-God-sort-'em-out right-wing cheerleaders are going to have to decide whether they want freedom for the poor benighted Arabs or whether they just want to bomb the shit out of 'em. If you want freedom and democracy for Lebanon, you probably shouldn't cheer as innocents are caught in the crossfire of this war; if you want freedom and democracy for Iraq, it seems poor form for you to fantasize about turning entire cities into parking lots, etc. etc. etc. Be a freedom-lover or be a bloodthirsty warmonger, but pick one, stick with it, and be honest and upfront about your choice. (Or as Bill Maher might say: "New rule -- you're officially banned from going ga-ga over pictures of hot women if you're only going to call them all terrorists later.")

But I'm not going to spend a lot of time sitting around and waiting for them to make up their minds. Right now I'm trying to make up my own mind -- whether to continue to hope that this whole thing can be resolved before Lebanon is completely wiped off the map, or to just give up on humanity entirely, move to Tahiti, and never pick up another newspaper or watch CNN ever again. I gotta tell you, at this point the latter's looking more and more attractive by the second.

A friend of mine summed it up best as we glumly hashed out this topic over drinks on Saturday. He said this crisis made him think back to a line spoken during an episode of "The West Wing" during similar circumstances: "Tell me how this ends!"

Leo McGarry: Mr. President, please -- Congress, the Joint Chiefs, the American Public, your own staff, everyone disagrees with your assessment of the situation.
President Bartlet: Killing Palestinians isn't going to make us feel safer. They'll kill more of us and we'll have to kill more of them. It's Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun.
McGarry: We can't allow terrorists to murder our citizens without . . .
President Josiah Bartlet: Why would Palestinians murder American government officials? They never have before. They're deliberately provoking us, Leo. They know that we have to retaliate. They've studied us, they want us to overreact.
Leo McGarry: This isn't overreacting, this is the appropriate, balanced . . .
President Josiah Bartlet: Tell me how this ends, Leo! You want me to start something that may have serious repercussions on American foreign policy for decades, but you don't know how this ends!

My friend said that what he'd like to do more than anything is to sit down with Israel and ask them what they want the outcome of this whole thing to be, and then work backwards from there. Maybe that'd help in this case, because it seems like both sides in this conflict did a really good job early on of getting enraged but not a good job at all of pondering where that rage is likely to get them.

Not anywhere good would be my guess. I hope somebody figures that out before it's too late.

ADDED: Boy, it just gets better. What does Rush Limbaugh have in common with the Rapture fetishists of the evangelical right? They both think all this violence in Lebanon is a good thing. Read it and weep.

Friday Sunday Random Ten, Vive le France edition.

I am hugely embarrassed to admit that Friday, July 14, was Bastille Day and, while I got dutifully liquored up on French 75s at the Provençal bistro around the block to mark the occasion (hey, fuck you, we do have stuff like that here in Birmingham), I didn't do anything on this blog. Call me a cheese-eating surrender monkey if you must, but since this blog tipped its cap to the UK a week ago, I think it's only fair to give a shout-out to my French heritage this time around.

So raise a glass, fire up the ol' Citroën, throw that goat cheese and escargot on the grill, and pay a proper "Mon dieu!" to official Hey Jenny Slater pseudo-girlfriend Melissa Theuriau as we cook up a belated dix aléatoires de vendredi:

1. Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardót, "Bonnie and Clyde"
2. St.-Germain, "Montego Bay Spleen"
3. DJ Cam, "Success" (Thievery Corporation remix)
4. Deep Forest and Peter Gabriel, "While the Earth Sleeps"
5. Dimitri from Paris, "La Rhythme et le Cadence"
6. St.-Germain, "Land of . . . "
7. Dimitri from Paris, "Free Ton Style"
8. St.-Germain, "La Goutte d'Or"
9. Édith Piaf, "La Vie en Rose"
10. Nouvelle Vague, "Love Will Tear Us Apart"


Merry Fête de la Fédération, mademoiselle.

Obituary.

American Conservatism, 230, dead after lengthy illness

American Conservatism, a school of political thought whose claimed adherents included figures ranging from Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan to current president George W. Bush, was pronounced dead Friday after long battles with a number of diseases. Though historians differ on Conservatism's exact age, most estimate that it was somewhere between 169 and 230 years old.

Doctors formally declared the ideology dead after Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican once thought to be fairly resolute opponent to the current administration's claims on unlimited executive power, proposed a Senate bill that would not only render legal the administration's warrantless-wiretapping program legal but would also retroactively give amnesty to anyone who had engaged in illegal wiretapping going back to 1978. That expansion of presidential powers appeared not only unprecedented in modern American history, but in the history of conservatism and the Republican Party as well, which until now had repudiated the idea of a monolithic central government with expansive powers.

However, the doctors also said Specter's fatal move toward greater executive power was merely the latest in a lengthy string of debilitating failures regarding Conservatism's core principles, many of which dated back to the weeks and months following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States but some of which went back much further.

Among the most damaging of these was the massive growth of discretionary government spending over the last five years, which severely damaged Conservatism's claim to a doctrine of small government and minimal spending. Conservatism had battled with this disease as far back as 1981, but doctors said the growth seemed to have gone into remission and receded in the late 1990s. However, the mass began growing again shortly after George W. Bush's inauguration in 2001, and increased in size by nearly 45 percent before Conservatism finally succumbed.

The ideology was also damaged by a lengthy addiction to the religious right. Acquaintances say that Conservatism became so dependent on right-wing evangelicals that it sold out nearly all of its small-government, libertarian impulses, such as keeping the government out of citizens' private lives and not dictating their medical decisions, among others. Conservatism carried on an embarrassingly public dalliance with Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman at the center of a vocal death-with-dignity controversy last year, and at the time of its death had reportedly relapsed into another fixation with the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Perhaps most tragic are the rumors that Conservatism was abandoned by many of its former adherents in the months leading up to its death, and passed away surrounded by only a very small cadre of devoted friends. Former companions such as President Bush, blogger Glenn Reynolds, talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin not only deserted Conservatism late in its life but went so far as to criticize loyal friends such as William F. Buckley Jr., George Will, and Andrew Sullivan.

"So many people claimed to be [Conservatism's] friend, particularly in 1994 and 1995, right after the Republicans got control of Congress," said one longtime friend. "But then George W. Bush came to town and you started finding out who the true friends were -- one by one they abandoned Conservatism so that they could cozy up to the president, until hardly anyone was left. It would've broken your heart, to have seen Conservatism die almost completely alone like that."

Conservatism is survived by a son, Neoconservatism, 59; a distant cousin, Libertarianism, 149; British Conservatism, 176; and a small circle of loyal friends.

Memorial services will be held Tuesday, November 7 at locations all over the country. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to the United States Democratic Party.

Spotted this morning at the corner of Hilarious Blvd. and Tragic Ave.

