He Is Not

I've been away for a while, I know, (regular posting will begin again once bills are paid and more important work accomplished). Still, I wanted to take a moment to counter this outrageous slander by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took his verbal battle with the United States to the floor of the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, calling President Bush "the devil."

Mr. Chavez, I expect a retraction of this statement immediately. George W. Bush is most certainly not the devil.

The devil is smart.

Things that Make Me Smile

Mike McGavick, he of the media confession, apparently lied about just how drunk he was when he was arrested for DUI. The Seattle columnists who congratulated McGavick for his reflectiveness are now pissed.

I never actually gave a damn about his confession. I just assumed he was trying desperately to draw attention to himself and a campaign that never had a compelling reason for being. (Is anybody in Washington State really worried because Maria Cantwell and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens don't like each other? In a fight between the two, half the state would root for Cantwell, and the other half would jump in to help her beat up Stevens.) Still, after having logged all this time as a political hack, McGavick ought to know better than to lie about something that the press--or anyone with time on their hands to file public records requests--can easily find out about. Who does McGavick think he is? George W. Bush?

The strange case of Lee Siegel, the ex-TNR blogger, is another thing that made me smile today. Apparently Mr. Siegel, who spent much of the summer hurling the word "blogofascist" like a single-A pitcher with no command, has been suspended from TNR for sockpuppetry. (Sockpuppetry is the practice of signing onto your own blog, under a fake name, and variously seconding your own posts or attacking dissenters.) I've never witnessesed an act of sockpupptry, but I have seen something kind of similar. Check out this user comment for The Mangler 2 on imdb:

Much etter than the first one, 10 January 2002

Author: mhamiltonw from los angeles

A great idea. Nice intro with the female lead, Chelse Swain, who looks great on film. I don't think the other person who commented on this film actually saw the same movie I did. This was fun, hip, and fast paced once the computer virus was downloaded into the school's computer system. I nice DVD rental if you like these kinds of teen thriller "what if" movies.

I grant you, mhamiltonw is not a very good pseudonym for Michael Hamilton-Wright, the film's director, but given the overall quality of his movie, his unimaginative choice of alias is understandable. While Lee Siegel picked a better nom de plume, the overall effect is still to make himself look not only dishonest, but also ridiculous. It's one thing to send yourself birthday and Christmas cards. It's quite another to show them off in public.

During a period where I'm under a lot of economic stress and am often deeply depressed about the state of things, I need stuff like this to make it all worthwhile. Thanks guys. You're wonderful fuck-ups. Whatever you do, don't ever change.

(Hat tip to Majikthise for the Lee Siegel thing.)