Fiddling around with Grand Central from Google

As you might see on the sidebar, I've installed a Call Me! button.

This is kind of a mindf***er, really. Google Grand Central assigns me a telephone number (in my Seattle area code even) and if you click the button on my sidebar a 'bot will call you and connect you to the All This Is That voice mailbox. I can access all this from my smartphone or my computer or a a public PC. I chose the direct to voice mail option for calls from this blog (since Pablo Fanque and whatever scurrilous slander he decides to post generates plenty of hate mail.

They claim I have this phone number for life. This one phone number will ring me direct or via voicemail at any or all phones I use --work, home, and cell. I can even switch phones in the middle of a call. And it will call all my phones at the same time, if I choose that option, whichever one you pick up becomes your phone. I'm not explaining this well.

Other cool stuff--if you leave a message, I can post it directly to my blog with one button push. And I can download all the messages as MP3 files. A side benefit is that I can once again phone in voice calls to this blog (which has been defunct for two years). I tested this tonight (see below), but this looks to be interesting technology anyhow...if only for a voicemail box with no public number (and callers have the option of giving no name or number). Obviously I don't totally get it...but it's pretty cool. Or at least it seems like it tonight. Tomorrow morning, it may just seem about as exciting as Friendster.

I kind of stumbled reading this poem, since I'd never read it out loud before (and every time I do, I find several things I want to change because I don't like saying them out loud!). And my phone was fading in and out a bit, since I am in a weak cell area...but it kind of shows a little of what Grand Central can do. So, if you're ever in the mood, call the All This Is That Voicemail Box.




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Video & Lyrics: Bob Dylan's I Want You

[jack writing in from Austin, Texas]

This is one of those YouTube pseudo-videos...a song, with a photomontage. In this case, the song is great, and the photos they used are mostly choice. (Lyrics follow). I want You is one of my top ten favorite Dylan songs...




I Want You
by Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1966; renewed 1994 Dwarf Music

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonesome organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now all my fathers, they've gone down
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I . . .
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.
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Keith Olberman nominates John McCain as the worst person in the world after changing his third denial in as many days!

One of my favorite television political wonks—Keith Olberman—named John McCain as the winner of his worst person in the world award today. In this case, John McCain denied knowing the man who introduced him at a rally and used Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, to whip the crowd into a frenzy. McCain denounced him and denied knowing him. Well, not quite. As it turned out, the McCain campaign hired him as a fluffer more or less "to throw red meat to the crowd." And John McCain had met him twice "at a rally or something."

Jump here to see Keith Olberman's video piece.
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Oregon Mayor fired over her underwear (or, rather, where she wore them)

The Katu.com website has a story today about the mayor of a small Oregon town who was recalled Monday over [pictures of her that appeared on her MySpace page 0n the internet.

She told KATU News Tuesday she had no regrets and seemed to harbor no hard feelings about the recall.

"My reaction is that the democratic process took place, and that is a good process that we have in the United States, and it's fair," she said.

I'm just glad it wasn't my Mayor:

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Debate 20—a lumbering snoozefest—we call it a draw—guaranteed to anaesthetize the newly enfranchised democrats—a weird sense of calm prevails

click painting to enlarge

[jack writing in from Austin, Texas] Hillary's opening was almost beyond bizarre. Unfortunately it seemed off the cuff, and in fairness, she has had the first question in the majority of the last debates (still including up to 7 people). But still.

The rest of it, I'd score them each a point here, a point there. One thing that really struck me—and a commentator on MSNBC also mentioned it—was that Obama never seems to generate real excitement in the debates. When he appears in public, speaking to a packed stadium, yeah, El Hombre es en fuego! But he doesn't transmit that same excitement in debates. I think he probably can. But I don't see it. He comes across as way cool. I actually count it against him that he never loses his cool in these unscripted public events. Is he the kind of man who only catches fire when he is front of an admiring throng? Or is it that he's more comfortable speaking to The People? If that's true, he may be right. It's probably long past time to think we can change the corrupt Washington system by working with congress. Maybe Obama really can take it to the people, and rally the country around real change.
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Desperate Clinton campaign's thoughts and actions now more closely resemble the last days in the Fuhrer Bunker than a Democratic politcal operation

<--Click your favorite Senator to enlarge-->

It's a little sad for a long-time supporter to see The Clinton Machine throwing this hydra-headed fusillade of slung mud, desperate Hail Marys, and straws for the wind.

I do believe in hardball, but I believe what the campaign is promulgating is a scorched earth policy--wrought from wrath without a hope of turning around her bungled campaign--that will come back to damage Obama when he faces off with John McCain. [1]

It wouldn't have been so unseemly a couple months ago, when Senator Clinton was leading Senator Obama by 15 points, but coming now, when, really, all is lost, it seems crass, desperate, and guided more by anger and entitlement than wisdom.

