So, the owner of the sort of yuppy-ish grocery store “New Seasons” dropped the “Rock-Star” brand energy drink (most famous to me because of the billboards around town showing a bikini-clad super-model and the expression “Party Like a Rock Star”.) because the drink company is owned by Michael Savage’s son.

(Please note this article, and the workings of hack reporting. If you’re a fan of Rockstar energy drink, Brian Rohter just rocked your world. And I cringe. And I cringe. And then I weep for the destruction of what is black and white and read all over…)

Hence… the letters to the editor:

I read Brian Rohter’s statement about Michael Savage: “Michael Savage is on the air day after day doing his best to take apart the fabric of our society and to attack American values, and we just refuse to support him in any way at all.”

BOB MAYR Southeast Portland

Go choke on a sausage, Bob Mayr of Southeast Portland. I hope you gets AIDS and die.

Brian Rohter of New Seasons Market might just be on to something. He has pulled a product off the shelves of all of his stores because he disagrees with the views of the father of the product’s founder.

DOUG WARNEKE Scappoose

I don’t know where the line in the sand that a person can cross for a respectable business-person to symbolically disassociate him/herself from (And I’ll assume that it isn’t a disagreement over tax policy). Nor do I know the exact nature of direct-line to said offensive statement. Michael Savage probably does indeed count as someone who crossed the line, and the fact that his son owns the company is good enough reason to throw Rock Star brand dink-stuff off the shelves… if you of a mind to do so. If something is connected with Hal Turner, that would work as well.

My problem with Michael Savage is that of the many obnoxious statements he has made, is making, and will make in the future — the one that will be printed on his gravestone will be the one he spoke on his MSNBC television show (he was hired alongside Joe Scarborough when the cable network canned Phil Donahue):

Oh, so you’re one of those sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig, how’s that? Why don’t you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better to do than to put me down, you piece of garbage, you got nothing better to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis. Now do we have another nice caller here who’s busy because he didn’t have a nice night in the bathhouse who’s angry at me today? Put another, put another sodomite on….no more calls? I don’t care about these bums, they mean nothing to me. They’re all sausages.

Which I tend to shorten to “Go choke on a sausage. I hope you get AIDS and die.” Hence my reply to Michael Savage fan BOB MAYR of Southeast Portland.

THE CASE AGAINST THE “LOS ANGELES” ANGELS:

Rooting for or against sports teams is, to me, an arbitrary exercise… beyond the home or regional team I’m somehow groomed to root for, but may or may not get into position to do anything in the playoffs. Given the nature of sports — free agents dumped in and out of everywhere — I have no problem with complete lack of loyalty, and jumping on and off of various bandwagons (although I have a set of vague arbitrary rules on what bandwagons should be jumped upon.) Of course I’m perpetually against the New York Yankess — huge pay-roll be they, and I’m a bit parochial with an anti-big city and anti-East Coast bias. Why was I rooting for the Boston Red Sox last year? Actually, I had a mixed emotion (to the degree that I care) — it’s as George Carlin said, “Nothing would be more boring than if the Cubs, Red Sox, Vikings, and Bills won the Championship.”

So why do I not like the Angels? Ignore the fact that they are on their third moniker — California Angels to Anaheim Angels to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (a slap in the face at their cross-city rivals). That may be annoying, but it’s not deadening.

The reason I do not want the Angels to win the World Series is because of something that was uncovered when they won the World Series a few years back: Anaheim has no downtown to speak of for which to march a victory parade through. Downtown Anaheim is Disneyland! When the Anaheim Angels did their “Downtown Parade” lark, they basically toured Disneyland, fans having to pay their way to see. (Which brings a new twist to the old ad campaign “What are you going to do next?” “I’m going to Disneyland!”… Their home ballpark is at Disneyland, for Pete’s sake!) Their Victory Parade was a complete and utter joke!

So, someone else will just have to win the World Series, be they the Chicago White Sox, Houston Astros, or Saint Louis Cardinals. That’s just how it’s going to have to be.
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LOSER!!!

NFL News: The New York Jets (who play in New Jersey), lost their two quarterbacks to injury. Vinny Testeverde called in to inquiry about coming back to play quarterback. He came in, fans cheered wildly when he was introduced, and…

Fun fact: Vinny Testeverde holds the NFL record for greatest number of losses of any starting quarterback.

Which, of course, means that he’s a good quarterback. If he were bad, he wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to lose. You will note that he’s playing football again. (Incidentally, he won. And against the team that he piled up the bulk of his losses: the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who spent a godly amount of time at the bottom of the NFL heap… and I will note that there is no such city as “Tampa Bay”.)

Hrm?

“You are the best governor ever – deserving of great respect,” Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him “cool,” said he and his wife, Laura, were “the greatest!” and told him: “Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed.”

I’m thinking back to just a few months ago, some of John Roberts’s documents were in hiding, others dribbled out… they generally told us about his politics, which were then debated (essentially whether being a client for the Reagan or Bush administrations meant that these were his opinions — hard to figure that they wouldn’t be.)

With Harriet Miers we get… something entirely different.

In October 1997, Ms. Miers sent Mr. Bush a flowery greeting card in thanks for a letter that he had written on her behalf. In it, she said of his daughters: “Hopefully Jenna and Barbara recognize that their parents are ‘cool’ – as do the rest of us.”

