I wanted to post this so bad on Sunday. Regardless…

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/15/mccain-cancels-fundraiser-over-oilmans-rape-comments/

“The campaign said it would not return money Williams had raised for McCain because the contributions came from other individuals supporting McCain and not from Williams. Williams told his hometown newspaper, the Midland Reporter-Telegram, that he had raised more than $300,000 for McCain.”

Even though I assume the “angry” Hillary supporters would be upset that he accepts the money from williams, mccain better not return the money because the campaign will be broke as a joke. For god’s sake, he recently had to pose (briefly) with the idiot of the United States. I guess there’s no shame.

P.S. I’ve never heard a comedian – at the most extreme – pull off a “funny” rape joke. If anyone has any, please feel free to comment. Good work williams!

There’s no motivation/reasoning behind the post other than…

a) our dinner plans being “ruined” tonight by some Puerto Rican “parade” that obnoxiously ran down the same street as the restaurant we were going to eat at in Humboldt Park.

and…

b) the following clip being one of the best movie scenes (if not the best movie) of our generation.

You’ll want headphones if you’re at work but it’s a YouTube clip so what’s the worst that could happen?

The real lesson begins at 4:56 into the clip. Without further ado, “Fuck You” scene from the 25th Hour…

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/us/politics/13check.html

“Mr. McCain, the expected Republican nominee, also said that “under Senator Obama’s tax plan, Americans of every background would see their taxes rise — seniors, parents, small-business owners and just about everyone who has even a modest investment in the market.” He used much the same language in an April 15 speech in which he warned that Democrats “are going to raise your taxes by thousands of dollars per year,” adding up to “a trillion dollars in new taxes over the next decade.”

Economists of various ideological persuasions, however, view Mr. McCain’s assessment as inaccurate or exaggerated. Some question whether Mr. Obama’s tax plan can even be characterized as an increase. Some also argue that contrary to Mr. McCain’s assertions, the Democrat’s proposals, if enacted, would actually reduce taxes for the middle class — the voters both candidates see as the key to victory.”

Conor, nice find.

Day of “posting silence” tomorrow for Tim Russert/Meet the Press – yada, yada.

A playa to be named later requested I post a huge penis on the blog. That said, I’m now openly – what? – taking blog posting requests. The crowd reactions in the picture from Purdue University are pretty funny.

Mom, look away.

Safe enough for work.

I respectfully loved the dude’s enthusiasm and questioning abilities. At least he got the opportunity to see Barack become president so that’s good.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25145431/

Who replaces him on meet the press? Chuck Todd is neutral enough…Olbermann and Matthews are not. Todd could be too new of a face on the political television scene though.

Inflation rises in May (and eventually June and July)…interesting.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080613/economy.html?.v=2

The “good” thing is that the interest rate cuts should be over (if the fed has any sanity left) so the dollar should “rebound” and inflation will continue to rise but not as horribly as it has been. $3 a gallon gas by the end of the year!!!

https://bcclist.com/2008/06/10/2-gaffes-1-post/

https://bcclist.com/2008/06/02/welcome-to-the-city/

https://bcclist.com/2008/05/27/agree-to-disagree/

https://bcclist.com/2008/05/24/nice-work-icahn/

While enjoying a crazy come from behind win during the NBA Finals game last night and trying to name the college that seemingly every NBA player went to, the 1993 NBA Draft somehow game up when we got stuck on Lindsey Hunter. The 7th pick of that draft was one, Bobby Hurley.

We reminisced about how squirrelly he was at Duke and how it was amazing that it was Mike Peplowski of all people that literally helped save his life.

Side note: a cousin of my childhood best friend that went to MSU at the same time as Peplowski – confused? – said people used to pay Peplowski money to spit beer into their mouth’s at MSU bars. Weird. Citation needed.

Anyway, you may wonder (as we did), whatever happened to Bobby Hurley post accident? The following:

• Returned to the basketball court on October 14, 1994 for a preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers. He went on to play 68 games for the Kings after returning from injuries.
• Appeared in the 1994 feature film Blue Chips, where he played for the Indiana Team under Bobby Knight.
• Traded from the Sacramento Kings to the Vancouver Grizzlies in 1998.
• Retired from the NBA in 1999.
• Named one of his daughters Cameron after Duke University’s famed Cameron Stadium.
• Plunged into horse racing after he was introduced to it by a friend in Jersey City. He pored over books, studied bloodlines and became an obsessive watcher of videotapes.
• Named his stable Devil Eleven after his college days.

Moreover, he decided to file a lawsuit or two. Good work, Bobby!

