Blessed are the proselytizers, for they shall inherit the headlines

A Mobile Register- University of South Alabama poll concluded that 77% of Alabama residents support leaving the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building. Must be the Eastern Liberal/Social Libertarian in me, but I thought the state was to make no establishment of religion, yet 770 of 1000 (what is the margin of error on a such a small sample?) or so folks agree with Justice Moore.

We (or I, as is really the case) at Verbal Jazz, may seem to be pretty far down on religion, but would like to clarify that religion can be a wonderful, personally fulfilling experience. That said, we (I, again) find Justice Moore to be a self-aggrandizing blowhard given to obnoxious proselytizing. Clearly, he wears his religion on his sleeve, conveniently forgetting the Beatitude about the meek being blessed.

Given that he has the support of 77%, perhaps Justice Moore is more Pied Piper than prophet?

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Breathe deeply...or maybe not

That right, folks, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, to you and me), has decided to relax clean air standards on old power plants, refineries and factories that want to upgrade their facilities. Apparently, the new regulations make it possible for such plants to become dirtier to which apparently makes it easier to install pollution reducing measures if one asks Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma. No wonder Christie Todd Whitman ran away from this mess, first the EPA is put in a position of denying global warming, and now they have to rescind their own rules.

Word is, now make sure you are sitting down for this, that the Bush Administration ushered in the change under pressure from corporate interests (read: oil companies) who care more about the bottom line than they do about Americans breathing healthy air. This all leads one to question what the EPA is mandated to protect (hint: it does not appear to be the environment).

Next the Bush administration will pressure the EPA to allow companies to dump toxic pollutants in to rivers, lakes and streams and claim that dumping bleach into our waters is the only way to keep the water clean.

This only proves that while Bush may have quit drinking, but he is still under the influence (of big money, that is).

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What next?

Two of the best things to make fun of in the past few weeks are now gone. Fox News, after taking some serious ridicule from the Judge hearing their case against Al Franken, dropped their silly "fair and balanced" lawsuit. Today workers removed the idol/monument to the Ten Commandments (in violation of Commandment #1, no?) from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial building.

That only leaves the California Recall and Ashcroft (sort-of) world tour. Rumor is that tickets to Ashcroft are easier to come by than Springsteen at Fenway Park. Hopefully someone else will defy logic within the next 24 hours; I would not like having to rehash all those easy to come by circus analogies for the Cali recall.

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Quotidian moment

You really can't trust anyone who does not wash their hands after using the rest room. And this included peeing.

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"The man ain't got no culture"
Apologies again to Paul Simon

In sampling of the headlines on the report detailing the Shuttle Columbia crash, it seems that NASA has a culture problem:

"Flawed NASA culture led to Columbia Crash"

"NASA culture blamed in shuttle report"

"Harsh critique of NASA's culture"

I will admit thatI have not yet read any of the stories, although I am sure they would probably make me want to not be an astronaut, or switch my current occupational culture. I've already got a head start on not being an astronaut.

I find the culture angle rather intriguing. On a national/regional level the culture issue becomes a hot button topic from a "politically correct" (only a member of the culture may criticize said culture) or "us v. them" (our culture is better than yours because it is) level, yet it is somewhat fashionable to slander corporate/organizational culture.

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Next: an article on how the candidate selects his favorite book

The Boston Globe has a rather inane article this morning about the efforts John Kerry's presidential campaign to find the right campaign theme song. Among the contenders; "Mama said knock you out," LL Cool J; "Walk This Way," Aerosmith; and "Born to Be Wild," Steppenwolf.

With the wakeup call he's received from the Dean candidacy, perhaps Kerry should use that Paul Simon song: "Slip Slidin' Away." Sample lyric: "You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip slidin' away."

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Truth in advertising?

The Applebee's tagline, "Eatin' good in the neighborhood," contains a whopping three errors in five words. This must be some sort of new record. First there is "eatin;'" as everyone knows it should be "eating," but, in the interest of creating a tagline that speaks to its audience, I suppose this is okay. Next is "eatin' good." One does not eat "good," one eats "well." Applebee's carries the linguistic license a bit far in this instance.