An anti-abortion blogger has been receiving some publicity beyond his wildest dreams for a post he wrote in response to what he perceived as a callously pro-abortion op-ed piece. Here's some of what he wrote at the end of his post:

Miss Weber, you have killed your child, which you admit is a baby/human being, intentionally. That does make you an admitted murderer. I'm not going to "condemn you to hell", I'm going to pray for your forgiveness and for the suffering which you will endure when you realize what you have done. Every baby you see from that moment on is going to wake you up to the realization that you killed your child.

Wow. Powerful words on a powerful issue. Only problem is, he was writing in response to . . . this.

An excerpt:

So, to all of you pro-lifers who are trying to rain on my parade, keep it to yourself, because I don't have the time for that kind of negativity. I've got an abortion to plan, and I just know it's going to be the best non-anesthetized invasive uterine surgery ever!

. . .

I seriously cannot wait for all the hemorrhaging and the uterine contractions. This abortion is going to be so amazing. I'm definitely taking lots of pictures so I can remember every last detail of the whole experience for years to come and share my great memories with all of my friends, family and co-workers. What an easy decision this was!

Yes, your worst suspicions are correct -- "Marching Together for Life" was responding to "I'm Totally Psyched About This Abortion!," a "column" from the April 28, 1999 edition of The Onion.

Which begs three questions.

1. Which remote Pacific island would you have had to be stranded on to not know what The Onion was?

2. Even if you had somehow managed to escape awareness of The Onion's existence, wouldn't you have said to yourself at some point during the reading of that piece, "You know, this is starting to sound a lot like satire"?

3. Following that, wouldn't you have also thought to yourself, "You know, maybe, just maybe, this column is satirizing the right-wing attitudes of abortion recipients as callous, airheaded women who enjoy terminating their pregnancies -- attitudes very similar to the one I myself have held for years?"

Now, any normal person would've woken up the next morning, witnessed the monsoon of comments people had left informing him of his dumbassery, and slinked back into obscurity with his tail between his legs. Not this cat, though. He came back four days later with . . .

Talk about getting people mad. I wrote a blog on Caroline Weber who wrote her "satire" piece titled "I am totally psyched for this abortion!".

This article is not for kids or the weak spirited.

First of all, who are we talking about? We are talking about a woman who supports the murder of over 3,000 babies/human beings every single day. We are talking about a woman who supports the suctioning out of brains from human beings to collapse their skulls in order to remove their dead carcases from the women who have chosen to kill their children. A woman who likely supports the killing of a fully developed 9 month old baby so that the poor mother doesn't have to buy diapers, or live with the trauma of having to raise a child.

From this we can gather that he still thinks "Caroline Weber" is real. And he just ain't gonna let this thing go.

Satire? Was the article aiming at the women who have the abortions or the people who believe it is better to save lives than kill them?

Hmm, let's look up the term satire:

"witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used sarcasm to upset his opponent""

Either way, I think I did a good job of turning the "satire" right back at them, don't you?

Well, given that you've conflated "satire" and "sarcasm," I'd have to say . . . no.

Pete of MTfL proceeded to dig his hole yet further (prompting one commenter to call him "the Energizer Bunny of dumb") with two more posts over the next couple of days, the latest of which demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that Pete understands neither the purpose of satire nor the first thing about how oral contraceptives work.

Now, I thought about this for a second, and I did consider the possibility that Pete is not a complete idiot but rather a master satirist himself -- either a left-winger stealthily trying to give pro-lifers a bad name, or perhaps even more diabolically, an actual pro-lifer merely trying to draw hundreds of pro-choice Internet surfers into his fiendish fake blog so that he could later spring the trap and yell, "GOTCHA! Oh, you dumbasses thought this was real!"

However, he's been doing this for more than a year now, which seems like an awful lot of effort (and consistent effort at that) just to play a prank on some pro-life bloggers. And he's got numerous photos of anti-abortion rallies he's attended. So . . . I'm going to go with "actual blog," "non-ironic" and "dumbass." But a hilarious dumbass. (Maybe we can hook him up with this chick.)

Anyway, I look forward to his impassioned condemnation of the anger and vitriol being spewed by this pie.

ADDED: Forgot to give due credit to Pandagon, where I saw this in the first place. Oh, and Pete hasn't quit -- he's now insisting that his original post "was a joke, which obviously thousands of you didn't get." Uh-huh. I'll file that under the "He who laughs last didn't get the joke" department.

The madness spreads.

Courtesy of Paul at Georgia Sports Blog, I find this morning that Marine GSB reader "Capt. DSNDawg" also reads Hey Jenny Slater occasionally and caught the Simpsons/college football post from a while back. Thanks for the shout-out, Captain!

Incidentally, Paul reports that DSNDawg went to the trouble of setting up a military DSN phone link at 3 a.m. on a hilltop in Korea just so that he could have the privilege of listening to the Bulldogs get annihilated in the 1998 Georgia-Florida game, so you know his credentials as a true UGA fan are pretty much unimpeachable.

Thanks for the kind words, DSNDawg, and for your service. Next time you make it back to the States, beers are on me.

Tuesday Mystery Meat.

· Oh, dear. Keira . . .



I guess she's taking the breakup a lot harder than I thought. So in a way I feel kind of responsible, yet in no way did I ever indicate to her I thought walking around in public with no shoes on was acceptable. On the other hand, maybe she ate 'em, in which case I guess we upgrade this to a push.

· Your favorite soccer correspondent and mine Kanu has been doing some great work the last couple of days covering the World Cup final and the attendant controversy over Zinedine Zidane's "head butt heard 'round the world." Now, first of all let me say I'm not entirely unsympathetic to Zizou's anger at whatever Marco Materazzi said to him that allegedly inspired the head-butt -- even a nobody like me, simply by virtue of having stuck my neck out in a political sense, has been hit with one or two really unnecessary mother-centered insults that made me want to go out and choke a bitch. But Zizou should've known better than to do something like that, if only by virtue of having had such a lengthy soccer career, long enough to know that a) trash talk, even of the wildly disgusting and gratuitous variety, is pretty much par for the course in sports, and b) you don't put your own desire for a get-back above the good of your team. Now, as Kanu points out, Zizou's absence from the rest of the match turned out to be negligible unless you think he could've nailed a goal in the last nine minutes of the second OT, especially since David Trézéguet, the only one to miss a shot in the penalty-shootout phase, would've still been one of France's five penalty kickers even if Zidane had still been in. But this was still one of the biggest stages in sports, and if Zidane honestly thought it was more important for him to put Materazzi on his ass than to be there helping out his team in the final minutes, it was an incredibly selfish attitude to take. If ZZ's attitude during the ceremony welcoming Les Bleus home from the tournament is any indication, he's starting to realize that this incident is already turning out to be a black mark tarnishing the end of what was otherwise a stellar career; if nothing else, maybe it'll be a cautionary tale to others.


