Great "Expectations"

As though the idea of marriage didn't suck enough as it is, look at the four unbelievable pages in this "contract."

They all love Dick

I imagine you're just as sickened by what's been coming out of Dick Cheney's accidental shooting as I am. Whittington's apology to the V.P. was pretty gag-inducing on its own, but can't those carrying water for the administration get their story straight? If the response to Peter Daou's challenge to bloggers on the right is any indication, then the answer is apparently not.

Perhaps someone can tell me what the odds are of being shot by an elected official. If it's similar to the chances of being struck by lightning, then that's about as likely as being killed by international terrorists:

Yet even if you include the 9/11 casualties, the number of Americans killed by
international terrorists since the late 1960s (which is when the State
Department began counting them) is about the same as that killed by lightning -
or by accident-causing deer, or by severe allergic reactions to peanuts.

"Accident-causing deer" totaled two of my father's cars, if I recall correctly.

An Open Letter to WFLD

33 E. Congress Parkway, Suite 224
Chicago, IL 60605-1996

February 16, 2006

Andrew Finlayson
WFLD FOX 32
205 N. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60601


Dear Mr. Finlayson:

I consider myself to be a longtime viewer of programming on WFLD FOX Chicago, which is why it saddens me to learn yesterday of your decision to terminate 18-year veteran Bruce Wolf.

I grew up in one of those rare households without cable television. For many years, we relied on a color television that had no remote and did not receive UHF stations, only static. When I purchased a black-and-white 13-inch television at a garage sale for my own room, being able to receive UHF programming literally doubled my viewing options.

And most of the time, you’d find my television dial set to the number “32.” Shortly after the beginning of Operation Desert Storm in 1991, I became a regular viewer of a show called “Nine Thirty,” which would go on to be hosted by Wolf and then-weatherman Dan Dobrowolski. Wolf’s humor and comic timing in a variety of pieces he delivered for your station were nothing short of impeccable.

Although “Nine Thirty” failed, when WFLD unveiled “Fox Thing In The Morning,” Wolf was an essential part of that show’s success along with hosts Bob Sirrott and Marianne Muciano.

I have taken exception to some of the hiring decisions WFLD management has made in the past (letting go of Sirrott and Murciano) as well as applauding others (hiring Mark Suppelsa and Corey McPherrin). But your most recent decision to let go of one of, if not the best sports anchors in the city is shocking, disappointing, and simply reprehensible.

I hope and believe another Chicago station will be smart enough to pick up Wolf, but your decision—most likely made only to protect your bottom line—has cost you this viewer, and I’m sure many others. WFLD used to be a regular fixture in my daily viewing, but now I wouldn’t care less if when flipping by the channel, all I came across is static once again.

Sincerely,

Derek Strum

V-Day Ventures

I guess I "celebrated" Valentine's Day this past weekend, but I'll forgo graphic details at the risk of possibly sounding like Jacqueline Kim.

Right now, I should just be thankful today that my heart wasn't pierced by the veep. Brian Flemming sums up the reasons to be suspicious pretty nicely. But Cheney drinking? I couldn't imagine it. And of course whenever idiotic requests can be made in cheap hopes of sharing face time, PETA will be there.

So what's all this going to cost Dick? Seven dollars.

And of course, it should be noted that the White House says Mr. Whittington apparently has no one to blame but himself. As Paul Begala notes, the press is more than happy to play along.

Sketchy details in the Cheney story can only be trumped by the news in Chicago that a jail guard, uh, "helped six inmates escape" from the county jail. If you're concerned by the escape coming from the area of the jail reserved for the "worst of the worst," then you really don't want to know what funding issues in New Orleans might mean for 4,000 low-income defendants.

But I shouldn't rush to conclusions. I mean, I'm already starting to think I didn't look hard enough for the right Valentine's card. As long as she liked what I wrote in it, I suppose.

Evil Dick Hunting

Shoot like a pro——or like the vice president.

Catching Up, Vol. 3

Well, give Stephanopoulos credit for trying. On the Feb. 5 "This Week," he spoke with domestic spying "terrorist surveillance" program designer & four-star general, Michael Hayden. See if you can spot the pattern:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is there any kind of metaphor? I mean, I know all the
difficulties here you could use to sort of help people understand just what
this process is, what this program is.

HAYDEN: Look, without as you say going into too much operational
detail here, I mean, everyone should expect the American Signals
Intelligence Enterprise, NSA to pursue al Qaeda communications. What this
authorization does is make it far more likely that NSA will be able to detect,
grab, intercept al Qaeda communications that are most important. Al Qaeda
communications that enter and leave the homeland.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me try to give you a hypothetical, see if you can answer it.
I went to Pakistan after 9/11. I interviewed a Taliban representative. If after
that interview, that person calls me, am I captured?

HAYDEN: I can't get into operational details, but the way we do this is
based on the people most knowledgeable of al Qaeda, its communications, its
intentions, its tactics, techniques, and procedures. And so we really don't have
the time or the resources, the linguists to, to, to linger, to go after things that aren't going to protect the homeland.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, [Jane Harman] actually, she wrote a letter to the
president yesterday saying, she said, "I am not clear why FISA as presently
drafted can not cover the entire program."

