Ok, folks. For those of you who haven’t yet jumped out a window or taken on a third job to get you through this little Wall Street kerfuffle, it’s…………………………… Quiz Time! Two simple questions. #1 Who Wrote These Words? There have been 11 recessions since the Great Depression. And we’re nowhere close to being in [...]

I’m writing this late Sunday night, not yet knowing for how many more years a plummeting market on Monday might postpone or exorcise my retirement. Cool. The longer I work, the greater amount of time I will have to experience the massage from The Invisible Hand! Let’s see Lehman Brothers goes bust, Merrill Lynch auctions [...]

My good friend Mark, my number one fishing buddy, often jokes with me about once again being caught in “Barracuda Hell.” We’re thinking of a certain Baja fishing expedition in the summer of 2004 when our small “panga” ran right into a teeming school of hungry ‘cuda. Before we knew it, it was literally raining [...]

“I told Congress, ‘Thanks, but no thanks, on that Bridge to Nowhere,’ ” Sarah Palin said. And then there’s this pic of her during her 2006 campaign for Governor. Oh well.

Once again I’m faced with the choice tonight of 1) contemplating war against Russia, 2) Watching the final Palin interview with Charlie Gibson or 3) sticking needles in my eyes. Think I’m gonna go with Door 3. Sounds like a better deal going to see the new stinker De Niro-Pacino flick. Less painful. Less aggravating. [...]

Poor John McCain. He thought he’d do one of those polite badminton interviews with what he assumed would be a typical local dufus TV reporter in Maine and instead he stumbled right into some propeller blades. Listening to McCain in this painful interview it’s abundantly clear that not only is Palin unprepared to deal with [...]

It was a tough call tonight. Was I going to spend the evening planning for a nice, little thermo-nuclear war with Russia or was I going to watch the Palin-Gibson interview? Lucky me. I opted for the latter and got both for the price of one. As soon as Governor Gidget was nominated I publicly [...]

I’ll leave the exploitation of 9/11 to the professional pols. The date — and its surrounding commemoration– has become about as meaningless as Thanksgiving, except you don’t get a day off from school or work. We all know we are not an iota safer than we were seven years ago. Quite to the contrary. Our [...]

Chris Matthews fires up the coals, whips out the BBQ sauce, and cooks up some meaty pork ribs. He skewers a Republican hack on the manufactured pig-with-lipstick strategy. P.S. Loyal readers, remember back a year or two when I dumped all over Kos and other lib-whiners who wanted to boycott Matthews? Who showed the correct [...]

Here’s the cover of the 2006 book by Torie Clarke. Who’s she? Oh, she was John McCain’s former press secretary. No comment, other than oink-oink. I don’t always agree with Barack Obama but I sure do endorse his statement today that the sort of gutter campaigning now being waged by McCain-Palin-Bush is the type of [...]

Put some lipstick — or a baseball hat– on a couple of pigs and you still have a couple of pigs. Let pigs loose, and they run right for the mud. I’m having trouble believing I am someone who once had some admiration for John McCain. But that was then and this is now. The [...]

Here’s a draft version of my L.A. Weekly column this week (Final version will replace this one). Daughter Dearest: It’s with great pain and a certain measure of shame with which I write you this note. Having grown up in the 60’s and watched, sometimes at glaringly close range, the emergence of the women’s liberation [...]

I see you had no problem (ahem) talking among yourselves while I was away for a few days. Glad y’all could analyze Senator McCain’s closing speech last week all on your own. If anyone still might be wondering what I thought of what he said I would sum it up in these few words: You [...]

Governor Gidget appeared on screen melting my heart and conquering my soul. That was after The Mayor of America softened me up. Once I was blind. But now I can see. I agree with every one of their points. Black is white. Up is Down. Slavery is Freedom. Arbeit Macht Frei. We are winning in [...]

I was sitting next to Norman Mailer at the infamous 1992 Republican Convention when Pat Buchanan launched his notorious culture war speech. Mailer was wearing blue. Pat’s brigades were in gray. When the indoor fireworks went off upon Buchanan’s conclusion, for a moment we weren’t sure if these were pyrotechnics or rifle shots from the [...]

I have to admit that I had a ball watching the RNC tonight. I turned the audio way down and enjoyed the constant HD close-ups of the GOP party faithful. I don’t want to engage in too many cliches, but what I saw definitely didn’t look like America. It looked, instead, like a predominantly elderly, [...]

Who told you, baby? Exactly three days ago I predicted that Governor What’s Her Name would spell doom for McCain.  I wrote: So, Sarah, enjoy the media honeymoon – which I predict will crash about the same time Hurricane Gustav makes landfall. Looks like I was within the half-hour margin of error. Greg Sargent has [...]