Whoops, wrong Zizou. Though this one could knock a motherfucker out, too.

· Elsewhere on the sporting tip, Orson Swindle has found a way to bring even the mightiest titans of SEC football low: dredge up their promotional appearances on behalf of "Yella Wood." Naturally, as a Bulldog, I have witnessed the Jim Donnan ad he refers to, and yes, Jim Donnan spends most of the ad looking like he's pondering how many times he would rather have his scrotum stomped on than appear in the ad. Which is coincidental, since most of us Dawgs spent the 1999 season -- the one in which I think that particular ad debuted, though I may be mistaken -- wondering how many times we would rather have our scrotum stomped on than have to watch our secondary get dismembered by yet another mediocre opposing quarterback. Good times, and by "good" I of course mean "excruciating."

· Apropos of nothing (like pretty much everything else in this post), but does anyone else remember M.A.C.H. 3, the laserdisc-based fighter-combat arcade game that was pretty much a staple of my Showbiz Pizza Place experience from 1983 to at least 1987? Somehow got into a discussion about favorite old video games today and this one was definitely mine. Anyone have any fond memories of rocketing through M.A.C.H. 3's photorealistic landscape bombing the crap out of stuff back in the mid-'80s, or have any other favorite early arcade games they want to give props to?


Trust me, this was the shit.

· And finally, while I try and think up something more substantial to say, entertain yourself with this link courtesy of Andrew Sullivan . . . Virtual Bubble Wrap.


For optimum enjoyment, turn the volume up as loud as you can at work and play repeatedly.

Friday Limey Semi-Random Ten.

I was reminded this morning that today is the one-year anniversary of the London transit bombings, and to mark that occasion I'm gonna do the same thing I did last year -- devote the Friday Random Ten to British music acts. As with last year, sorry, Irish bands not eligible. (I would've done an Irish Random Ten for St. Patrick's Day a few months ago, but it would've probably ended up being nine U2 songs with "Jump Around" thrown in there somewhere.)

Anyways . . .

1. Pet Shop Boys, "Jealousy"
2. Fatboy Slim, "Give the Po' Man a Break"
3. Pet Shop Boys, "West End Girls" (Acid House mix)
4. The Clash, "Armagideon Time"
5. Oasis, "Fuckin' in the Bushes"
6. Orbital, "Tunnel Vision"
7. Photek, "Six Feet Under Main Theme"
8. Underworld, "Born Slippy"
9. Pet Shop Boys, "We Came From Outer Space"
10. Pet Shop Boys, "Paninaro '95"

And a bonus track:

11. Gorillaz, "M1A1"

Feel free to leave a Random Ten of whatever national origin(s) in the comments.

Thursday mystery meat.

Italy v. France, World Cup 2006: No matter who wins, there are no losers here.

· I don't know how it happened -- I'm betting it's Kanu's fault somewhere along the line -- but I've gone from "Soccer sucks, but the World Cup's kinda cool" to "OK, I think I'm actually starting to like soccer." It happened sometime during the second half of the Germany-Italy match Tuesday afternoon in Dortmund, which was a scoreless tie at the end of regulation -- and yeah, I know, I've already said that any sport in which scoreless ties are commonplace can't be all that worthwhile, but there was something different about this one, maybe the knowledge that the very next goal, whomever it came from, might be enough to vault a team into the Cup finals. As it turned out, that was correct: After a scoreless first extra period, it was looking a lot like the second might end the same way and we'd end up going to penalty kicks, but in the 119th minute Fabio Grosso (great porn name, by the way) knocked a ball around the German goaltender and into paydirt. And I can't do this goal justice for anyone who wasn't actually watching it at the time, but had the ball gone in a straight line, it would've bounced harmlessly off the left goalpost, but somehow Grosso managed to put some English on it, almost like John Smoltz bending a sweet curveball right past a helpless batter, and instead of going straight it curved just left of the goalee's outstretched hand and just right of the goalpost, and this bit of mind-boggling needle-threading was all the Italians needed to rip the hosts' hearts out of their chests and move on to the finals. The Azzurri added another beauty of a goal less than two minutes later, and while I don't want anyone thinking that I'm no longer counting down the minutes to the start of actual football season -- you better believe I am -- I think I'm finally starting to figure out why they call it the "beautiful sport" or whatever.


It never occurred to you that this might not be the best outfit to wear to a movie called "Dead Man's Chest"?

· All right, back to girls. Now, y'all probably had an inkling of this already, what with things starting to heat up between me and Melissa Theuriau and all, but . . . well, it's over between me and Keira Knightley. Probably for good. We had some good times, shared some laughs, and it was always a big thrill to flip open the old cell phone and get a really horrendously filthy voice mail from her in that oh-so-proper British accent. But we finally had to face up to some irreconcilable differences -- namely, the fact that I enjoy eating things such as fried chicken, barbecue, and steaks, while she enjoys eating . . . well, nothing, if the above photo is any indication. Look, darling, when I said "I could go for some ribs," I didn't mean yours, OK?

· Speaking of pictures that somebody somewhere is probably going to end up wishing they could take back, peep these pictures of the offspring of newly elected California Congressman Brian Bilbray. One would think that the children of a man who had been running in one of the most closely watched special elections in the country would take a little more care than to allow their publicly viewable Web sites to feature pictures of themselves illegally consuming alcohol, but then again, let he who has not pounded the booze before the age of 21 cast the first stone, right? Besides, the blond chick looks like she's down for whatever (shut up, she's 19, so I can say that). I also dig her brunette friend who's flashing "the shocker" in one of the pictures.


So did I, repeatedly, but you don't see me putting up any billboards about it.

· Yesterday as we were driving to Atlanta to hail Dad's victorious completion of the Peachtree Road Race, my sister caught a glimpse of a billboard somewhere on the Downtown Connector that read simply, "I pooted." We both wondered what the hell that could possibly mean, and after doing some research this morning (and by "research" I mean "about ten seconds' worth of Googling"), I found out what: It's a promo for Cartoon Network, as are a number of seemingly random billboards around the Southeast, including the "Clowns hate tangelos" billboard I see on I-20/59 every time I'm headed back into Birmingham from Atlanta. My immediate question is, is this really an effective advertising strategy if people have to get on a computer and Google the phrase to find out what the Funk & Wagnalls it means? -- but then again, I did bother to do that, as did a whole bunch of other people apparently, so . . . maybe it's working.

· There's another rather inscrutable billboard in Birmingham, visible from the southbound lanes of the Elton B. Stephens Expressway as you pass downtown, and all it says is "banfigureskating.com." I went to that Web site and it's an "unofficial" promo site for Birmingham's arena football team; now, promoting arena football is fine, but doing so by saying that figure skating isn't a "real sport"? Dr. Pot, paging Dr. Kettle . . .


Submitted without comment.

