Amused Cynic

I’m a huge fan and true admirer of Andrew and his “Big” blog empire (see my blogroll), but I was unaware of his previous “look” until I caught the three-year anniversary episode of “Red Eye” the other night. At a time when conservatives are trying to expand their base to include younger people, why do the middle-aged dad makeover when you looked so good before? You wear it well, Mr. Breitbart.

…I hope so, because right now he’s saying we’re going to get another 12″-18″ tonight and tomorrow. My great blogging ideas will have to wait until tomorrow, when I won’t be going anywhere….right now, I’ve got a lot of snow-prep to get done. However, every snow cloud has a silver lining:

As D.C. continued to dig out from Snowmageddon and is keeping an eye on another storm system, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was busy making a climate change announcement.

NOAA, part of the Department of Commerce, is going to be providing information to individuals and decision-makers through a new NOAA Climate Service office. “More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives,” the release says.

Earlier snowmelt? That would be nice.

Turns out the release was planned prepared ahead of the snowstorm, which shut federal agencies today and forced its senders to hold a press conference by telephone instead of at the National Press Club.

It’s not the first time inclement weather has put a chill on official efforts to tackle climate change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to leave the Copenhagen summit early in December to get back to D.C. before the blizzard known as Snowpocalypse grounded all flights.

Only 38 days till Spring.

Apparently this was the opening to SNL last Saturday night during the blizzard. I hope plenty of snow-bound people who might not watch SNL on a regular basis got to see it. I can’t remember the last time I saw something so spectacularly and embarrassingly un-funny by supposed comedians….just amazing. Believe me, this is worth watching, just as a peek into the world of Obama Nation. I didn’t crack even a hint of a penumbra of a smile during the whole thing, it was really that bad. And they opened with it.

Supposedly they’re mocking Fox News, but the reality is that they’re mocking me and the others who watch Fox News…and not SNL…the only time I ever see SNL is if some blogger posts a clip (or if Sarah Palin’s on).

Actually, I escaped most of it, but thanks to the omnipresent The BlizzardChannel The WeatherChannel, I felt like I was right there with you, watching with amazement as the whole thing unfolded. I actually never saw a real flake fall, and my only inconvenience was when we got home and found that they had plowed the wrong driveway. Kind of interesting walking through knee-deep snow in your Italian loafers. The best-laid plans….

We departed Philly aboard the 2pm train, a good five hours ahead of the storm but the blizzard excitement was building. It was quite full, and sitting together wasn’t an option, so I headed left, and the royal consort headed right. Ha! Heading right led to the dreaded “quiet car,” where you can only whisper and cell phone use is verboten. I ended up in the cafe car, my favorite spot on a train, but the only tables available had “reserved for crew” signs on them. One table was obviously being used by the conductors for business—they weren’t there, but all their conducting stuff was—so I sat down at the other one, across the table from a guy who had an Amtrak badge, but was obviously just a strap-hanger catching a free ride somewhere, not a crew member. I figured that I, as a paying customer, had some rights too, which the conductor confirmed when he returned and sat down at the other table, nodding at me.

I had heard that all trains south of DC had already been canceled, and asked him if this train had started in DC. He said “yes, everything south was canceled, along with the Lynchburg [VA] line. You’ll never get stuck between Philly and Boston, but down there is a different story, there are place where if you get stuck they can’t get to you, so it’s best that they shut it down.” He said the snow had just started to fall as they left DC’s Union Station, about two hours earlier. He had a voice like Morgan Freeman, and kind of looked like him too.

When his partner showed up a while later and the ticket-punching began, I recognized the other guy as the one I’d been talking to on a previous trip. So there I was, sitting in the cafe car with a conductor who looked like Art Carney, and one who looked like Morgan Freeman. Always fun to listen in on the conversations of people who lead a life you know nothing about, like working on the railroad for your whole life. Nothing in particular stands out, just generally interesting and funny stuff. Had a very Arlo Guthrie feel to it.

So anyway, we arrived in New Haven, walked the 2 miles to our new favorite hotel there, had a quick dinner, and then headed over to see the play: “Measure for Measure.” M4M is one Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, but popular with college thespians because of its theme of the hypocritical repression of sexuality. In a nutshell: The Duke of Vienna realizes he has become too lax in enforcing his rigid anti-fornication laws, and authorizes a deputy to implement a Draconian anti-boinking policy (even though the Duke and his deputy themselves secretly lust after a chaste but beautiful novice nun—whose brother has condemned to death by the deputy for impregnating his own [the brother's] fianceé). It has been performed as a tragedy, a farce, and as a tragi-comedy; the version we saw was the latter, with a finger on the scale toward the comic.

I understand that the last time it was performed by Yale students (1999), the Duke’s deputy was trying to stamp out S&M/bondage practices, and the costuming was chosen accordingly; it must have been something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Because Philly and environs had been shut down by the storm, we spent another night, and saw the play again; always fun with any live performance, there are nuances that change, and details that had been missed. We also got to go to dinner with many of the cast members, and some of their parents, which was fun. Except for the food poisoning that showed up about 1am the next morning. Not me….the royal consort.