The final and most egregious error in this tagline concerns the word "neighborhood." I've been to a few Applebee's in my time, but I have never been to one, or even seen one that could be considered part of a "neighborhood." The very word "neighborhood" conveys a close knit circle of neighbors who can walk to each others houses. A "neighborhood" restaurant is one that any member of the "neighborhood" can walk to. Applebee's restaurants exist almost exclusively as stand alone structure with a vast parking lot designed only for Applebee's.

Applebee's is kind of like the Wal-Mart of restaurants: plenty of stuff (or food) but nothing distinctive. I like French fries (yes, French!) as much as the next guy, but there is nothing at Applebee's that one would consider "signature."

That said, here are some new tagline ideas for Applebee's:

"Good eating with plenty of seating."

"Eating well because you're so swell."

"Okay food where no one is rude."

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Dare to Dream?

The Boston Red Sox are hell bent on proving me wrong this year. After their annual Summer swoon makes the "Crap that I'm sick of..." list on Friday, they go and take the first three games of a four game series with the Mariners. Now I look like a fair weather fan, but I won't begin to believe until John Henry (the Sox principal owner) is holding aloft the World Series trophy, while George Steinbrenner immediately signs the DNA test-tube clone of Ted Williams to a lifetime contract.

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Death in a jail cell

The murder of Father Geoghan is another bizarre episode in the Catholic sex abuse scandal and subsequent cover up. The discovery of the many abuses committed by Father Geoghan, as well as the well-documented cover up by the Archdiocese of Boston, was the catalyst for all the allegations that subsequently followed. While Verbal Jazz maintains that Father Geoghan was a vile human being, I cannot help but be supremely disturbed that his white supremacist killer who has a severe disdain for homosexuals made his way into Geoghan's cell to carry out the crime.

Verbal Jazz can picture Joseph Druce being lauded as a hero, even though he is nothing more than a brutal killer.

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We are [not] the champions

A headline in yesterday's Boston Globe mentioned that a certain Little League team "played like champions." No disrespect to the Little Leaguers, but don't you have to be the champion to play like a champion? How about they "played their heart out," "gave it their all" or some such mind numbing cliche?

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Crap that I'm Sick of...

Because there's crap...then, there's crap that I'm sick of

This week's top five:

1. Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore. Right wing nut religious wackos have a new hero. On some level one has to admire the guy chutzpa at saying no to a law that he believes is silly, but on another level one has to wonder about a guy sworn to uphold the constitution who fails to see that Church and State are separate places, or sees himself above the law. Bring the rock to your church, Roy. If you want to erect a monument, how about a 5,000 pound rock celebrating the Bill of Rights? Side note: this cartoon is the funniest thing I have seen on the Ten Commandments flap.

2. The August Doldrums: I know the Red Sox pulled off an impressive victory over the Oakland A’s last night, but they still remain 7 games behind the Yanks and, although they are only 1 behind the A's in the Wild Card, their head-to-head with the A's this year (3-4) would have been a loser in a best of seven series. Also the Sox are 4-6 in their last ten games, which have all been against the A's or Mariners. God (the non-denominational kind) do I love being a Sox fan!

3. Little League World Series: Should kids be throwing curve balls? Should they have all the games televised nationally? Should a whole community pin its hopes and dreams on twelve-year-olds? When did Little League stop being fun?

4. SoBig worm. This is what happens when a free-market system spawns a monopoly: inferior product that has serious holes in it. I've received about 13 of these emails this past week. Next time I'm getting a Mac.

5. More deaths in Iraq. No jokes here folks; the UN building bombing in Baghdad was revolting. There is a line of thinking that claims the war, and the chaos that has ensued, has turned Iraq into a breeding ground for this kind of terrorism.

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John Ashcroft, the World Tour

Actually, it is only a US tour, but the Attorney General was on NPR this morning defending the USA Patriot Act, a systematic attempt to undermine civil liberties that was rammed through the Senate (98-1) in the wake of September 11. In fact the AG, head of the Department of Justice (actually Department of Vengeance when speaking of Ashcroft), continues to bang the drum of September 11, as though there were no other matter of Justice (or Vengeance) that he should be attuned to.