She added, “All I hear is how great you and Laura are doing,” and ended, “Texas is blessed.”

So. Do Jeanna and Barbara realize that they have “cool” parents? (As a rule, no kid should desire “cool parents”, in the case of the Bush twins that would mean doing The Butt Dance with them.)

I note that Sam Sedar, of Air America Radio’s “Majority Report Radio” was followed by Ann Coulter who was followed by more than one political cartoonist in suggesting Bush appoint his dog to Supreme Court Justice instead of Miers.

And now, lifted from Eric Hananoki’s blog, which is the Al Franken Show blog, is perhaps the bottom line in the case against Harriet Miers.:

Harriet used to keep a humidor full of M&M’s in her West Wing office. It wasn’t a huge secret. She’d stash some boxes of the coveted red, white, and blue M&M’s in specially made boxes bearing George W. Bush’s reprinted signature. Her door was always open and the M&M’s were always available. I dared ask one time why they were there. Her answer: “I like M&M’s, and I like sharing.”

Do these things matter at all when it comes to her qualifications for being an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court? Yes. They speak to her character. And in matters of justice, matters of character count.

The case against Harriet Miers is that the case for Harriet Miers is that she is generous with her M & Ms.

It’s difficult to guage how well Nancy Pelosi is doing managing and leading the Democratic House Cuacus. You can’t really defeat anything in the House, given the Republican Leadership’s strong-hand tactics, represented by the fact that for the third time the Republican Leadership extended a five minute voting window and extended it and extended it so as to nab a few reluctant Republicans to vote ‘yea’.

Watch at your own peril.

I don’t know what it means, but the time lag of these five minute voting sessions is getting shorter. This particular five minute voting session took fifty or so minutes. The first time we had a voting session such as this one, it lasted roughly three hours, as the House Leadership tried to find retiring Rep. Nick Smith to offer a carrot or a stick to his political office-seeking son depending on how he voted.

This time around…

It looked as if the bill was headed to defeat, two votes shy of approval. Democrats called in vain for gaveling the vote closed as GOP leaders lobbied their members to switch votes and support the bill.

Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who recently stepped down temporarily as majority leader after being indicted in Texas over a campaign finance issue, was as active as ever, putting pressure on wavering lawmakers in the crowded, noisy House chamber.

Congratulations to Bill Young, I guess. At least Smith held out a little longer.

Okay. Nancy Pelosi. Guage her job performance on three levels: #1: how many Democrats get elected to the House. This is a work in progress, and the first time we can check in with that is in the year 2006. #2: Democratic Unity. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, a batch of Democrats voted for the Bankruptcy Reform Act… making it difficult to create a coherent Democratic Message. Nonetheless, she looks better than Dick Gephardt. #3: At moments like this 50 minute 5 minute vote, how she communicates the Republican Party’s Acts of Disgrace.

The C-SPAN footage shows she did well with that regard.

Why would anybody be surprised that Joseph Lieberman attended, and dined in fabulous fashion at the table of, William Buckley?

Joseph Lieberman owes his first Senate election to the endorsement of the National Review.

Announcing: Buckleys for Lieberman – transcript of press conference with William F. Buckley Jr – interview

AND

In a public debate with Democratic opponent Attorney General Joe Lieberman last week, Weicker attacked the Pledge of Allegiance. “Ronald Reagan tried to take us down a lot of wrong paths . . . and only one man stood up.” (He meant Lowell Weicker.) Asked about Buckpac (Buckleys for Lieberman), Lieberman said, “Buckley and tens of thousands of others can’t stand you for your political grandstanding.”

It was the classic match-up between a RINO and a DINO, with a great deal of cross-voting. I note that there was recent rumour that Lowell Weicker might run again for the Senate, an improbability which is nonetheless charming.

I’m interested in where Fidel Castro gets the dough to shore up his bankrupt regime. Can you illuminate? — Robert Henry; Los Angeles, California

In the wake of the collapse of the USSR, which bankrolled him to the tune of $4 billion a year, Castro has turned to Hugo Chavez, Marxist President of Venezuela, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter. In addition to shoring up Castro, he’s funding revolutionaries and terrorists throughout Latin America.

……………..

First thing’s first. The USSR officially collapsed in December of the year 1991. Venezuela elected Hugo Chavez president in December of the year 1998.

That’s an, um, seven year lag. How’d he float his way through those years?

I once heard an NPR report, circa 1994, that Cuba more or less had legalized Prostitution (which is to say it was illegal, but the government looked the other way) so as to bring in extra tourist dollars. Is that what that sailed Castro through all those lean years?

Next, I ponder the difference between the money proferred by the old Soviet Union, which fancied itself a Super Power, and the amount of money that could possibly be proferred by Hugo’s Venezuela, which fancies itself something like a hedge against super powers (ie: USA) — not a Super Power.

And just what is the power-relationship between Castro and Chavez supposed to be? Is Chavez the man in charge these days of the whole , with Castro simply a sort of Left wing Elder Statesman and Spiritual Guide? (Or do we just kind of blur them into one inseperable entity?)
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UPDATE. 10-13: I’m not the only person to have noticed this letter.