From Lloyd Grove's Lowdown:

Here are some stomach-flipping excerpts of Sharon Bush's attorney, Marshall Davis Brown, mercilessly grilling President Bush's wayward little brother:

Bush: "I had sexual intercourse with perhaps three or four, I don't remember the exact number, women, at different times. In Thailand once, I have a pretty clear recollection that there was one time in Thailand and in Hong Kong."

Brown: "And you were married to Mrs. Bush?"

Bush: "Yes."

Brown: "Is that where you caught the venereal diseases?"

Bush: "No."

Brown: "Where did you catch those?"

Bush: "Diseases plural? I didn't catch..."

Brown: "Well, I'm sorry. How ... how many venereal diseases do you suffer from?"

Bush: "I've had one venereal disease."

Brown: "Which was?"

Bush: "Herpes."

Brown then interrogates Bush's about his various sex partners: "Did you pay them for that sex?"

Bush: "No, I did not."

Brown: "Pick them up in a sushi house?"

Bush: "No. ... My recollection is, where I can recall, they came to my room."

Brown: "Do you know the name of that hotel? I may go to Thailand sometime."

- posted by Sean @ 12:46 AM  

 

The uniform lockstep drumbeat of presidential supporters of late attempts to mollify criticism by suggesting that people listening to the President or his top advisors did not listen carefully enough.
One must apparently scrutinize presidential remarks with an accountant’s eye, a lawyer’s heart and the brain of a professor of Linguistics.
Please note that these skills are not required to actually be the President but they do come in handy, according to most punditry, to simply listen to our humble, self-effacing and (giggle) plainspoken leader and his hydra of gimlet-eyed advisors.
The act of listening to our government’s senior leadership, now, requires each citizen to draw upon high levels of Sherlockian analysis available to no one before the fact and, often enough, no one after the fact.
Cute, huh?
The government is so vast and leader X is so nuanced one must herd videotaped intemperance and crudity past carnival mirrors reflecting craft and complexity before a fair and balanced interpretation can be achieved, say some of the media’s oiled buddas.
What rubbish!
This morning, hired White House guns march ideas of ignorance and stupidity before those fun house mirrors in pitiful defense of their attempted intimidations in the leaking of an undercover CIA operative’s name to hack columnist Robert Novak.
The Washington Post quotes right-wing zombie, and wife of operetta-loving Joe DiGenova, Victoria Toensing excusing the Rovian leak of Valerie Plame’s identity:

It could be embarrassing but not illegal.

Yes, indeed, like so much about this (ahem) administration.
Josh Marshall provides, as an aging TV dinosaur likes to intone, some interesting context and analysis to Karl Rove and the Intimidators’ new Country/Western hit, We Didn’t Know The Spy Was Secret, on his always-excellent blog Talking Points Memo.
Watching the President’s videotaped remarks yesterday after (snicker) quail hunting with 41, I was struck with 43’s marked softening of attitude toward the members of the press pool.
The clipped speech and beady-eyed glare, so noticeable in Washington of late were not in evidence yesterday.
Additionally, though this may be more due to the morning’s “quail hunt”, presidential advisors seem to have “butched up” the Crawford wardrobe.
Yesterday, as he made his odd monkey-like shamble toward the penned-in press, the President’s hunt-appropriate wardrobe of boots and work jeans with a long sleeved work shirt over a white tee appeared far more Texas-appropriate than the dandified candy-colored cowboy shirts we have witnessed this past year or, perhaps, White House advisors just have a gigantic new fun house mirror they are testing in Texas.

Plus!

Ooh, I want one!
The electric Toyota PM is displayed in Tokyo.

Go Speed Racer, go!

And, The Funniest Web Thumbnail!

From TheSmokingGun's homepage, a Nolte New Year?
Mean but funny.