The t-shirts could be scary indeed: $25 for one with the AG's face emblazoned on the front and the Patriot Act's tagline, "Preserving Life & Liberty," on the back. Somewhere Thomas Jefferson is rolling over in his grave wondering whatever happened to the Pursuit of Happiness aspect of being an American. In the AG's worldview I suppose that there are so many terrorists to be scared of that we don't need to worry about happiness or said pursuit. It is puzzling however, that the AG is on tour nearly two years after the Patriot Act sailed through Capitol Hill.

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Caveat emptor

The Enron building is for sale. Smoke, mirrors and snake oil are not included. Seriously, one has to wonder whether the Enron Corporation will find some way to inflate the value of the building (apparently somewhere around $92 Million), or record the profit from the sale two, maybe three times, then shred the paper in some nostalgic pique. "Kenny Boy" Lay and Jeff Skilling can smoke cigars as they reap the profit from a building, if anything like the company that it housed, will begin to crumble once the deal is closed.

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Still haven't found what we're looking for...

Verbal Jazz never ceases to be amazed by the search items that lead people to this modest site. Here is a roundup of recent items and my attempt to explain what the searcher may be looking for:

1. "Dredge report Gary Coleman:" I can only assume that this searcher was looking for a Drudge Report story on Gary Coleman.

2. "Sports Illustrated O'Reilly Kobe:" Huh? Now that Rush Limbaugh is doing football analysis for ESPN (leaping ahead of Tim McCarver as the most annoying broadcaster in sports), is Bill O'Reilly doing a column for SI?

3. "Izod polo for women with gator:" See! Somebody else misses the Izod gator! However, those of us with a certain physique (i.e. man-boobs) should just stay away from polo style shirts. Really.

4. "Gary coleman governor t shirt": Those may be found here. Gary's gubernatorial candidacy seems to be fairly popular. Verbal Jazz thinks he is the ironic pop-culture choice, as opposed to the un-ironic Austrian. That means that hipsters, with no one else to vote for in a field of 300,000 candidates, will vote for Gary

5. "Jazz Al Franken:" Al Franken is a comedian and the subject of a rather ridiculous lawsuit, but when did he become a jazz man?

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The Original Top Ten

Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore absolutely refuses to remove his Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building, citing the Ten Commandments as a foundation for US law. Welcome to the Society for Elliptical Reasoning, Chief Justice Moore. The Ten Commandments are not so much the foundation of law as they are the foundation of top ten lists. Any search on Google for Ten Commandments will find a number of Ten Commandments that are not of the Judeo-Christian variety including: "Ten Commandments for C Programmers," "The Ten Commandments for Success on the Net," and "Ten Commandments of Golf Etiquette." The real foundation for Law is the Book of Leviticus, which has pages upon pages of archaic rules. Perhaps Justice Moore would like to have a monument dedicated to laws around food preparation?

Verbal Jazz maintains that religion (or lack thereof) is a personal matter and not one the state should enforce, or make subtle reference to. Considering that the first two commandments, or twenty-percent of said commandments, are, to paraphrase, "1. I am God, worship only me," and "2. Don't use my name unless you mean it," (touchy fellow, eh?) one can conclude that there may be a slight breach in the separation of church and state when those maintaining the law make such a display. Besides looking at your neighbor's wife's ass (Commandment 9) could get you into some trouble.

So much for that Beatitude about the meek inheriting the earth.

Also note that God takes no position on gay marriage in the original top ten list.

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Take my daughter, please

Or should it be "Much Ado About Nothing?" Anyway, Verbal Jazz has already discovered an early candidate for this week's "Crap That I'm Sick Of" list: the mother-daughter team from Southbridge, MA who are holding auditions to marry the daughter, who apparently has bad taste in guys as evidenced by the fact that she has a four-year-old and lives with her parents (presumably with the guy out of the picture, but, hey, one never knows). Somehow this has turned into a big story: a real reality show taking place on a Southbridge lawn. It must be a slow news month.

Verbal Jazz first heard of this story while sleeping through the clock radio alarm last week. I thought it was a dream at first and had to confirm with my significant other that, yes, indeed that was a true story. I got the vague suspicion that the person interviewing the mother-daughter team was doing his best to stifle a laugh, but I was asleep.

