She throws like a wise Latina

Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to be named a Supreme Court justice, performed in a much different capacity at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Sotomayor was a smiling Yankees fan who got to toss out the first pitch before the Yankees played the Boston Red Sox.

After Jorge Posada escorted Sotomayor to a spot about 15 feet in front of the mound, Sotomayor, who was wearing a Yankees jersey, paused and took a deep breath. She then flipped the ball to catcher Jose Molina, who was crouching in front of the plate.

Swiss detain Roman Polanski, will extradite to US

A 30-plus year-old puritanical grudge is relit:

Director Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss police as he flew in for the Zurich Film Festival and faces possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, authorities said Sunday.

Polanski was scheduled to receive an honorary award at the festival when he was apprehended Saturday at the airport, the Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement. It said U.S. authorities have sought the arrest of the 76-year-old director around the world since 2005.

“There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming,” ministry spokesman Guido Balmer told The Associated Press. “That’s why he was taken into custody.” Balmer said the U.S. would now have to make a formal extradition request.

If you have not seen the HBO documentary on this subject, do so. It is remarkable in what it reveals -- about the case, about the people involved, including the now fortyish woman who was at the center of the late '70's maelstrom, even about the life and cinematic career of the enigmatic director.

But most remarkable of all were the comments of the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, a devout Mormon named Roger Gunson:

"I'm not surprised (Polanski) left under those circumstances."

What were "the circumstances"?

Judge (Laurence J.) Rittenband, who'd presided over the Elvis and Priscilla divorce and a paternity suit against Cary Grant, badly wanted to try the case. He loved publicity and the media storm was already at gale force. ... Polanski pleaded guilty to "unlawful sexual intercourse"; probation was the recommendation. But the judge began to maneuver behind the scenes: he wanted to look tough for the press, though not necessarily send Polanski to prison. He asked a reporter for advice on what sentence he should give; he gave regular interviews to a Hollywood gossip columnist. The day before the sentencing—despite an agreement with Dalton and Gunson—Rittenband was overheard bragging at his country club that he was going to lock up Polanski for the rest of his life.

A maniacal, ethically corrupt judge, defiantly violating a defendant's constitutional rights to a fair hearing. Yep, a Republican.

Glenn Beck would be so proud.

Satire-too-close-to-reality Friday

I threw in a little irony-you-wish-wasn't-real and a couple of non-sequiturs for good measure.

SNL's Weekend Update took on President Obama's decision to exclude Fox News from his Sunday media tour last night. Despite granting interviews to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Univision he left Fox off his roster ... (the cast) took on specific aspects of Beck's character: his propensity to misspell things, to use that muppet-like voice, and, of course, invoke Hitler.

-- BREAKING: Democrats Hoping To Take Control Of Congress From Republican Minority In 2010

-- Thank goodness that Senate Finance Committee Democrats Max Baucus and Tom Carper and Bob Menendez are looking out for the prescription drug companies and not those evil seniors trying to buy meds.

-- Finally, be aware that earlier this week Republicans at last discovered the secret that pornography makes people gay. And of course it then follows that gay marriage is socialist. Extending this out to its illogical conclusion, Larry Flynt is quite obviously a Stalinist.

"Either the scientists are wrong, or Texas is wrong."

" ...and we all know that Texans just aren’t wrong.”

No, not Rick Perry. Not John Cornyn. Not even Michelle Bachmann or Glenn Beck.

Nope. It was Todd Staples (speaking right after the governor blew his own stupid, however):

The governor’s harsh remarks opened a daylong joint meeting of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the Texas Railroad Commission and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to discuss the potential impact of the climate bill. Texas, the second-most populous state, leads the nation in carbon emissions, with 676 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel combustion in 2007. The state also leads the nation in oil and natural gas production, petroleum refining and petrochemical manufacturing. All are heavy emitters of carbon dioxide.

Perry’s denunciation of the Waxman-Markey bill seemed timed to coincide with a conference at the United Nations today in which President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China pledged action on reducing carbon emissions. Perry’s talk underscored the uphill battle the legislation faces in the Senate.

Under Waxman-Markey, industries will ultimately be required to pay a fee for carbon emissions, under a regime similar to that currently in place for other airborne pollutants. Opponents of the bill contend that such a policy is tantamount to a new energy tax.

“This misguided piece of legislation would essentially be the single largest tax in the history of our nation,” Perry said. “These energy taxes will cause every product that uses energy to become more expensive.”

“If the United States Senate were to take leave of its senses and pass this bill, it would precipitate an economic disaster in the state of Texas.”