· Paul Westerdawg has a great post with some comments from a few Bulldogs stationed over in the Middle East, as well as a link to a terrific column portraying Georgia Tech as the Jan Brady of college football in the state of Georgia.

· Also, here's a long-overdue to blogger and fellow Red & Black alumnus Will Mosher and his blog Excerpts From a Work in Progress. Will's usually a lot funnier than I've ever been, though I guess that's a pretty limp-wristed compliment when you think about it. Let's just say he's funny and leave it at that.

· Finally, Kyle King thinks I'm a wuss. Hey, dude, you'll get no argument from me. Though the picture of Vivian Leigh was a nice touch.

Joltin' Joe has left and gone astray.

Surely I'm not the only one who's realized just how much alike these two guys sound.

I haven't talked much about Joe Lieberman on this blog, mainly because I figured everybody was smart enough to suss out that I highly disapproved of his new chosen role as Bush's lap dog. But permit me to rant for a spell about Lieberman's latest spectacularly ill-advised escapade, an attempt to collect 7,500 signatures on a petition so that he can run as an independent in the event that he loses the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont on August 8.

First of all, it was monumentally stupid for Lieberman to basically admit there's a chance he could lose the primary to a previous unknown. And anyone in the state of Connecticut who can still fog a mirror should quickly recognize Lieberman's insistences that he's still a "loyal Democrat" as being distinctly of the methinks-the-lady-doth-protest-too-much variety, since while Lamont has vowed to support Lieberman in the general election if Lieberman wins the primary, Lieberman obviously never had any intention of doing the same in the event of a Lamont win.

The knee-jerk response to all of this from the conservative wing is "You only care if he's a Democrat; you value party loyalty above everything else." Well, that's some mighty ironic righteous indignation coming from the people who tore Jim Jeffords a new one when he jumped from the GOP back in 2002. But to actually answer that accusation, no, I'm not opposing Joe Lieberman because he's thinking about jumping ship; I'm opposing him because he's wrong. He's wrong as a Democrat, he'd be wrong as an independent, and he'd be wrong as a Republican. And no, I don't value party loyalty above everything else -- I value competent government and a respect for the will of the people above everything else, and it's become clear that Lieberman values neither of those things. His lack of concern for the first is evident in his insistence on supporting every single stupid thing the Bush administration does vis-á-vis the war on terror, no matter how half-assed or misguided, to the point of accusing people of imperiling the country if they dare to criticize the president; his contempt for the second is evident in his apparent willingness to thumb his nose at the Connecticut electorate. If they choose Lamont in the August primary, I don't see how anyone can interpret that as anything other than, "Sorry, Mr. Lieberman, we've decided you're not the person who can best represent us in the Senate"; Lieberman, evidently, intends to respond, "Am so! NYEEEAHH!"

In short, not unlike John McCain before him, Joe Lieberman is showing all the signs that he's started believing his own press. Trouble is, that press is coming from neocons whose most defining character trait up to this point has been a near-total inability to differentiate their asses from a hole in the ground.

This all reminds me of a particularly embarrassing episode from Bob Dole during his unsuccessful 1996 presidential bid. At a late-October rally in Houston, with Dole's prospects looking grim and the campaign shifting into desperation mode, Dole began reciting a list of various "ethical lapses" from Clinton's first term -- which, naturally, were mostly molehills that had been built into mountains by the Republican Congress and the right-wing media -- and then asked, "Where is the outrage? When will the voters start to focus?", as if it was the voters' obligation to get mad about these things and carry Dole into the White House.

What Bob Dole apparently did not understand -- and he paid for this lack of understanding in the end -- is that it is not the voters' responsibility to please a candidate to the point where he considers them worthy of voting for him. It is the candidate's responsibility to please the voters, and if he doesn't do that, they vote his ass out. It's kind of the whole point of an election.

After 18 years in Congress, and after five years of being stroked and petted by the Bush administration for being a good little non-critical lap dog in terms of their infuriating mismanagement of the war on terror, Joe Lieberman has apparently developed an awfully big head, to the point where it's the Connecticut voters' responsibility to appreciate and applaud his so-called principled stance on the war, rather than his responsibility to explain how that so-called principled stance is doing his state (or his country) a lick of good. He's right, goddammit, and if the voters of Connecticut refuse to recognize his unimpeachable rightness in the primary, the he's just gonna bounce right up again and force 'em to recognize it in the general. For Joe Lieberman, his senatorial seat has gone from being a sacred responsibility to being a birthright, and when he says he has "loyalties that are greater than those to my party," that may be the one sincere, correct thing he's said in the last two years: It's starting to look like Joe Lieberman's greatest loyalty is to Joe Lieberman.

I think Atrios is right in predicting that Joe's "true loyal base -- Republicans" will not rush to his aid nearly as quickly as the Lieberman campaign almost assuredly believes they will. The current GOP is nothing if not opportunistic to a cutthroat degree, and given the choice between keeping a loyal (if big-I Independent) lapdog and picking up a Senate seat for the Rs -- particularly in a year when the Rs are in real danger of losing their Senate majority -- the Republican Party will aim for the latter and leave Lieberman twisting in the wind. I also think that if Lamont beats Lieberman in the primary, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee continues supporting Lieberman even though he's an independent, then I may just have to cut ties with the national Democratic Party myself, at least until they get over their near-terminal case of Republican Lite Syndrome. But if Lieberman beats Lamont in the primary, then despite my disappointment, I'll shut up about this and accept it, because again, it's the will of the people that counts. If only Joe Lieberman felt the same way.

It's here! It's here!

Came back to the office this morning to find an Amazon package waiting for me -- the two-CD special edition of the Pet Shop Boys' new album "Fundamental," along with the first singles. This, incidentally, is the first CD I've bought in hard copy (as opposed to just downloading individual songs off of iTunes) all year long.

I'll put the full rundown up here after I've had the chance to give it a few listens.

Another historical milestone.

Now that we've just finished celebrating the 230th birthday of our nation -- she doesn't look a day over 198 -- it seems only fair that we observe the birthday of another institution whose importance has been critical to modern culture, to democracy, to history itself: the bikini, formally introduced 60 years ago today by two Frenchmen. (See? They're not all bad.)

Today we salute you, Louis Reard and Jacques Heim, for making life just a little better for men everywhere, though of course I wouldn't dare speak for women on this one. None of this is to imply, of course, that the bikini ranks up there with the birth of American democracy in terms of historical importance, but . . . I mean, why split hairs?


America and the bikini: Would either one be quite as great without the other? I submit that they would not.

The land of the free and the home of the sweaty.