Verbal Jazz appreciates quirky stories, mind you. In fact I liked the idea of a couple getting married in the town dump. I think we should have funerals at the town dump from now on: "Trashes to trashes, dump to dump." Funerals at the dump would serve to remind us that resources are not infinite and trash has to go somewhere and that the human body, once used up, is a shell that can go back to the earth.

Back from my digression: Even though I might laugh at the mother-daughter marriage audition, they are getting their proverbial fifteen minutes of fame and the daughter might even find her "soul mate" out of the group of ten that showed up for the audition on Sunday (out of one hundred queries). Verbal Jazz was struck by the uniformity of the shaved heads on the Southbridge lawn: was one of the requirements for being considered as the daughter's "Soul-mate" a lack of hair on the head?

Anyway, somebody else is bound to try the same thing and get less publicity that the Southbridge family. And then someone else, and then it may even become a reality show as opposed to a real reality show.

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Verbal Jazz is fair and balanced

Click here for a list Fair and Balanced blogs.

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Dangerous weapons

Apparently cameras are the new Weapons of Mass Destruction after a Reuters cameraman was gunned down by US troops who mistook his camera for a weapon. Hell, mistakes can happen in wartime (in fact my own paterfamilias was seriously injured in a fall resulting from a yell of "Sniper!" in Vietnam), but isn't major fighting supposed to be over in Iraq? I will side step the issue of WMD for the time being, but there are still people being killed months after the Flyboy-in-Chief posed in a flight suit for his photo shoot and declared the end of major fighting, nobody gunned down those cameras on the Abe Lincoln, though! Maybe they ought to use that bright orange for camera lenses like they do for toy guns so that soldiers can tell weapons from cameras.

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Crap that I'm sick of...
Because there’s crap...and then there is crap that I'm sick of...

Crap that I'm sick of is a new feature that should appear every Friday on Verbal Jazz as a small list of items (i.e. crap) that I'm sick of:

1. Total Recall Three-ring Circus: As if the California Recall election were not enough (and I live in Massachusetts!), the puns and inanities surrounding this thing have been driven into the ground. Perhaps the Recall needs "Diff'rent Strokes," but referring to it as a circus is redundant and playing on the title of an Arnold action film gets old. How 'bout some issues?

2. "Know what I mean, jelly bean?:" This was actually part of an overheard cell-phone conversation at my favorite sandwich shop today. Prior to this the young woman on the phone had one conversation where she told the person on the other end that she had something "really illuminating" to say, but would wait until Tuesday (today is Friday). She then hung up the phone to have the "jelly bean" conversation which involved leaving the keys to some car somewhere. Not until she ordered her food did she actually go outside where she proceeded to have another cell phone conversation while smoking a cigarette. Those are two strikes against her being my friend.

3. Kobe Bryant: The jury will decide.

4. The Blackout: Obviously it is a big story, but really only an inconvenience and a lesson about our dependence on electricity.

5. High Spin Zone: Matt Drudge reported that it was Bill O'Reilly that asked Fox News to go after Al Franken. Looks like poor Bill can’t fight his own battles. Anyone remember when he screamed at Franken to "Shut Up!" Looks like Bill is lost unless he can control the debate and badger the opposition. Sounds a lot like a spin-zone to me.

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Don't forget to turn the lights out

Well, we can be rest assured that it (i.e. the blackout) was not the work of a terrorist, according to the President who spoke gravely, the undertone of which seemed to say, "but a terrorist could do this." Rummy and Wolfy were surely disappointed that they did not get to play "Six Degrees of Al-Qaeda" in the aftermath of the blackout in order to point the guns at Damascus because the lights went dark in New York.

So, where does the blame for the blackout lie? The Democratic Leadership Council will blame the Bush Administration, once they check their poll numbers and realize it is becoming slightly more acceptable to criticize the President. The Bush Administration will blame the Clinton Administration and the Democrats for allowing so many cities to be on the same grid, and then come up with a plan for Americans to use more electricity called the "Healthy Currents Initiative" (picture the speech: "Only by using more electricity, can we be assured that we will have electricity to use;" applause from the power companies). Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson will find some way (i.e. Jesus, who cannot seem to speak for himself, but only through charlatans) to fault homosexuals. NYC tourists will begin learning mountain survival skills. Stranded commuters will blame the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Environmentalists will fault our over reliance on fossil fuels used to produced electricity. Ted Kennedy will fault the Cape Cod wind farm project. Fox News will put the blackout into its legal complaint against Al Franken. The New York Mets will blame Bud Selig, Commissioner of Baseball, which will lead to Selig stepping down from his post in order to be replaced by Gary Coleman, fresh from his loss to Gallagher in the California recall election (Californians really cannot be so flaky as to elect Arnold, can they?).