I will be in Austin in the afternoon tomorrow--which should be interesting. Austin is an Obama hotbed. Who knows, there may even be a candidate around..though I doubt it. Hillary's lost Austin, Obama won't bother showing up in a town he can win hands down, and I doubt if McCain ever bothers to appear.

At this point, I only regret that Hillary is in the race for two more weeks, doing incalculable damage. . . as our reader/frequent Kev points out, Obama doesn't really need anyone's endorsement right now, But he does indeed need "all hands on deck" as Kev wisely said, come the general.

Well, it's time to get all hands on deck and slap a muzzle on Hillary Clinton. Over the last few days she:

►Denounced Obama over the weekend for an anti-Clinton flier about the Nafta trade treaty;

►On Sunday, sarcastically portrayed his message of hope as naïve;

►On Monday, Senator Clinton delivered a scorching speech comparing Mr. Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience to that of the candidate George W. Bush;

►In Clinton’s Monday speech , she also portrayed herself as “tested and ready” to be commander in chief, while accusing Mr. Obama of believing “that mediation and meetings without preconditions will solve some of the world’s most intractable problems”;

►And the capper was a photograph of Mr. Obama in ceremonial African garb that appeared on the Drudge Report (see our post on this in yesterday's All This Is That), and the item’s author, Matt Drudge, claimed that the image was provided by a Clinton staff member.

Clinton advisers said the attacks were an effort (among other things) to knock Mr. Obama off balance before the debate on Tuesday. Good luck! In the world of videogames (I'm told) there is something known as a finishing move. A finishing move is the coup de grace performed on a crippled enemy. With the Clinton campaign in desperation mode, we just may see Obama apply the finishing move tonight. We may have to wait until March 4th for the twitching to stop, but I have a real feeling Obama may put an end to the madness tomorrow.

[ED'S NOTE: And the Obamanites have to realize sooner or later that this isn't some kind of landslide in the making. Start your real work now! He's had an incredible run and he's an incredible politician--at least on the wholesale level. We don't know how his retail politics fare; how he works on the ground, getting things done with the best and the brightest. We'd bet he's pretty good. He hasn't been a backbencher in the Senate, but let's face it, he hasn't been there very long at all either. He's shown character, charm and elan, and in the end, he's been a political mastermind. If he pulls this off, and leaps from the state legislature to the Presidency in four years...WHEW! He just wrote the book on something George McGovern tried, and Forbes, Perot, Anderson, Nader, Ron Paul, Howard Dean, and others couldn't pull off--a populist, people-based run for the oval office.

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Video: On the set of Grandma's Boy and the roll it all up scene

This is a clip shot during filming my recent favorite knucklehead film. Grandma's Boy is a film focused on marijuana, videogames, office politics (think Office Space grafted onto the gane world) and, in a strange way, family.



And another video,of one of my favorite scenes in the film Grandma's Boy:



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The Clinton Smear Machine Turns The Dial To 11

In another desperate move, someone in the Hillary campaign has circulated a two year old photo of Barack Obama in native Somalian costume. The photo was taken in rural Kenya. Obama was on a five country tour of Africa.

According to the Drudge Report, an email by one staffer asked "Wouldn't we be seeing this on the cover of every magazine if it were HRC?"

Obama's people, of course, accused the Clinton campaign Monday of "shameful offensive fear-mongering." Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams shot back: "If Barack Obama's campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed."

The Clinton campaign team really has devolved into a cheap-jack mudslinging machine. At this point, if the Senator were running against Idiocracy's Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho, I'd probably vote for Camacho.

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Ralph Nader enters the Presidential race to save us from ourselves

Ralph Nader announced this morning on "Meet The Press" that he is launching a third-party campaign for president on the Sunday talk "Meet the Press" in Washington, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2008.

Nader ran as a third-party candidate in 2000 and 2004, and probably cost Al Gore the election by siphoning away nearly three percent of the vote. So why wouldn't we want to elect the guy responsible for putting George Bush in the White House.

Barack Obama, responded Saturday to Nader's earlier criticisms that he lacked "substance," and praised (and damned) Nader: "In many ways he is a heroic figure and I don't mean to diminish him. But I do think there is a sense now that if somebody is not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, then you must be lacking in some way."

Senator Clinton called Nader's announcement a "passing fancy" and said "obviously, it's not helpful to whomever our Democratic nominee is. But it's a free country," she told reporters in Rhode Island.

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, speaking before Nader's announcement, said Nader's past runs have shown that he usually pulls votes from the Democrat. "So naturally, Republicans would welcome his entry into the race."

"If the Democrats can't landslide the Republicans this year, they ought to just wrap up, close down, emerge in a different form," Nader said.