Apologies: The Andrews Sisters, The Cannons and Mark Gould
Photo: Reuters
Image: SpeedRacer.com
- posted by Sean @ 1:33 PM  

 

As we enter a new year, I think it is worth considering two currently running Ebay items in the Art Tile category.
The items in question, two 6-inch square majolica-glazed and dust-pressed floral relief tiles, were manufactured by the Kensington Art Tile Company in Newport, Kentucky during the last years of the 19th century.
One of the sellers, the fantastic shop owned by the authors of Art Nouveau Tiles Sandie Fowler and Wendy Harvey, is asking $50 for one tile.
The other seller wants $45.
Just four years ago the occasional Kensington floral would appear on Ebay with modest regularity and sell for $10 to $15.
The point to consider, dear reader, is that these increasingly scarce tiles have tripled in value in less than 5 years!
Anyone watching Ebay’s Art Tile section this past year would have noticed the general market weakness was occasionally interrupted by truly fine items hammering at very respectable levels after spirited, almost bubble-era, bidding.
I can recall three 6-inch square AETCo tiles showing an owl, a bat against a crescent moon and an owl against a crescent moon each hammering around $500 in the early months of 2003.
Only a few days ago a rare 6’ X 12” panel of dancers, a lyre player and a swan designed and manufactured by Adolph Metzner and the Hamilton Tile Works in the mid 1880’s sold on-line for $590.
Clearly, in a seller’s market that continues to see limited supply, prices for all American Art Tiles through 2004 will continue to be strong.
The modestly priced floral tiles from Kensington, American Encaustic, Hamilton, Cambridge and United States Encaustic, to mention only midwestern manufacturers, offer the ordinary person an affordable opportunity to own and enjoy a piece of American decorative history that will grow in value.

Photos: Antique Articles, Tabby Cat Tiles

- posted by Sean @ 6:38 PM  

 

- posted by Sean @ 7:03 PM  

 
I just posted this on the hardball politics topic in an Eschaton Comment area and thought, heck, I'll republish this guy 'cause he's got it goin on. ;-)


Why are we always reacting?
I admit letters, in volume, are great tools for scaring local affiliates, politicians and media sponsors.
The hive mind of big media, with the failed remnants of a multitude of fanciful and real marketing venues, is fairly well insulated from caring.
From days of doing old PBS pledge breaks, I know that if, on the tube, you show a phone number and repeatedly say "Call this number now" people will begin to call.
Herd mentality in an age of Mad Cows.
Even Einstein would be affected, moo.
If, during these pledge breaks, we played a tape of phones ringing there would be a spike in real phone calls.
Moo.
We can't help it. Say it often enough and it just becomes a fact in our minds even if we cannot articulate the concept.
Moo.
Rethugs never miss a beat in this arena or, rather, (smirk) pasture...chalk it up to oppo, Karl, corporate-media or whatever.
Big TV Dems are always dropping or softening the ball and one has to think that these blanks lie in areas of surprising bi-partisan consanguinity.
The fake pre-Christmas Osama hubbub with Gov. Dean is a good example.
To remove Bush we need to focus on a political animal I'm encountering with greater frequency, the Republican swing voter.
These fine people are often as upset as we are but lack the reassuring herd feeling from a media drumbeat to ease their truer convictions.
Big media just has too much at stake to lessen the pro-Bush noise.
The blog world will have to generate 2 or 3 times the noise.
If big Dems on TV won't carry the memes then the candidate’s organization must ask more entertainers and other public figures to carry some meme-laden water.
Where is the feminist outrage over Neil Bush's freebie use of young Asian prostitutes?
These girls usually see less than $5 US per john. Surely Neilie, flush with Chinese cash and Mexican laborers for his pricey Americans, could tip?
Big Dems are going to have to get their wing tips muddy if they want to regain power.
Big media, of course, will squeal.
Ignore it. It's over, toast, finito...a Pullman coach slowly leaving the station.
Laugh at it, of course, as it splashes into all our living rooms, but ultimately leave it alone and keep our drumbeat strong and unwavering.
And why do "they" fight so hard? Cause for so many like big oil and old media this compliant administration is their last shot at maintaining their particular status quo. They fight as hard as most Americans would were they not fed calming doses of spinified soma.

Photos: NASA, Albert Einstein Online
- posted by Sean @ 2:43 PM