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Nine questions (about number 9)

When one has a famous Papa frozen at a cryogenics facility in Arizona, and then stiffs that facility for $111,000, should the cryogenics facility then:

1. Send an enforcer to recover the debt?
2. Sell the DNA of said famous Papa?
3. Ship the body back to the family for refusal of payment?
4. Send the body to the Baseball Hall of Fame and split the profit from those who pay to see it?
5. Send the body to a medical school to use in training doctors?
6. Preserve the brain in hopes of determining what made the body so good at what it did?
7. Leak information to the media, causing more scandal for the dysfunctional family?
8. Dump the body in an unmarked common grave?
9. Respect the wishes of the deceased and have the frozen body cremated, only this time at a notorious crematorium in Georgia?

I would be remiss if I did not mention that this whole disturbing saga reminded me of a hit-or-miss book I read recently called Driving Mr. Albert, in which the author and the pathologist who performed Einstein's autopsy drive cross country with Einstein's brain to bring to his family.

I thought grieving families were supposed to seek closure.

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Question for the day

When two people are walking toward you and are hogging the sidewalk and you do your best to get out of their way but they seem to think they are entitled to hogging the sidewalk and then you bump into one of them and they start yelling at you, is it really your fault?

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A fair and balanced assessment (oops! Should I now wait for the lawsuit?)

In the latest sign that the right-wing nut job media (that's not bias, that is merely stating a fact, right?) is intent on self-destruction, Fox has sued Al Franken's publisher over the title of his new book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The gist of it is that using "fair and balanced" in the title is a rip-off of Fox News' logo, or at least an attempt to blur the lines between Franken's book and the Fox News media outlet, who apparently subscribes to the theory that Fair and Balanced means Democrats are evil and Republicans are not. The complaint even goes so far as to engage in a comedic level of projection in proclaiming that Franken "appears shrill and unstable," apparently they confused Franken for Anne Coulter, or even Bill O'Reilly.

One theory holds that Fox was pressured by Bill O'Reilly to initiate this lawsuit after he was publicly embarrassed by Franken. Other theories hold that Fox (or Rupert Murdoch) has no sense of humor. Verbal Jazz maintains that Fox News (and, Rupe, by extension) has to enjoy some whacked out sense of humor in order to file this lawsuit: does Fox have satirists filing legal briefs now?

Fox appears to be the "shrill and unstable" entity here.

Props: I first heard about this suit here.

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Toy soldiers

I recall playing with GI Joe back when said doll (yes, a doll) had a beard made of felt. I also seem to remember Michael Dukakis being ridiculed for riding in a tank during the 1988 presidential campaign. Now we have the flyboy in the white house being represented by a GI Joe style doll (yes, a doll) after orchestrating a completely cynical photo-op aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln? Okay, it is time to dredge up the National Guard history of the Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief who callously says "Bring 'em on," as US soldiers keep dying in the desert.

Perhaps KB Toys promotion of the President as a toy soldier is fitting in this instance. Will they produce an action figure of John Kerry, Al Gore, or John McCain actually serving in Vietnam?

I wonder if the Toy-Soldier-Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief plays army in the White House Rose Garden with Rummy.

KB's Customer Service Number: 1-877-452-5437

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Who wears the pants here?

Since moving out to the 'burbs a couple of weeks ago, I have taken to riding my bike to the Commuter Rail station to catch the train to work. Normally, I bring a change of clothes so that my work clothes are not sweaty. In my haste today, I managed to grab a pair of my fiancee's pants instead of my own, leaving me to wear my dress shirt with a pair of shorts. It is an honest mistake, since all of our clothes are in different places as we repair and update the house. It is not nearly as embarrassing as those dreams in which you either go to school or work wearing nothing but underwear. Back in the days of high school, when I wore tightie-whities, this would have been even more embarrassing.

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The wrong show?

