The folks over at Reason have put together this great video saluting Joe Biden, real man of genius:

Also, Oregon Commentator alum and National Review staffer Mark Hemingway was recently on the Reason.tv talk show, discussing mandatory minimums, drug legalization and the future of conservatism, among other things.

In a lighter note, apparently Spider-man will be in a musical. 

This news isn’t really political, and I’m not trying to make this an entertainment piece. What I want point out is this ridiculous fact:

Producers say the musical, directed by Julie Taymor, will feature a score by Bono and The Edge.

Maybe it’s just my personal hatred of U2 and Bono but…does this strike no one else as a terrible idea?

All this after the tragedy that was Spider-man 3 and the Obama fist-pump issue.

It’s like a slow-motion trainwreck. It just keeps going and when you think that things are done something like this happens.

Bono wants to ruin everything that was good about childhood, first the Beatles and now comic books, soon I expect he’ll be producing a rock opera using politically themed porn, then what will we have?

This video of the ignominious end of some kind of student protest at NYU has been making the rounds today, and it really is worth a laugh. It kind of reminds me of the 2000 occupation of Johnson Hall by a motley assortment of protesters demanding that the U of O join the Workers Rights Consortium.

The NYU kids, though, had an even more hillarious list of demands than did the WRC protesters. In addition to the usual laundry list of college progressive smegma, they decided to include such reasonable requests as the establishment of a student commission with full power “to vote on proxies, draft shareholder resolutions, screen all university investments, establish new programs that encourage social and environmental responsibility and override all financial decisions the committee deems socially irresponsible, including investment decisions” (and you thought the ASUO was bad…), forcing the university to “donate all excess supplies and materials in an effort to rebuild the University of Gaza”, and demanding that someone else pick up the tab for their political theatrics by compensating “all employees whose jobs were disrupted during the course of the occupation.”

My favorite part of the video, though (aside from the cameraman bleating out platitudes about “consensus”, “hierarchy”, and “power structures” that he obviously thinks makes him sound “academic”), comes at the end when he’s making video of the protesters’ possessions just in case campus security confiscates their stuff. After making sure to document all the MacBooks, iPods, and headphones the rabble-rousers are carrying around in their bags, he proclaims that the police won’t be interested in confiscating a water bottle, since “they probably drink corporate water.”

Fight the power!

Oregon Commentator Production Manager Drew “Thunderlove” Cattermole is also an executive producer at Duck-U, a student-run television program. So Drew did the only reasonable thing and put together an Oregon Commentator News segment. Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair!

My confirmation hearing to Senate was last night, and, in what can only be described as a gross perversion of democracy and justice, I was voted down 0-12-2. I’ll let ODE reporter and blogger Alex “Tomcat” Tomchak take it from here:

CJ Ciaramella’s appointment to the ASUO Senate failed Wednesday after the Oregon Commentator editor responded to concerns he would not take the position seriously by trimming his facial hair in the style of Wilford Brimley and reciting Barack Obama’s inaugural address before the Senate.

Not one senator voted to appoint Ciaramella to the empty seat representing the journalism school after a hearing that forced one spectator to leave the EMU Board Room clutching his mouth to stifle his laughter and several Senators unable to restrain grins.

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Somehow, this seems appropriate.

I came across this today.

Let it soak in a moment…

Okay, so we have Larry Flynt and the Girls Gone Wild guy (who I could have sworn was in jail for tax evasion or something along those lines) asking the government for a $5 billion bailout. Their DVD sales have slipped, but their website growth has actually increased in the past year.

And their reasoning for this is not that they need money but rather:

[T]he industry leaders said the issue is a nation in need. “People are too depressed to be sexually active,” Flynt said in the statement. “This is very unhealthy as a nation. Americans can do without cars and such but they cannot do without sex.”

“With all this economic misery and people losing all that money, sex is the farthest thing from their mind. It’s time for congress to rejuvenate the sexual appetite of America. The only way they can do this is by supporting the adult industry and doing it quickly.”

I am as pro-porn as the next pro-porn person, but this is just god-damn ridiculous. What I’d like to see is exactly what Flynt’s plan is for rejuvenating the sex lives of Americans. Personally, I’m doing alright, but still …

I guess we’ll see how broken the government is depending on what they do with Flynt’s request (ignore it, I imagine).

A final note, the quotes from that article are the most amazingly vague quotes I’ve seen in some time, and we just had an election.