I was in Atlanta earlier today, and I mean lots earlier today, to be at the finish line of the Peachtree Road Race when my dad came in. Just for the record, this past extended weekend really put into glaring focus just what a weakling I am. Saturday afternoon the whole family took our dogs for a walk at the park, and my sister and I had to head home about halfway through, partly because Jenna was getting overheated but partly because my sister's hip was hurting and my back was spasming from a months-old injury. So our parents, both in their late 50s, keep truckin' along while Ann and I limp back home, sweating and complaining about our respective injuries like a couple of 80-year-old retirees in Boca.


Come on, you pansy, keep moving! Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!

So that was the first thing, and then this morning we woke up at 5 a.m. to drive up to Atlanta and meet my dad at Piedmont Park. And while my dad is running 6.2 miles, a substantial part of it uphill and all of it in Georgia's traditional 582-percent summer humidity, I'm standing there in the park with my mom and my sister, and I start to feel weak and lightheaded. Seriously, just standing there. My dad runs 6.2 miles and comes out of it smiling, and I practically have to have the fainting couch wheeled out for me just from standing in the park.


A rather sweaty Clark Gillett, post-race.

"During the first mile or so," he told us later, "I'd be running and I'd get passed by an attractive young woman, and I'd think, 'I wish I had an award to give out for the best buns on the course.' But after about the fourth or fifth mile, when we were running uphill into Midtown, I wasn't looking at anything other than the pavement right in front of me."

But anyway, Dad made it, without showing any outward signs of major ill health, and proved once again that he's at least ten times the man I am. Congratulations, pop.

Anyway, funniest moment of the morning came as we were walking back across the park to where all the drink stands were set up along 10th Street. Dad points to the football stadium at Grady High School, whose light towers are rising up just across 10th from where we were, and asks, "So is that Bobby Dodd Stadium?" I laughed hysterically and said, "No, it's Grady High School, but the fact you actually thought that might be Bobby Dodd speaks volumes about the state of Georgia Tech's football program."

I'm back in Alabama now, where fireworks are legal, and they're going to be shooting off the fireworks from behind Vulcan sometime around dusk. Of course, we'll be doing our own shooters here in the front yard of my apartment building well before then. Happy birthday, USA!

ADDED: My best attempt at a shot of the fireworks being shot off over Vulcan here in Birmingham:


If you squint really hard you can see Vulcan himself.

Friday Not-So-Random Ten: Dumptastic Edition, plus some bonus YouTubeage.

Well, I guess I was gonna have to get around to mentioning this sooner or later, but I've added a new marker to my now-world-famous Platial map of places I've been dumped and/or rejected. Yup, I got the heave-ho on Monday, and on a voice-mail, no less. We were at the dog park, I asked her if she wanted to do something later on that week, she told me quite brusquely that she was going to be really busy the rest of the week, I went home and found that my cell phone had run out of power; when I plugged it in, I found that I had two voice-mails, one of which was her informing me that she just didn't have time for a relationship these days but that we could still be friends, and her friend Elisha Cuthbert thought I was cute and wanted to take me for a ride on her unicorn. (OK, I made up that last part, but it's no more ridiculous than the "we can still be friends" part.)

Anyhoo, instead of spending a lot of time pondering how many retarded kids' wheelchairs I must have knocked over in a former life to have earned this kind of luck with women, I bring you this Friday Not-So-Random Ten, which, coincidentally, is going to be the tracklisting of my forthcoming compilation CD of love songs. "Tender Love Songs," 10 of the least romantic songs ever recorded, soon to be available on TV and wherever CDs are sold!


Like this, but with lots more cursing.

Here's the list:

1. Dr. Dre, "Deeez Nuuuts"
2. David Allan Coe, "I'd Like to Fuck the Shit Out of You"
3. Dead Milkmen, "If You Love Someone Set Them on Fire"
4. Sloppy Seconds, "Just Because You're a Girl"
5. Dead Kennedys, "Too Drunk to Fuck"
6. Kaiser Chiefs, "Everyday I Love You Less and Less"
7. N.W.A., "I Ain't tha 1"
8. Johnny Cash, "Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart"
9. The Smiths, "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
10. DeeJay Punk-Roc, "The World is My Ashtray"

And a bonus track:

11. Billy Idol, "Dancing With Myself"

Before you spend a whole lot of time wondering if that last one really means what you think it does (answer: probably yes), I bring you further celebration of my recent dumpage, courtesy of YouTube: a delightful short film called "Home Base." The video isn't NSFW, but, uh, I'd probably watch it with headphones on if I were you.



Bon appetit! Oh, and feel free to leave your favorite non-romantic, blatantly disgusting, and/or otherwise inappropriate songs in the comments.

Two shout-outs for C-town.

Most of the time, when my hometown of Columbus, Georgia, gets any attention, it seems like it's for stuff like, oh, unscrupulous mental-health facilities farming its patients out to work security at football games or something embarrassing like that. So when I get an opportunity to mention my hometown in something other than a "No, seriously, I haven't lived there in nearly four years" context, well, I'm gonna milk that sucker.

So I'm adding to the blogroll two fellow ex-Columbusites who are not only fellow C-towners but also fellow Hardaway High School graduates. The first is the adorable Erica, whose equally adorable family can be viewed at Ruthy Girls; the second, even though he hasn't updated in a while, is John Pezold at The Pezold Homestead, who gets a long-overdue link for linking to the Simpsons thing from a while back.

See, C-town isn't all that bad. We're not all crazy. Not completely.

Blogger roundtable: Enough about you, let's talk about me.

It's Every Day Should Be Saturday's turn at the wheel of the semi-regular blogger roundtable, and their questions offer a perfect opportunity for the kind of self-indulgence that every blogger secretly craves. Giddyup:

1. Education. List the region of the country you were born in, what universities you attended and at least one other you would have attended if your alma mater didn't exist.

I was born in the Southeast -- specifically, Roanoke, Virginia -- and have lived in that region all my life. As probably the whole world now knows, I went to the University of Georgia; which school I would've gone to had UGA not existed kinda depends. At the time, it probably would've been the University of Missouri, but I was also looking at the University of Texas -- and given that I now have a much greater appreciation for the quality of the female population of Austin, and that I could now be rubbing "National Champs, bitch!" in the faces of everyone I know, if I'm being granted the benefit of hindsight here, I probably woulda gone to UT.


And so would you.

2. Sports Affiliations. List your top 10 favorite teams in all of sports in descending order. For instance, your alma mater's football team may be number 1, but perhaps there is a professional team that squeezes in before you get to your alma mater's lacrosse team.

1. Georgia football, naturally.
2. The Washington Redskins.
3. Virginia football.
4. UAB football.
5. The Atlanta Braves.
6. UAB basketball.
7. Atlanta Falcons.
8. Georgia gymnastics.
9. Georgia baseball.
10. Georgia basketball.

Just missed the top 10: Alabama football, the Washington Nationals, the Slovak national hockey team, the Atlanta Thrashers, and, of course, Duke lacrosse.