I am of the age where I vaguely remember the 1970s TV show, and even then all I remember is a bunch of cops dressed in dark blue with rifles. Apparently there was a need for a movie entitled "S.W.A.T." but the demographic it is targeted to, which is at least 10 years younger than me, would be hard pressed to remember a show from before they were born, much less one that has spent very little time in syndication.

If you want to put bad cop shows on the big screen, one could do no better than "ChiPs," that was a pure classic. Erik Estrada should even reprise his role as Ponch. Verbal Jazz doubts Larry Wilcox would consent to appearing as John. Seriously, in college, I used to watch "ChiPs" daily with my roommates. My favorite episode had to deal with punks, as in kids who like punk rock being bad for society. I can recall Erik Estrada delivering an impassioned speech to the kid he was trying to save from being a pun: it was over written and over acted. Truly awful.

The writing and acting were so bad that they were good (his phenomenon also occurs on "7th Heaven" on the WB, which will be analyzed in full once the season is set to start). Perhaps the best part of any "ChiPs" episode was what we referred to as the "'ChiPs' Laugh": after an hour of intense drama (and Erik Estrada thinking, "he's god's gift to women," according to my grandmother) the members of the California Highway Patrol would have a lighthearted moment in which their moment of laughter would be frozen mid-laugh. Once, we were treated to a triple "'ChiPs' Laugh" moment and we almost cried.

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Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Davis?

Verbal Jazz promises that will be the last pun in reference to the California Governor Recall race which now features Gary Coleman (yes, from "Diff'rent Strokes", Gallagher (yes, the guy who smashes watermelons), Arnold Schwarzenegger (yes, the cigar smoking "actor" whose film "Total Recall" be referenced ad nauseam), Arianna Huffington (yes, the syndicated columnist behind the Detroit Project), as well as a whole host of other wannabes.

This whole recall thing is a bit out of control, kind of like Chaos Theory as applied to electoral politics. It almost makes the Governorship of one former wrestler in Minnesota look somewhat normal. Becoming Governor by Recall seems to hold greater odds than actually being elected to the post. Imagine if all elections actually ran that way: say hello to "Presidential Idol!"

Maybe Vegas should open up a betting line on the chances of the candidates: I would love to put a fiver down on Gary Coleman just because, as my coworker said, "he needs to go to jail for that shirt [he is wearing in the CNN article]." Well, that and he’s Gary freakin' Colman! The man was a signature phrase that trumps any of the Austrian bodybuilders. "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout..." allows Gary Coleman to stay "on message" without any distractions. Go, Gary, go!

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Stay put, Al
So now former NY governor Mario Cuomo thinks Al Gore should run again? Does Cuomo want four more years of Bush? Regardless of whether Gore got more votes or the Supremes single-handedly decided the election, Gore made crucial mistakes that caused the 2000 race to be so close. Big Al lost it in the debates coming off as a pretentious and wooden know-it-all. Face it, Al Gore: Policy Wonk is not an attractive candidate for 2004.

What it really seems to boil down to is that the Democratic establishment is literally afraid of the momentum that Howie from VT has built up using anti-war rhetoric, as well as a strong Internet push (which Al Gore took the initiative to help create, when one takes the quote in context).

Al made a smart decision to stay out of this one. He's make a great EPA administrator, or Secretary of the Interior (would the Scretary of State, then be the Secretary of the Exterior?). Anyway, Al, to borrow from the ever street wise Nancy Reagan: Just say No.

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Does this make me look fat?
Verbal Jazz maintains that there is nothing less flattering to a man, particularly one that is out of shape, than the Polo Shirt. The polo shirt just accentuates man-boobs and flabby guts, when were we tricked into thinking that this was stylish? Maybe it is some secret plot of women to keep to keep us looking as foolish as possible, although the Verbal Jazz fiancee does not like the Polo Shirt either. When I was a kid, it was known as the Izod shirt and the Izod Company used an alligator as its logo. Frankly, I kind of miss the alligator logo of the Izod shirt, replaced by some poseur playing a Chukka of polo. Maybe soon Izod will come to its senses and release the retro Izod shirt: essentially a Polo shirt with the classic gator. Now if only the Polo shirt could do something about man-boobs.