The only thing I love more than a good alliteration is the fact that Sarah Palin is now officially a GILF!

According to Yahoo! News, Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston was born yesterday, weighing in at 7 lb 4 oz. To date, Bristol and Levi have yet to tie the knot, so this 18-year-old, republican MILF is still available–rumor is she puts out.

Sarah Palin isn’t the only amazing grandparent young Tripp will have as an influence; Grandma Johnston seems to have a surprising life of her own. I think we can all look forward to seeing what the little town of Wasilla has in store for us in the next 18 years. Thanks to the Anchorage Daily News for this gem.

Since it is everyone’s favorite holiday of the year, I thought we should begin the Airing of Grievances for 2008.

[Posted late. My bad. – ED]

This amazing picture of President Frohnmayer was emailed to us by Brian Walker. According to Walker, it’s a screen cap from a 1975 political endorsment outside the old courthouse. If anyone else has awesome pictures of the Frohn, send them our way.

Everyone’s favorite money-wasting douchebag, Bill Sizemore — known for his seemingly unquenchable thirst to put as many ballot measures as he possibly can before Oregon voters — got thrown in jail today for contempt of court.

Oh well.

I don’t like Adbusters. In fact, I hate it. It’s whole Naomi Klein-esque, anti-capitalism posturing is laughable. But Douglas Haddow should get a Pulitzer for his cover story, “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization.” It includes such priceless exchanges with braindead hipsters as:

Standing outside an art-party next to a neat row of locked-up fixed-gear bikes, I come across a couple girls who exemplify hipster homogeneity. I ask one of the girls if her being at an art party and wearing fake eyeglasses, leggings and a flannel shirt makes her a hipster.

“I’m not comfortable with that term,” she replies.

Her friend adds, with just a flicker of menace in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t know, you shouldn’t use that word, it’s just…”

“Offensive?”

“No… it’s just, well… if you don’t know why then you just shouldn’t even use it.”

The massive comment thread tends to reinforce the writer’s argument. For example:

Be that as it may, we’re the ones having the time of our fucking lives. No one pretends it’s a ‘counter-culture’ movement, it’s just some kids who like dressing up and know how to have fun. That’s probably why we’re uncomfortable with the ‘hipster’ label.

Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the term because you’re a vapid, contemptible twit.

P.S. For extra fun times, read the article again but replace every instance of the word “hipster” with “Jew.” It suddenly becomes Henry Ford’s unexpurgated autobiography!

According to a new survey, the Oregon Senate race has Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley, who’ve been running two of the most disgusting campaigns I’ve ever seen, running neck and neck (41% and 46%, respectively), “undecided” pulling in 6% of the vote and… David Brownlow of the Constitution Party (?!) polling at 7%.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Constitution Party, whose Presidential candidate won the endorsement of gnomish kingmaker Ron Paul, their motto is “Life. Liberty. Limited Government.” So far, so good. Then you read their platform.

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Coming on the heels of news that there might be a re-make of “Red Dawn”, some tosser in Slate thinks the movie should be seen as an allegory for the invasion of Iraq. Really:

In my memory, Red Dawn celebrated America and its virtues. But its guiding ideology is actually fascism…

[W]hat’s most unsettling about Red Dawn today is not its infatuation with the warrior death cult. It’s that the movie’s historical parallels have been turned upside down. In 1984, the Soviets of Red Dawn represented, well, the Soviets, and the Wolverines represented both the Americans and also the plucky Afghan mujahideen then defeating the Red Army in a guerilla war.  But on re-viewing, Red Dawn isn’t a stark reminder of Cold War fears. Rather, it’s a pretty good movie about Iraq, with the United States in the role of the Soviets and the insurgents in the role of the Wolverines. [emphasis added]

I guess you could see it that way… if you were totally committed to brutally torturing common sense to construct a mountain out of a molehill of superficial similarities for the purpose of weaving together some sort of shallow anti-American narrative “insightful and instructive commentary” about a 1980’s action film.

Notice, too, the subtle swipe at “Conan the Barbarian”. Inexcusable all around.

I’m proud to announce that one of my favorite comedians, and Palin impersonator, Ms. Benincasa, has been picked up by the Huffington Post to have her Palin videos featured in their comedy section 23/6.

While this video isn’t their funniest (it’s funny, but there are much better skits), I just loved this improvised line:

“Come on! People are going out getting raped right and left, I won’t… I can’t pay for all of that, we’ve got an arena to build!”

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.