Begging My Pardon

Reports are that President Bush is being flooded with requests for presidential pardons, so if you have committed any serious offenses over the last eight years and are a major Republican campaign donor, you’d better get your request into the Justice Department toot sweet before all the good pardons are used up! I’ve already sent my request in.

What Do I Need Pardoning For?

• DaVinci Code has been overdue at library since 2002.
• Still use student ID for movie discounts though it expired in 1988.
• Took tax deductions on meals that weren’t business-related.
• Haven’t paid for HBO since Sopranos finale.
• That story about me rescuing Kate Winslet from a burning car and then her showering me with grateful kisses? Total fiction.
• Ritualistically murdered 27 people in a tri-state killing spree.
• Sometimes forget to bring my own bags to grocery store and have to use disposable.

Journey: At the Center of the Earth

One preposition can make all the difference.

[Props=FilmDrunk]

Rickrolling Rickrolled

When even that bastion of cutting edge entertainment, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, has latched onto your internet tradition, it’s time to give it up. It has passed its expiration date, it has eaten its own tail, it has, once and for all, catapulted the Carcharodon carcharias. And while we’re at it, enough with the Downfall parodies. As my mother said when she forbade us to watch Hogan’s Heroes, “World War Two wasn’t funny!” (We watched it later in syndication.)

The Mystery Deepens

According to Sarah Palin, she had no idea that that guy was slaughtering turkeys behind her while she talked to the nice TV man. So the question becomes, who is this mystery turkey guy, and how did he get there? Is he perhaps a plant from the liberal elite media placed there to ruin what would have otherwise been a perfectly lovely Republican photo op? Good thing Bob Cesca is on the case, because he dug through the archives and discovered that creepy turkey guy has made quite a career of ruining past Republican photo ops. See for yourself.

See more at Crooks and Liars

See What I Get for Sticking Up for Her?!

Ye Olde Kamper is an iconoclast, a rebel, a Unitarian (in spirit, if not practice). So earlier this week I boldly stood up for Alaska’s favorite clothes horse when she was on the receiving end of liberal ire for conducting a television interview while turkeys were slaughtered in the background. I smelled hypocrisy and said so, despite blistering criticism from my loyal readers (okay, there were two comments, but one was from a complete stranger). Where others saw obliviousness and casual cruelty, I saw pluck and mettle. “People,” (said four-days-ago me) “she was at a turkey farm one week before Thanksgiving, she was fully aware of what was going on.”

So what happens as soon as I stick my proverbial neck out for Sarah? She turns around and uncorks her jug of crazy juice and takes a big ole swig.

Here’s her rep commenting on the kerfuffle to Entertainment Tonight:

“The [Alaska] governor did not know it was going on behind her,” Palin’s spokesperson tells ET of the reportedly grisly scene at Triple D Farm & Hatchery outside Wasilla. Cameras captured Palin extending the annual Thanksgiving pardon to one turkey while a farm hand slaughtered the bird’s feathered friends in the background.

Palin’s spokesperson tells ET the bird butchering wasn’t going on when the shot was set up, and a cameraman “ignored” the governor’s staff’s request to remove the graphic sight once cameras were rolling.

“We’re unhappy about it and the station is not happy either,” Palin’s rep tells ET, adding, “this was an attempt to lighten up and do something non-controversial.”

As others have already exhaustively catalogued, the strange thing about Sarah’s dysfunctional relationship with the truth is that she (or her proxies) will baldly lie even when it’s plainly obvious to even the most casual observer that she is lying. The turkey video, for instance. Can there possibly be any doubt that she was aware what was going on ten feet behind her?

So it turns out that the people who went with oblivious were right all along.

Consider me schooled.

Didn’t Realize She was Speaking in Haiku

What’s the difference
Between a hockey mom and
A pit bull? Lipstick

Sarah Palin as a beat poet? This changes everything.

[Props=Sullivan]

How Big is the Bailout?

Including Paulson’s new heart-encrusted love note to my favorite credit card company, Citi, the current cost of the bailout is $4.62 trillion. How much cash is that? Well, take this short quiz.