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Search roundup:

More suspicious search phrases have delivered readers to Verbal Jazz:

1. "Kobe accuser": this is the media frenzy that won't die any time soon. For those looking for Kobe items, Verbal Jazz is not your one stop shop.

2. "Urban Lengends" [sic]: this phrase, misspelled by one searcher, was misspelled by Verbal Jazz, as well.

3. "Anne Coulter + Sierra Club": Note that these are two different posts. Somehow, Verbal Jazz does not see there being synergy between the "Vapid Vixen of Vitriol" and a group dedicated to protecting the environment.

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Lieberman talks tough

Anyone else ever notice that Joe Lieberman happens to be in the wrong party? A Washington Post article has Lieberman attacking the left wing of the Democratic Party for being, well, too left. Funny how the Republicans have managed to gain control of the House, Senate and Presidency even though many cater to the extreme right. Lieberman is really a Republican with a D attached to his name. I mean, the guy has been so supportive of the Bush Presidency that he ought to run as Bush's running mate if Cheney has more health problems (insert obvious joke here about the irony of the Veep's heart problems).

Verbal Jazz senses a Presidential Campaign running out of steam as a certain former Vermont Governor steadily woos Democrats and Independents. Is it time yet for a Massachusetts Senator to weigh in on where the Democratic party ought to be?

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Take this job and shove it

There is a rumor floating around that Secretary of State Colin Powell plans to leave his position should Bush II become reelected (or simply elected depending on your view of the Supremes decision in Gore v. Bush). That is like giving a year-and-a-half notice, as opposed to the normal two weeks that most working stiffs have to give before looking for more gainful employment.

If Powell does step down (there is a baseball team of Democrats attempting to force the issue, at any rate), there will be plenty of discussion as to why he would do so: unhappy with administration foreign policy, does not like telling half-baked truths about foreign weapons programs prepared by agencies that do not believe the intelligence, or simply finds he is being micro-managed (for god's sake, the man was chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff!).

Maybe Powell just wants a career change with a little less stress.

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The meaning of Poindexter

Verbal Jazz remembers when "Poindexter" was shorthand for a nerd or geek. It seems now that Poindexter could be shorthand for increasingly bad ideas promoted in defense of freedom. Verbal Jazz may have nothing new to add to the terrorism futures mix, but, what is going to come next a Ponzi scheme from the Office of Information Awareness (read: Big Brother)? I can just picture it now, pay a fee to get secrets to being a good terrorist, which is really a list of addresses to email to offer to sell secrets to being a good terrorist. Anyone interested in sucha list is then arrested for harboring terroist intentions and then sent to Guantanamo Bay where they then face a Kangaroo court.

Word is, Poindexter plans to step down, thus avoiding that whole nast scenario.

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The Top 5

Speaking of the Red Sox, I have decided to include Val's "Top Five" today. Val is the fiancee of Verbal Jazz and frequently likes to change her Top Five Red Sox players for various reasons. Here is the most recent:

1. Jason Varitek
2. Johnny Damon
3. Tim Wakefield
4. Nomar Garciaparra
5. Manny Ramirez

Don't expect the top 3 to change: Varitek is her favorite player (briefly overtaken by Damon last year) and she thinks Tim Wakefield is a solid citizen. If Manny doesn't run out a ground ball expect him to slip. For some unknown reason, she also loves Mariano Rivera of the Yankees and was upset to not see him pitch on Saturday (!). For those of you who may not be baseball fans, Rivera usually pitches the ninth inning in games which thew Yankees are winning.

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Also meaning: "Not Strightforward"

A co-worker of mine has been experiencing back pain. I have decided that it is her oblique muscle, just because I like the name and I have been hearing that a lot with athletes including the recently departed Chad Fox (mercifully let go by the Red Sox). Every morning I say: "Hey, how's the oblique."

That will get old soon.

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Vatican tells politicians not to support gay marriage

Somebody has got to explain to the Pope how the US government works; he appears to be a very smart man, but does not seem to get representational government or the separation of church and state. In a hierarchical structure like the Catholic Church, he gets to make the rules, which is fine, but his Papacy has very little moral authority while his floundering Church is still struggling with the moral molasses spill of the sexual abuse scandals. Despite attempts by the self-righteous right wing, the US is not a theocracy, Mr. Pope-man.

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