(And not that anyone asked, but the 10 teams I loathe the most, in ascending order of hatred: North Carolina basketball, Texas A&M football, Georgia Tech basketball, the Lakers, the Mets, Ohio State football, Florida football, the Dallas Cowboys, Tennessee football, and Georgia Tech football. Congrats, Techies!)


Reggie Ball, finally first at something besides incompletions. Bless his heart.

3. Movies. List the movie you've watched the most, your favorite sports related movie, the movie you secretly love but don't like to admit it (possibly a chick flick or B-film), and the movie you were (or still are) most looking forward to from this summer's season.

Movie I've watched the most: "Airplane!," no question.

My favorite sports-related movie: You know, it's been my experience that even the best-acted, engrossing, most lavishly produced sports movie still pales in comparison to the drama of an actual sporting event, and maybe for that reason, my favorite "sports movies" are generally those in which the sports part is secondary. My favorite, then, is probably "Jerry Maguire." Go ahead, make your jokes, but Sports Illustrated put it on their list of the "50 Greatest Sports Movies of All Time," so go take it up with them, awwright?


A wistful reminder of a more innocent time, before Tom Cruise went certifiably bat-shit insane.

Movie I secretly love but don't want to admit it: "Bring It On." And I don't want any commenters coming on here saying that they didn't actually like that movie; I will not have you making my blog a house of lies.

Most anticipated movie this summer: To the surprise of exactly no one, "Cars." Most anticipated movie yet to be released: Probably "Beerfest," just barely ahead of "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and, of course, "Snakes on a Plane."

4. Music. List your favorite band from middle school, high school, college and today. Also, as with the movies, include the song you secretly love but don't like to admit. If Nickelback is involved in any of these responses, please give a detailed explanation as to why, god, why.

Again, to the surprise of precisely nobody, my favorite band from all of those time periods has remained the same -- it's the Pet Shop Boys, dammit, and I refused to be ashamed of this, as either a music fan or a straight man. The song I secretly love but don't like to admit: Phil Collins' "Sussudio," bitches. (Interestingly enough, Wikipedia says that song was bumped from the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1985 by the runner-up answer for this question, Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill.")

5. Books. Favorite book you've finished, worst book you've finished and the book you really should read but haven't gotten around to it.

In order: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt; A Man in Full, by Tom Wolfe; and the Bible.

6. Travel. Favorite city you've ever been to and the one place you still must visit before you shuffle off this mortal coil.

Favorite city I've ever been to: Probably London, though some of the best memories I have are from Heidelberg, Germany. (Home of one of the best Irish pubs I've ever been to. Yes, Irish pub. In Germany.) Place I have to visit before I die: Moscow.


Maria Sharapova welcomes you.

7. What do you love most about college football in 20 words or less?

It drives college-educated professionals and Ivy Leaguers just as crazy as rednecks and frat boys. It is the great equalizer.

The official Hey Jenny Slater endorsement: Sports on Univision.

Fernando Fiore (center): With Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott, another proud keeper of the mustache flame.

I said it once before but it bears repeating: Kanu is right, and soccer on Univision is the only way to watch the World Cup. In fact, if Univision were to pull the shocker of the century and make an end run around ESPN to snag exclusive broadcast rights to college football, I'm not convinced that we'd be worse off for it. Here's why:

· Try and think back to the best touchdown call you've ever heard. A simple "Touchdown"? Chris Berman's once-grand, now-slowly-growing-ever-more-tiresome "He! Could! Go! All! The! Way!"? I guarantee you, everything you've ever heard pales in comparison to Univision's Pablo "GOOOOLLLL!" Ramirez. Imagine watching a football game and being treated to, at every TD -- regardless of which team scores it -- a possibly overcaffeinated Hispanic guy bellowing, "TOUCHDOOOOOOWNNNNN!" Or perhaps "MOMENTO DEL ATERRIZAAAAAAJEEEEE!" Brent Musberger doesn't have a single downhome metaphor in his entire arsenal capable of competing with that.

· In terms of second bananas, you've got Jesús "Si, Si" Bracamontes versus, oh, say, Bob Davie. Now, if you don't speak Spanish -- and Lord knows I don't -- you can't understand a word Bracamontes says other than "Si-si," so basically all you know is that he's agreeing with Ramirez, whom you couldn't understand in the first place (unless he was yelling "GOOOOLLLL!"). But tell me, is that really all that big a step down from Davie using the modifier "football" (I'm sorry, "footbaw") every five seconds? Here's what soccer on Univision would sound like if you threw Davie into the announcing mix:

Pablo Ramirez: Falsificaciones de los Vittek a la izquierda . . . él pasa el cufre, y él tira . . . GOOOOLLLLL!!!! Él no habría podido jugar que más perfectamente! GOOOOLLLLLL!!!!

Bob Davie: Si-si, Pablo, pienso que estamos viendo una estrella nueva del FÚTBOL en la fabricación! He visto muchos de juegos del FÚTBOL en esta Copa Mundial, pero no he visto ninguna movimientos del FÚTBOL como aquél! Él sabe exactamente qué hacer con un FÚTBOL! Ése es un heck de un jugador del FÚTBOL, y esta escuadrilla eslovaca es un heck de un equipo del FÚTBOL!

Pablo Ramirez: ¿No significo insultar, Roberto, pero es usted se retardó funcionalmente?

· Instead of Rece Davis trying to referee between Lou Holtz's unregulated senility on one side and Mark May's 180-proof crankiness (and mangina) on the other, you'd simply have Fernando Fiore (pictured above) actually knowing what he's talking about as he gets down with his mustachioed self.


It took me exactly 37 minutes to realize there were two dudes in this picture.

· You'd still have "College Gameday," only it would be called "Republica Deportiva," and it would go like this: The aforementioned Fernando Fiore would talk football for a while, occasionally throwing it over to Rosana Franco for some fan-on-the-street opinion, and giving the viewers some things to watch out for during that day's college football action. Then, when it came time to make the "official" predictions, instead of Lee Corso jinxing a team by donning that team's mascot head to the cheers and/or lusty boos from the live crowd, you'd have the legendary Senadoras trot out wearing the uniforms of the predicted winning teams. Only they'd be slightly, er, modified, as per below:



Yup, when I talk about uniform modifications, I'm not talking about Laura Quinn's silly-ass Notre Dame/Ohio State hybrid jersey, I'm talking about belly shirts, hot pants and knee-high boots, and two scorchingly hot Latinas whose job description involves nothing other than standing around wearing them and making the occasional sports-related comment I can't understand anyway. After a few minutes of this, you wouldn't be missing mascot heads or "Not so fast, my friend."

So I hope all this helps you to understand why I was able to spend nearly the entire weekend sitting around watching a sport that, as I've previously explained, I really only care about once every four years: impassioned announcers, international brotherhood, and a show that basically amounts to "College Gameday" with strippers.

What's not to like?


I, for one, will be sorry to see el Copa Mundial go.