Take a guess which of the following major expenditures in our nation’s history — updated to today’s dollars — was larger than the bailout?

The Louisiana Purchase
The Marshall Plan
Race to the Moon
S&L Crisis
Korean War
The New Deal
Invasion of Iraq
Vietnam War
NASA Program

The answer? You saw it coming, didn’t you? The financial cost of the current bailout is larger than all of these outlays COMBINED.

So imagine for a moment that this country is purchasing 828,800 square miles of prime real estate, while simultaneously rebuilding a war ravaged Europe, while simultaneously enacting a mammoth domestic public works program, while simultaneously rescuing 750 odd S&Ls from bankruptcy, while simultaneously building a rocket that will get us to the moon and back (and building the Space Shuttle to boot), while simultaneously fighting wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. Oh, and we’re doing it all under the leadership of George W. Bush.

It was fun while it lasted.

Time to Hide Under the Porch, Cos We’re Broke and Daddy’s Drinking Again

From Peruvian News Agency Andina:

Peru has successfully promoted its national drink “Pisco Sour” during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit, Peru’s Environment Minister Antonio Brack said Sunday.

He noted that the flagship drink of Peru was well accepted by international guests, including Japan’s Prime Minister, Taro Aso.

“Pisco Sour has been the “star” of the APEC Summit, the drink was served in several meetings at the Government Palace and the APEC Summit venue,” he told CPN Radio.

“We have achieved to place our products including pisco on international markets, but also kiwicha, sweet potatoes and traditional Peruvian potatoes”, said Brack.

U.S. President George W. Bush, who quit drinking at 40, was apparently drinking a Peruvian cocktail during a meeting on Saturday.

Pisco Sour is a cocktail containing Pisco (a Peruvian brandy), lemon juice, egg whites, simple syrup, and regional bitters.

Thank You Indeed (If Only for all the Material)

Some have clucked over the turkey theme of this thank you video seeing as how the other day Sarah gave an interview while turkeys were being slaughtered in the background. Now Ye Olde Kamper has dispensed his share of guff toward Sarah, but I just didn’t get the horrified response to that video amongst the easily scandalized. Yes, she was at the farm to “pardon” one turkey (which is a rather sadistic gimmick if you think about it, but it is a Thanksgiving tradition that’s been around for a long time), but then what did you think was going to happen to the rest of them? They’d be released on their own recognizance? And to all the sites that posted the vid with apologies for its “graphic” content, where do you think all those birds come from? They don’t come gutted and wrapped in plastic, peeps. The word used over and over in blogposts discussing the vid was “oblivious,” as if Sarah didn’t know what was going on behind her. People, she was at a turkey farm one week before Thanksgiving, she was fully aware of what was going on. I say hats off to her for treating the turkey slaughtering as exactly what it is: an utterly unremarkable, every day activity, just part of a day’s job.

Geez, here I am defending Sarah Palin. Look at what all you lilly-livered, weak-kneed liberals done made me do. Now cut it out!

Have You Caught Twilight Fever?

Because I have a 12-year-old daughter in the house, the big news this week is the release of Twilight, the film version of Stephanie Meyer’s gazillion selling vampire romance. Needless to say, my 12-year-old will be seeing the movie tonight, along with every single girl in her seventh grade class (no exaggeration). Actually, her expectations for the movie are quite low, because “every movie version of a good book stinks.” (I’m looking at you, Golden Compass). I’ll post an update with her take on the movie. The trailer looks, um, unpromising.

For my money, I’m more interested in seeing the other vampire movie that’s out right now, Let the Right One In, which has a story that actually bears a lot of surface similarities to Twilight, albeit with an entirely different outlook and tone.

[Here's the link.]

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Update: The verdict on Twilight from our resident 12-year-old: Meh. The actor who played Jacob was perfect, Bella was pretty good, Edward not so much. This seemed to be the consensus among her classmates, though a few thought it was, like, awesome. Actually, much of the conversation was not about Twilight at all but about this preview, which showed before. For anyone who’s a horror fan, it’s pretty much the same old stuff, but it was quite scary and disturbing to girls who had never seen anything like this before.Thanks, Cinemark, for freaking out my kid.