In view of the circumstances, we decided that training home could get real ugly, so I rented a car and drove. Probably the best time I’ve ever made on I-95 from New Haven to Philly. Just over three hours. Very light traffic, no stateys, probably a result of the storm, the horrific explosion in Middletown, CT (and Super Bowl Sunday). I was listening to traffic reports the whole way, on 1010WNS and its sister station in Philly, KYW1060, and they both were reading news headlines off of the AP. The one that caught my ear was this: “Sarah Palin said that Barack Obama would help himself by ‘playing the war card’ and should declare war on Iran.” That’s what I heard, I’m not mistaken, because they said it every 15 minutes during my three-hour ride home. “Right,” I said to myself, “I’ll bet that’s what she said.” So I went online and googled it when I got home. And that will be the subject of my next post….

Came across this old Led Zep thing on YouTube while looking for “Over The Hills and Far Away” the other day. One of the first songs I ever learned to play with a band. It’s really fun, classic lip-sync sixties stuff that makes you laugh, but check out the gear. For one thing, many, if not most of Jimmy Page’s classic guitar workouts were done on a Telecaster, not the vintage Les Paul he’s usually associated with.

But in this vid, the things to look at (besides John Bonham’s perfect Spinal Tap drumstick twirl) are the amps! Those are those 18 watt “student” Marshalls that everyone covets now. The ones that all the boutique amp makers try to copy, and sell for thousands. The ones they’re “playing,” with the original speaker cabinets (as they have in the vid) would go for big bucks today. However, they were probably just there as promotional stage-props for this lip-sync video. Ha!!

OK, I’m off to the train station, heading for New England ahead of the blizzard…consider this a communication breakdown until sometime Sunday.

Imagine if Sarah Palin ever did anything this vapid. I still hold a grudge after having to sit through Katie’s commencement address self-absorbed snooze-a-thon at Williams College in 2007….this doesn’t make me feel any more kindly toward her.

A center-right blogger gets hit by a mysterious black SUV making an illegal turn while within a crosswalk….and the blogger/pedestrian gets a ticket? Only in D.C. This will be very interesting to watch. Via HotAir. [dead link fixed, sorry]

Remember just the other day I was saying how much I like snow? Well check that. I enjoy the atmospherics of a gentle snowfall, but it looks like we in the Philly/NYC axis will be at ground zero for what AccueWeather calls a “paralyzing” snow storm along the I-95 corridor. Rats. I hope it doesn’t make it too difficult for our weekend plans, which included driving up to New Haven for a play tomorrow, and coming back on Saturday stopping the city for lunch with the other kid. The forecast calls for snow starting tomorrow afternoon, right on through the night and next day, up to a foot. At this point, I’ve booked an extra night at the hotel just in case, and I think we’ll take the train…

On the political front, it’s good to see Scott Brown finally being seated, although disheartening (but hardly surprising) that the Dems waited to the absolute last minute to do it, in order to force some other things down the throats of the people. I get a really bad vibe from these Dems…

Remember back in ‘95, when the House changed hands, and then-Minority Leader Dick Gephart made a facetious show of not letting go of the Speaker’s gavel when he ceremoniously passed it to Newt Gingrich? Yeah, he was kidding, but there was a real element of pathos there for him; still, he recognized the will of the people, and the importance of stable political swings, the ebb-and-flow that we used to all take for granted.

Now there is talk of Republicans having a very good chance of winning it back in November, but I have real trouble imagining a replay of that scene, this time with Nancy Pelosi handing the gavel to John Boehner (I assume). I don’t think she has it in her to wish him and the country well, and acknowledge that the little people will have spoken, should that be the case. I suspect she would sit it out, but more importantly, I expect her and the rest of them to do everything–and I mean everything–to ensure that she never has to face that decision.

Their vision of America trumps the Constitutional rule of law. It’s that simple. A few disheartening stories from the Washington Times this morning should remind us of this. The late seating of Scott Brown, the ongoing Justice Dept. whitewashing of Black Panther-gate, and in addition, we have this from IDB, on the flagrantly unconstitutional misappropriation of TARP monies for use as an Obama administration slush fund. One of the harshest, and most ominous critiques of the Obamakins I’ve yet seen.

The OMB director is grilled over the misuse of bank bailout funds for purposes other than intended by Congress. This taxpayer money wasn’t intended to be the administration’s perpetual slush fund.

When the specifically targeted and named Troubled Asset Relief Program was enacted, we were told it was a necessary and wise investment. It would stabilize the financial system and keep credit and money moving. We would even get our money back and then some.[...]“The administration lacks legal authority” to use TARP monies for anything it chooses outside the bill’s specific intent, says Andrew Grossman, senior legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation. “If the authority is as broad as the administration and some lawmakers say, then it is unconstitutional. Congress cannot pass the buck and give unlimited power to the executive.”

The administration seems to have discovered a new universal law of perpetual motion — that money once extracted from the taxpayers or borrowed from others can never be returned whence it came. As for the Constitution, we don’t need no stinking Constitution.

This isn’t just taxpayer money we’re talking about. It’s borrowed foreign money as well, largely Chinese money.

The leverage this gives our potential adversaries in a conflict or in crucial foreign policy decisions is unacceptable and dangerous. They should not have a financial veto over American foreign policy, but we’ve given it to them in the name of political expediency.

Might as well pull the TARP over us.

The Constitution, democracy and freedom are dead. May they rest in peace.

One of those songs you just have to plug a Les Paul into a Marshall and do, if you want to feel it. You will need a great bass player. Oh, and drums help. I love this song.

It makes no sense, I should be in bed right now, but instead I’m watching the snow like a little kid. It will make my life more difficult in the morning, but how I love it!