Heaven knows I don't like to brag, but not only is my taste in music impeccable, I am also extremely secure in my sexuality!

I really prefer the kinds of concerts where you yell out a request and the singer has to ask "Which remix."

First of all, before I begin with what I was originally going to write about, allow me to willingly add some fuel to the oft-discussed possibility that I'm gay by saying:

OMG OMG OMG. THE PET SHOP BOYS ARE GOING TO TOUR AMERICA THIS FALL. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. REPEAT THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

Sorry to get so worked up about this, but live Pet Shop Boys performances in the U.S. only happen about once every five years or so, so this is kind of a big deal. Plus it's not like I'm getting all worked up about the forthcoming album releases by Paris Hilton or Britney Spears or something. Now that would be Teh Ghey.

Amazon tells me that the special double-CD edition of their new CD, Fundamental, that I ordered isn't going to get here until July 10. I ordered the import version of all this stuff, and the CD (and its first two singles) have been out in Europe since like the end of May, so . . . I don't know what the holdup is, but when I get it, rest assured you'll find out about it here.

By the way, Kanu is right: Soccer clubs really do use "Go West" as the tune for their victory chants. My first confirmed sighting (listening?) was directly after the England-Ecuador match on Sunday, and while the acoustics in Stuttgart's Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion were not such that I could make out any of the words, it was still nice to hear the song.


Since I don't know what the words to the English national team's chant is, I'll simply have to shout . . . One-NIIIILLLL! To the Ar-se-nal! . . .

Friday Random Ten, and other random things.

Oh, and remember that stuff I said about being interested in the World Cup? Consider that close to retracted, too -- the U.S., as you may have heard, is out, and all but one of the Eastern European countries will be staying home for the playoffs, too. Guess it's all on you, Ukraine. Make me proud! 'Cause if y'all get beat by Tunisia and go home, I will be officially out of teams to root for.



On the other hand, Brazil will still be very much in it . . . all right, World Cup, you got me for a few more days. I'm mad at you, but I can't stay mad at you.

· At least the World Cup will give me something of a sporting nature to watch between now and football season, because after last night -- hell, make that the last month -- I'm certainly having trouble looking at the Braves.

· Not only did baby sis's blog turn 2 on Wednesday, there's a chance she may be moving up here to the B-hizzy before long. You didn't hear it from me! Well, since I've published that on a public Web site for all the world to see, I guess it's quite obvious that you did hear it from me. But anyway, go over there and wish her congratulations, and take in some writing that's way better than this shitty blog while you're at it.


Finally, a role for Owen Wilson that doesn't have people asking, "What's up with his nose?"

· And before you ask, yes, I was one of the several million people who helped keep "Cars" on top of the box-office list for a second straight week last week, and yes, it was awesome for realz. I mean, it features the voices of (among others) Richard Petty, as a veteran race car called simply "The King"; F1 driver Michael Schumacher, as (what else) a Ferrari; Tom and Ray Magliozzi (from NPR's "Car Talk") as a couple of rusty beaters; and my personal favorite, George Carlin as a stoner VW Microbus. (Given the name of this blog, I would be remiss not to point out that Jeremy Piven also contributes some voice talent as the main character's agent, possibly a shout-out to his character on "Entourage"). Anyway, kickass flick.

· I took a lot of heat for making a major reach and taking Ben Roethlisberger in the third round of our fantasy football draft last year -- most of it from a guy who took Donovan McNabb in the first round, so I'll leave it to y'all to determine which one of us was the sucker born that particular minute -- but suffice to say I won't be making that mistake again. Not because Ruthless isn't an awesome player, because he certainly is, but . . . jeez Louise, what a dumbass. For those of y'all who think wearing a helmet makes you look like a dork, I'd like to know what you think "multiple facial fractures . . . a 9-inch laceration to the back of [the] head, and a number of [lost or chipped] teeth" would make you look like. Over at Georgia Sports Blog, Dawgnoxious offers the sad story of a former Bulldog whose career came to an untimely end a few years ago after a motorcycle accident, though said player did recover from near-fatal injuries to return to school earning his degree.



· And of course I have to remind everyone that the Pet Shop Boys' new album, "Fundamental," is out Tuesday; their newly made-over Web site (above) was up Monday. Yes, my special-edition copy of the album has already been ordered. (In fact, it was ordered several weeks ago.) Kanu clued me in on an interesting fact, that the Pets' remake of "Go West" is currently used as the tune for soccer chants the world over; I'll be listening out for it as the World Cup heads toward the finals.

· And finally, the Ten:

1. Talking Heads, "Wild Wild Life"
2. Joy Division, "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
3. Billy Idol, "Eyes Without a Face"
4. Fatboy Slim, "Love Life"
5. Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose, "Too Late to Turn Back Now"
6. Prodigy, "Charly"
7. Albion, "Air"
8. Patton Oswalt, "My Christmas Memory"
9. Dead Kennedys, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off"
10. The Chemical Brothers, "One Too Many Mornings"

Your Ten, and your remaining World Cup rooting interests if you have any (as well as any spottings of "Go West" in the stands), in the comments below.

Skanks a heap.

Remember a while back when I said I'd fuck Paris Hilton? You may consider that statement officially retracted. She's officially sunk below even Britney Spears on my Doable Celebrity Skank list -- yup, that's right, she doesn't even get Fuck Her For The Story status anymore. Here's why (link via The Superficial):

Paris Hilton reportedly ordered her helicopter pilot to make an emergency landing on a German farm -- so she could use the toilet.

The "Pledge This" actress was said to be touring the European country when she made the surprise request.

Paris even got her security to stop the family from entering their own bathroom so she could relieve herself in peace.

A source told Britain's More magazine: "She gave the farmer a bit of a shock. Her bouncers even blocked the farm door so the family couldn't go inside their own house while she was using the loo."

The star then allegedly spent another ten minutes on the startled farmer's porch, so she could smoke a cigarette.

The unnamed farmer said: "She was cold as a fish, and cursed about the weather."

What can we extrapolate from this? Well . . .

1. Paris Hilton is apparently capable of whining enough to get a pilot to land a helicopter just so that she can use the loo, which she should've done before they frickin' left.

2. After imposing upon this stunned farmer, she won't even let the family go inside their own house while she goes.

2a. Which leads me to suspect she was taking a really hellacious number two in there, which goes against pretty much everything Paris Hilton wants you to think about her, and in a most humorous way. Remember this the next time Paris cops one of those "my shit doesn't stink" attitudes in public.

3. After taking this apparently hurricane-force dump that forced an entire family out of the house, Paris didn't even exercise enough shame to get the hell out of there ASAP, but instead imposed upon these poor people for another ten minutes so that she could smoke.

The verdict? Dipshit. (Congratulations, Republican Party, this is the kind of person for whom you're trying to repeal the estate tax.)