A month or so ago – before my back got all weird (I’m finally sort of better) – I made the decision that I was going to buy a bike and start riding to work because…

a) I need the excercise

b) Paying $4 a day to ride a packed CTA train or bus while somebody yaps on their cellphone is becoming old

c) Something about it being better for the environment

Anywho, I scouted out my path via a City of Chicago website that lists “bike friendly” paths throughout the city. I mentioned to my wife and mother in law – she was in town that weekend – I would simply take Lake Shore seeing that I live right off of it for the majority of the trip and then take one of the aforementioned “bike friendly” streets a half a mile or so to work. No issue.

As I “proudly” stated, “the worst thing that could happen is that somebody opens a car door and I have to either collide with it and ruin the bike/my body or collide with it and go head of handle bars but still land in/near the bike lane.” Even then, I thought I would (somehow) be alert enough to recognize how each person in the driver’s seat of vehicles were about to react and could avoid such an accident.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/transportation/998873,CST-NWS-bike11.article

Normally, I’m not too taken back by death. It sucks but everybody does it. But, the above is downright creepy seeing that it’s two blocks from where I work.

Worthless Note: The section of La Salle that he was on isn’t listed as a “bike friendly” route.

Note: UPDATES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POSTING!

As previously mentioned, I’m truly not a billionaire hater – but, Rupert Murdoch’s $580 million purchase of MySpace was stupid. That is, unless the deal has already somehow paid itself off in 3 years. If that’s the case, I stand corrected.

Reasons it was a stupid investment being a) facebook (I’ve embarrassingly joined recently but I’m glad I graduated from MySpace) kicks MySpace’s a$$ hands down and b) social networking is dead or in the process of dying.

Why is facebook better than MySpace will ever be? It’s built by geeks. Note: I love geeks. Anywho, the reportedly cocky CEO (Mark Zuckerberg) seems like a dork. A very, very wealthy dork. But, he knows how the build things people want – a clean interface (for the most part) without too many annoying customizations, a kick a$$ mobile platform for those that have the capability to access sites via blackberries/smart phones/i phones, and text message alerts allowing you to actually manage some features of your account via a simple text message.

I messed around with MySpace mobile a little bit last night. It was worthless. MySpace will undoubtedly try to implement some of facebook’s technology – if they haven’t already via beta – but, needless to say, they’re behind the times and can’t catch up. Imagine the current day Google vs. Yahoo search engine “battle.”

For what it’s worth, the problem with social networking sites is that none of the sites really offer any value to the user other than the ability to keep up/reconnect with your friends. They’re addictive for a week and then become boring.

Both MySpace and facebook can be compared to Yahoo in the 90’s and Classmates.com in the early 2000’s. Yahoo is in the process of failing as a search engine turned into a search engine/social portal because they didn’t realize the value and money to be made off paid search and not social networking. Classmates.com failed (or isn’t worth as much as it used to be) because it was bland/useless and charged user fees when incepted.

So, congrats to MySpace for ripping off Rupert. Dollars currently spent by advertisers on either website is money worthlessly spent. Let’s see if facebook can start offering users the ability to do more than join some networks, create a witty status message, easily chat with friends currently online (sort of cool), post some picture albums, write on a wall or two, and “rekindle” previous relationships.

If not, we’ll all be laughing in 10 years when everyone jokes, “Remember when MySpace and facebook were popular?”

Update from 6/2008:

https://bcclist.com/2008/06/23/facebook-more-uniques-than-myspace/

Update from 8/2008:

https://bcclist.com/2008/08/15/facebook-takes-over-the-world/

The following quote was getting some air time on a prime time political cable tv show last night…

Rupert Murdoch:

“The greatest thing to come of this to the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil,” he told The Bulletin, an Australian magazine, in a February 12, 2003, interview.

Alternatively, a really expensive war that turns the value of our dollar into garbage and causes inflation and prices of oil, food, etc. to go out of control. Thankfully, Rupert “redeemed” himself by nailing his general election prediction.

Thanks to Digg, here’s mccain going senile again with another YouTube gaffe…

The United States is called the melting pot for one reason or another, you crazy old fck.

This is a fun/creepy way to find out your friend’s, neighbor’s, family’s, political donations and to what candidate and/or party.

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php

A few months ago I scouted out all the weird Ron Paul supporters in the neighborhood and took the dog on the walk so that we can see which areas to avoid going forward…

The donations update every quarter and only include those that have donated over $250. Have fun!

Tax and Spend (Democrats) or Spend and Spend (Republicans).

The image below is blurry.  Left click on it once.  A page will load.  Left click on it again and it will become clear.

I guess the 2008 choice is pretty evident…