Since you asked....

In a comment to the last post, Laurie said:

Off we go. I had at least heard of Kinky Friedman. I am blissfully ignorant when it comes to politics. I'm sure you'll get me up to speed on Ron Paul in no time.

You can read the official bio on the House website, but as a real introduction, I'd recommend Thomas Wood's article, The Revolutionary Candidate. Ron Paul is a Republican Congressman (whose district now includes Galveston) that the party establishment loves to hate because he just won't play ball. And, of course, that makes him a crank, so the media ignores him. But he has a lot of support among the politically disaffected libertarian types. So much support, in fact, that when the neo-con Pajamas Media ran their presidential straw poll, he trounced all the other Republican candidates, pulling in almost as many votes as Giuliani, Romney, and Gingrich, combined. You won't see that on the Pajamas Media website though, because those results were unacceptable. Since he's not a "serious" candidate, he could not be allowed to win, and he was purged from the poll.

Political News: Ron Paul has made it official.

My favorite politician, Ron Paul, has announced that he's running for President. He's the only person running (or likely to run) that: (1) I actually like, and (2) I don't actively despise.

He's the only one in the race on the Republican side who doesn't think war is a good idea, and, so far as I know, the only candidate from either major party who voted against it before the troops were sent over. That means that, unlike most candidates running, he's smart enough to recognize that any "victory" we might win will be Phyrric, and among the rest, he's the only one who had the backbone to oppose the war when the rest of them were too stupid, spineless, or politically calculating to do what was best for the country. (When I hear Democrats talking about how Bush played on their fears and fooled them into voting for the war, I can't help but wonder why such self-described cowardly fools think they're competent to be President.)

If you have a few bucks sitting around that you don't know what to do with, send 'em here.




Edited to add: Dennis Kucinich voted against the war too. I suppose I overlooked him because I have a hard time taking him seriously.

Fun with advertising.

This is a Pepsi commercial:



The song is "Ca Plane Pour Moi," performed by The President's of The United States of America. But that's not the version I remember. That tune goes with some very different words. I remember it as "Jet Boy Jet Girl" by Elton Montello.

According to my research (which consisted of consulting this article), Jet Boy Jet Girl is the original, but the lyrics (which can be found here), were a little too colorful for radio play, so an Elton Montello band member came up with alternate lyrics and, under the name Plastic Bertrand, recorded the song with inoffensively meaningless lyrics as "Ca Plane Pour Moi," which became a minor worldwide smash (peaking at 39 on Billboard's Hot 100), and which the Presidents of the United States of America covered on the Pepsi commercial.

You can listen to a snippet of Elton Motello's studio version here. When Elton Montello broke up, the author of this masterpiece, Alan Ward, went on to form the band The Damned (featuring Captain Sensible), whose poorly recorded live version of "Jet Boy Jet Girl" is available on YouTube, and is included here for your amusement:



Someone involved with this commercial had to know where the tune came from, but I expect it wasn't the guys at Pepsi who pull down the big bucks. Now their fine product is firmly linked in my mind with the words:

Jet boy jet girl
I'm gonna take you 'round the world
Jet boy I'm gonna make you penetrate
I'm gonna make you be a girl
Ooooohhhh
He gives me head

I don't know why, but I find stuff like this terribly amusing.

I think I'll have a Coke.