You know, my grandfather has a cattle farm right across Route 2 from Fort A.P. Hill, and he's got Blackhawks and CH-53s landing in his fields all the time. Detko will turn 92 years old this fall and still gets up at 5 in the morning to feed the cows, and I really wonder what would've happened had Paris Hilton landed her chopper in his alfalfa field, marched up to his front door, and ordered him out of his own house while she dropped anchor.

I don't know what he would've done exactly, but I do know he's got two shotguns, and I know where he keeps 'em. I'm just sayin'.

5,700,000,000 people, while perhaps somewhat less right than the other 300 million, can't be wrong per se.

Dumbass, you wouldn't have to do that if you'd just use your hands!

Kanu and the Gunslingers love it more than life itself. Stranko Montana likes it OK, but mainly for the chicks. The M Zone, evidently, hates it hard, while Kyle King is content to remain merrily apathetic.

I have to confess that -- in spite of the fact that it was one of the few competitive sports my lazy, un-athletic ass could be bothered to participate in as a child -- I've never been much of a soccer fan. (The other two sports, in case you were curious, were swimming, which I was good at, and teeball, at which I sucked. Yes, the ball was stationary right in front of me and I still wasn't any good. Go on; make your jokes.) As a spectator sport, I think soccer is mostly about as exciting as watching paint dry. Check that: It's about as exciting as listening to Bill Frist describing paint drying. And yet, while I'm still never going to be as excited about it as these crazy wooden-shoe-wearin' fuckers, I have to admit that I've actually kind of gotten into the World Cup.

Now, that's not to say I've gotten into soccer as a sport. I may be just a dumb uncultured American like everyone else, but I firmly believe that if a given sport's average game has a significant chance of ending in a 0-0 tie, there's probably something wrong with it. Yet as one writer explained, that may be precisely what the rest of the world likes about it. Here's a bit from a column forwarded to me by my friend Kristen whom I stayed with in Maryland last week -- do read the whole thing, because it's excellent:

Recently, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik contrasted American sports -- which have lots of scoring and action -- with the low-scoring, defense-heavy game that dominates the world's sports scene.

"The World Cup is a festival of fate -- man accepting his hard circumstances, the near-certainty of his failure. There is, after all, something familiar about a contest in which nobody wins and nobody pots a goal," he wrote. "Nil-nil is the score of life. This may be where the difficulty lies for Americans, who still look for Eden out there on the ballfield."

He may have a point there. Not only does every sport with any degree of popularity in America have far more scoring than soccer -- even hockey, I'd be willing to bet -- every major sporting league in the country from the NFL on down has enacted some kind of rule change in the last decade or so to make things easier for the offense. Of course, if his point were universally true, basketball (particularly the higher-scoring NBA variety) would be far and away the most popular sport in the country, and I've already gone on record as caring about the NBA substantially less than even Olympic figure skating. Again, figure skating has Tanith Belbin, the NBA has . . . what, who am I supposed to be looking at? Kobe? Shaq? Um, yeah. Thank you but no.


Oh yeah, back with the gratuitous Tanith Belbin pictures . . . feels like it's late February all over again! Wake up the echoes!

What was I saying? Oh yes: Soccer, kinda boring. I mean, if the thing goes 90 minutes and there are even five goals scored -- a pretty high-scoring game by modern standards, if what I've been seeing over the last couple weeks is any indication -- that's still a lot of time being spent running around and kicking the ball back and forth without making any progress on the scoreboard. And yes, I know I'm the same guy who waxed rhapsodic about the brain-pummeling intensity of last year's Tennessee-Alabama game, in which Alabama beat the Vols 6-3 and in which the scoring amounted to a total of three field goals, but . . . well, look, if Bama busts off a 9-yard end-around, then I know they've made some progress, OK? Or if they're looking at third and 2 from the Tennessee 21, then I know how far they have to go and where they need to be. There are no such clear metrics when you're watching 22 guys running around a huge, mostly unmarked field that is in fact substantially bigger than a gridiron. That guy kicked it to that other guy . . . who kicked it to the guy with the weird-ass mullet . . . weird-ass mullet guy gets the ball knocked away by the guy from the other team . . . but now the first guy gets it back . . . and maybe some progress was made there toward somebody scoring, but I have no way of knowing, and all I really want to do by this point is drink a beer and watch some moldy-ass Orange Bowl on ESPN Classic, m'kay?

And there you have it -- I've just gotten done delving into all the reasons why I think soccer sucks, so no, I don't consider myself a fan. And yet, while I don't like soccer as a game, I think I really do like the World Cup. Let me explain.

Other than the Super Bowl, there is no sporting event (or series of same) that captures the world's imagination anywhere close to the way the World Cup does. Now, I'm not going to be one of those effete snobs who thinks everything foreign must be grand and everything American must be jejune and tacky, but be honest: If there's something that's bringing together millions of people from that many different countries, isn't that at least a little bit cool? And while millions of Americans might read the words "Ecuador v. Poland" in the paper and snicker at the obscurity of it all, isn't it kind of cool that all these Ecuadorians are going to be meeting all these Poles for maybe the first and only time in their lives? And doing so in Germany, yet another country they may never have been to?

There's just something really appealing about the international-brotherhood aspect of the World Cup, even though the sport itself really doesn't appeal to me much at all. Basically it strikes me as kind of like a typical Georgia football Saturday, only lasting an entire month and bringing together people from literally all over the globe. And if this month-long tailgate also brings together fine young ladies such as . . .



Brazil, U.S., Switzerland, Croatia: Yahtzee.

. . . then who am I to say "that sucks"?

So yes, I watched from Bohemian Hall in Queens as the plucky Ivory Coasters played overdog Argentina to within an inch of their lives. I watched from Dulles Airport on Monday as my Slavic homeboyz from the Ukraine beat the ever-living crap out of those filthy-rich oil barons from Saudi Arabia. I watched during Father's Day brunch in Alexandria as my other Slavic homeboyz from Croatia battled to a scoreless tie with Japan -- which, OK, in all honesty was kind of a shitty match but at least had the redeeming factor of being broadcast on Univision, whose World Cup coverage isn't afraid to be almost maniacally energetic and is also liberally dosed with the kind of Latina chicks hot enough to make you want to throw rocks at the girls in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue . . . well, here, I'll let Kanu tell it. (Correction, that was a guest post from Orson Swindle. Kanu's own equally edifying words can be found hyah.)

Anyway. Football -- American football -- will always be king with me, and I'm certainly not about to start loving fútbol just because a few billion other people do. But even if you don't love soccer, I hope you find something to love about the World Cup, because it involves a bunch of people from radically disparate countries coming together to compete with one another without killing each other, and these days, that's a blessed relief indeed.


And just like that, thousands of conservatives suddenly soften their stance on immigration.

Oh, and the girls. Did I mention them? You can at least get excited about that, can't you?