Nobody Asked Me, But...

1) You know it's only a matter of time before "Kristen" appears naked in Playboy or Penthouse.

2) We all get our panties in a twist over these kinds of scandals and we all wring our hands over the aftermath: the appearances, the pop cultural references, the fast money to be made. Look, I'm not familiar with this particular trade. Can someone tell me the price to ask a hooker to JUST. GO. AWAY!

3) Read that last link carefully. "Kristen" made a staggering $1,000,000. Yesterday. Without lifting a finger.

4) I can't fathom why anyone would have downloaded her "single". I mean, if it was a record, and she signed it, and you could turn around and sell it for a few bucks somewhere down the road, maybe I can understand that. But her music sucks, to put it politely. 98 cents wasted, if you ask me.

5) The lesson to learn in all this, referring to my column yesterday, is that money trumps all. It trumps morality, it trumps rationality, it trumps even lust. The greed and ambition required to pursue large sums of money could be the greatest single creative energy on the planet.

6) Which raises an issue related to the Presidential race: I guess part of why I'm very concerned about an Obama candidacy in the general election is the sham he's put forth regarding his campaign.

That there are suckers dumb enough to believe a man who served two terms in the state legislature (he would have served less than one if he had won his Congressional race), and less than one term in the US Senate isn't the single greeediest, most ambitious, self-involved, and self-indulgent dog in the pack doesn't surprise me. It's how many of them sincerely believe he's actually different from anyone else, that he somehow has the "good of the people" at heart.

Yes. He's different. By definition, he's worse! Anything other than that is truly naive thinking, if it's even thinking at all.

6) On to other topics...Gold is soaring over a thousand dollars an ounce. Oil is hovering at $110 a barrel. The dollar is collapsing on world markets today because of the Federal bailout of one of the world's biggest brokerages. Yet, Bush is channeling Kevin Bacon in Animal House: "Remain calm! All is well!"

7) Worse, I expect the Economic Club of New York to respond in kind: "Thank you sir! May I have another!" rather than boo his sorry ass off the dais.

8) Bush can offer at least one piece of good economic news: the single largest cause of America's economic melt-down will be gone within a year. On January 20, 2009, to be precise!


9) Exhibit A: Ten billion a month!

10) George Jetson would be proud.

11) It seems more and more likely that the Florida delegation, at least, is going to be seated at the Democratic National Convention as is. There are legal roadblocks to a mail-in primary, which is a sensible solution, and all other avenues seem to be opposed by some rather large group of Floridians or other. The bottom-line is, after 2000 and 2004, the Democrats cannot afford to insult Florida at the convention. They've had a primary and while no candidate campaigned there, all candidates were on the ticket.

Michigan could be a different story, since it was Democrats there who abetted the decertification of delegates.

12) One thing is clear from this primary season: the Democrats simply have to change their delegate selection process to make it fairer to voters. Period. That means no more of this caucus crap and no more open primaries, but it also means minimize the superdelegates. One person, one vote, only Dems. That's it.

13) Obama can't be Jesus. There can't be two of us.

14) In case you were wondering, yes, that's partly why I don't think he should be the candidate. He's sucking up my base: insane liberals.

15) Let me finish with this: I like David Patterson. I liked his dad, Basil, and I think David will make a fine governor. I am concerned, however, that the New York State GOP has been so quick to embrace him as Spitzer's replacement. There's a whole corollary to "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing here which is that if your enemy sees your friend as his friend, you have to be cautious.