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The best of times, the worst of times for Senator McCain

This has to be both one of the best and one of the worst weeks in John McCain's life. He emerges as the last man standing, only needing to dispose of the minor Huckabee insurgency to claim the nomination. And then the New York Times drags up the old conflict of interest and possible adultery charges from 1999, and all of sudden McCain has a noose around his neck. The bright spot for the Senator is that the far right and the neocons, and people like Limbaugh and Hannity are now circling the wagons against the onslaught...they may have been very unhappy with McCain as the presumptive nominee, but there is no way they're going to let that pinko newspaper damage McCain.

One thing you can bet on, and it happens in every one of these cases. There had to be a near-arctic-blast of air blowing between John and Cindy at the breakfast table this week.

Check out our exclusive interview with the Senator. Pablo Fanques spoke to Sen. McCain yesterday. You can find the interview here: John McCain tells All This Is That's national affairs editor "OK. I drilled Vicki Iseman. So what?"
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John McCain tells All This Is That's national affairs editor "OK. I drilled Vicki Iseman. So what?"

In an interview today with All This Is That's national affairs editor, Pablo Fanques, Senator John McCain at first mocked the New York Times recent revelations about a possible relationship he had had with the lobbyist Vicki Iseman.

Fanques: So is there any whiff of truth to the story?

Sen. McCain: Sure, I guess there's a whiff of truth. She is a woman, and a good looking woman. It's more convenient to pin her on me than it would be a male lobbyist. That's for sure. Every person on the hill deals with lobbyists.

Fanques: But the New York Times also alludes to something deeper than a drink with a lobbyist.

Sen. McCain: Sure they do. Have you read the 'paper lately? They allude to a lot of things. And the Times has a stake in getting their boy Obama elected. They shredded Hillary Clinton, and now they're coming after me.

Fanques: But that still doesn't really answer my question.

Sen. McCain: But isn't this interview supposed to be about how I would support the arts after I'm elected?

Fanques: It is, indeed. But this seems a little more important.

Sen. McCain: Than what?! This is a f***ing sideshow you're running here. Let's talk about The Issues.

Fanques: We are. This has become the issue.

Sen. McCain: Look. I've become a threat to the Democrats and to the New York Times. So you drag up a ten year old story and start flogging it. It's not relevant to the campaign.

Fanques: So just what WAS your relationship with Ms. Iseman?

Sen. McCain: I think I explained that. Several times this week.

Fanques: But the New York Times and some of your staffers seem to think otherwise.

Sen. McCain: You're talking about Pravda here. A paper that is ashamed of the United States. And some traitor staff members who will be rapidly disposed of. Pardon me for ending that sentence with a preposition.

Fanques: But Senator, you've explained that you did some business with a lobbyist. Now, it seems, you need to explain the accusations that have been lodged against you about having a romantic relationship with Ms.Iseman.

Sen. McCain: Really. OK. I drilled Vicki Iseman. So what? Do I get the same pass you gave Slick Willy? Do I get the same pass you've been giving Obama and Hillary?

Fanques: Pass? I don't recall hearing these sorts of allegations against them?

Sen. McCain: Then you have your head in the sand. Because it's all out there. This interview is over. [click].
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President Bush's Happy Feet & speculations on the debate and endgame between Hillary and Barack

Our President Bush gets happy feet on his visit to Liberia in Africa. Hey, what's he got to lose? I wish our Democratic candidates could also get happy feet going. Tonight's debate was interesting. Hillary, at one point, totally blew it, and at a later point hit at least a three-bagger that would have been a home run if she hadn't blown it so badly with her Xerox comment earlier...(this ought to smoke Kev out of the woodwork!). And she ended the debate on an incredibly moving grace note. But a zinger here and a tear there don't turn around the kind of explosive juggernaut we are seeing with Barack Obama. I'm getting excited about Obama. But I've talked myself into being excited before, as you've read, for even hopeless causes like Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. I guess what I really want is for Obama or Clinton to have a Bulworth Moment, or a Peter Gibbons moment, or an American Beauty moment...where they throw caution to the wind, and let the freak flag of truth fly and damn the consequences.

I could just about personally guarantee to deliver Obama or Hillary five million votes if they would just get up on stage in a beer-stained Grateful Dead t-shirt, fire up a bong and then deliver a torched version of a state of the union address, at the end of which the audience would be rolling in the aisles, convulsed with insane laughing fits! Wouldn't it be nice?

A bittersweet note on Hillary Clinton's likely departure is that there will be no Clinton-McCain tilt, which by all reports (due to their friendship and great mutual respect) would have probably been the cleanest Presidential and most civilized campaign in the history of the United States. . .

It's just about the end of the line for Hillary, but you never know what happens next. Two days ago, John McCain stepped into it with the New York Times' revelations about the lobbyist--they imply he was "making the beast with two backs with her. Political wonks remember this story from nine years ago. It seems like old old news. But the press drumbeat seems to just be beginning. And the New York Times seems to be standing fast on their story.
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