HAYDEN: Okay, but anyway, to answer the question, this is——and again, it's hard to answer in detail because then it reveals some operational aspects of the program. It's about speed. It's about hot pursuit of al Qaeda communications. Let me tell you, we as a government, NSA as an agency, has, has, has used FISA at record numbers since the 9/11 attacks.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So are you still convinced that if you try to get this
authorized with more legislation, it would reveal the program, compromise the
program?

HAYDEN: The position I've, I've pointed out is——and you've asked a fairly
intensely political question as to, as to how we might go forward. I'm
going to give you an operational answer. I'm going to give you a professional judgment. Whatever it is we do in the future has to be done in a way that doesn't reveal our tactics, techniques and procedures to the enemy, I'll just leave it at that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring up something else the president brought up the other night in his State of the Union. He suggested in his State of the Union that had you had this authority before 9/11, 9/11 could have been prevented and a lot of people including me, frankly, have had a hard time seeing how that's the case because as a lot of the studies have shown the 9/11 commission showed these hijackers actually had been identified. The NSA had intercepted some communications and the problem is what was done with the information, not that it wasn't detected.

HAYDEN: I can't tell you how much I would love to go into the
operational details behind this. But I've said, it was my professional
judgment, all right, knowing what this program can do, knowing the reality prior
to 9/11, it was my professional judgment that if we had had this program in
place, we would have identified some of the al Qaeda operatives in the United
States and we would have identified them as such. I'm very, very comfortable
with that.

Oh, and then just hours before Super Bullshit XL, here's the kicker:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So given that history, given all the intelligence and
analysis at your disposal here, who is going to win?

HAYDEN: Let me slip into a bit of patois, okay? Y'uns'll find out that the
Steelers are gonna win this one.

Catching Up, Vol. 2

A quick review of how many mentions certain subjects got in the State of the Union (and feel free to look up anything I forgot):

Terror/Terrorist/Terrorism: 20
Weapons of Mass Destruction/Weapons of Mass Murder/Nuclear Weapons: 3
Troops: 2
Oops: Zero

Iraq: 16
Iran: 6
North Korea: 1
Sudan: Zero

Freedom: 17
Liberty: 4
Surveillance: 2
Spying: Zero

Karl Rove/Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame/Joseph Wilson/Patrick Fitgerald/CIA/Leak: Zero

World: 26
Government: 11
Democracy/Democratic: 6
Islam: 2 (Preceded by the word "radical" on both occasions)
Torture: Zero

Economy/Economic: 23
Tax: 8
My: 6
Rich: 1
Friends: 4
Again: 4

Spend/Spending: 7
Social Security: 3
Failure: 1

Natural Disaster: 2
New Orleans: 2
Hurricane Katrina: Zero
FEMA/Michael Brown/Response: Zero

Medicare: 2
Medicaid: 2
No: 7
Future: 7
For: 32
You: 15

No Child Left Behind: 1
Initiative: 5
Jack Abramoff/lobbyist: Zero

AIDS: 6
Poverty: 1
Halliburton: Zero

Osama/bin Laden: 2
September the 11th: 2
British Intelligence/Niger: Zero

Abortion: 1
Agenda: 2
Supreme Court: 2

War: 2
Experience: 2
Vietnam: Zero

Derek Strum: Zero

Catching Up, Vol. 1

My best year in quite some time for predicting Oscar nods in the "Big Eight" (36 for 40), although I thought there weren't too many surprises:

BEST PICTURE

Brokeback Mountain

Capote

Crash

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Walk the Line

***

BEST DIRECTOR

Ang Lee—Brokeback Mountain

Bennett Miller—Capote

Paul Haggis—Crash

George Clooney—Good Night, and Good Luck.

Steven Spielberg—Munich

***

BEST ACTOR

Philip Seymour Hoffman—Capote

Terrence Howard—Hustle & Flow

Heath Ledger—Brokeback Mountain

Joaquin Phoenix—Walk the Line

David Strathairn—Good Night, and Good Luck.

***

BEST ACTRESS

Judi Dench—Mrs. Henderson Presents

Felicity Huffman—Transamerica

Keira Knightley—Pride and Prejudice

Charlize Theron—North Country

Reese Witherspoon—Walk the Line

***

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

George Clooney—Syriana

Matt Dillon—Crash

Paul Giamatti—Cinderella Man

Jake Gyllenhaal—Brokeback Mountain

William Hurt—A History of Violence

***

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams—Junebug

Scarlett Johansson—Match Point

Catherine Keener—Capote

Rachel Weisz—The Constant Gardener

Michelle Williams—Brokeback Mountain

***

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Crash

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Match Point

The 40-year-old Virgin

The Squid & The Whale

***

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Brokeback Mountain

Capote

The Constant Gardener

Munich

Syriana

***

I apologize to Frances McDormand for doubting (once again) her power with Academy voters in the supporting category, but you'll note I'm not giving myself an extra credit for picking Syriana under the wrong category. Although it looks like the Gurus o' Gold had made the same mistake.