But leave it to the state's commissioner to agriculture to top that.

Just when you think you've had your last breath taken away by the arrogant ignorance of a Texas Republican, another one comes along and says, in his best Darwin-Award-winning challenge, "Hey! Watch this!"

Everything is bigger here and that goes for fools too. Look for more of this nonsense as Waxman-Markey takes center stage in right-wing nuttery Fauxtrage.

Save our poor picked-on health insurance companies!

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

After all, no health insurance company should be forced to sacrifice one penny of their billions in profits just because sick Americans need health care.

Besides Ferrell, you may recognize Jon Hamm of "Mad Men," Olivia Wilde of "House," Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant of "Reno 911," Masi Oka of "Heroes," Jordana Spiro of "My Boys," Linda Cardellini of "ER," and Donald Faison of "Scrubs."

Kay Bailey sucker-punched Gov. MoFo with the video edit

I didn't think she had it in her, frankly. KHOU first ...

A spokesperson for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison confirmed that her campaign videotaped a speech by Gov. Rick Perry in Houston Thursday, and released a section of video in which the Governor questioned whether Texas is in a recession. ...

Laughter can be heard in the room, and then the tape stops.

... and then Burka:

After Perry asks, “Are we in one?” — referring to a recession — and the laughter, Perry says:

But seriously, the fact is that because we have positioned ourselves so well economically, we’re going to be the first state that starts showing that major recovery, and the rest of the states will follow [behind us? beside us?] whenever that is going to be.

The tape was unquestionably edited after “Are we in one?” to eliminate the words, “but seriously….”

Yep. That was a solid kick to the groan. And Burka is correct that we'll all remember the governor's gaffe and not the senator's trick.

Jason Embry notes that it's game on, again from the elitist perspective, in both camps:

A race between two well-funded — I mean, really well-funded — politicians for an office this big would be heated no matter the personal relationship of the candidates. And yet it can’t help matters that, if you listen closely, it’s clear that Perry and Hutchison each feel that the other has no business running. You could say that each has expressed a certain entitlement to the Republican nomination.

Expect some solid counter-punching shortly from the girly-man, especially in the wake of polling that shows Kay Bailey back in the lead.

The Weekly Wrangle

The fall is upon us, and so the Texas Progressive Alliance closes out another summer with some more hot blogging.

Halliburton was fracking for Cabot and...Oh Oops! We Spilled Some! TWICE! Deadly Hydraulic Fracture Fluid! Ironically, industry just released part of their $80 million propaganda campaign asking people to submit "Eureka" moments. From TXsharon at Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS.

Congressman "Deer in the headlights" Pete Olson (R-TX) gets called out at his town hall meeting and the police are called in! Johncoby at Bay Area Houston posts the deets.

The Texas Cloverleaf wonders when police departments will enter the 21st century. A San Antonio lesbian couple sues in federal court over blatant harassment in their own home.

This week at McBlogger, Mayor McSleaze took the time out of his life to educate you people on some things going on around the country.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes Rick Perry won't admit execution might have been a mistake. To be a Republican is never to say you're sorry.

At Texas Vox, nuclear energy and economic experts explain just how much is at stake with the South Texas Nuclear Project expansion: the entire San Antonio economy.

Off the Kuff takes note of some hot judge-on-prosecutor action going on at the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Neil at Texas Liberal ran a one-minute video this week, filmed in front of hurricane remembrances in Galveston, Texas, in which he made a plea for folks to be aware of the past.

Kay Bailey has two purse boys, and Rick Perry is unaware there is a recession. Sometimes the cluelessness and utter hypocrisy of Texas Republicans still amazes the cynical PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.

WhosPlayin had video of parents handing all kinds of hell to Lewisville ISD board and administration over banning the Obama pep talk. Perhaps the bigger story though is that like many other school districts in the state, the financial situation looks bleak for the coming year.

Over at Texas Kaos, Bulldog reminds us that health care -- like national defense -- is NOT about profit, but about the security of the American people. She tells her story and does it well in Health Care Rambling.

Henry Gibson, Patrick Swayze, and Mary Travers

Gibson, who more recently played a recurring role as cantankerous Judge Clark Brown on "Boston Legal," was part of the original ensemble cast of “Laugh In,” which ran ... from 1968 to 1973. ...

In the show's famous cocktail party scenes, when the music would stop and each cast member would deliver a funny line, Gibson was a religious figure holding a teacup and saucer. "My congregation supports all denominations," he said on one show, "but our favorites are twenties and fifties."

But Gibson was best known as the poet, holding a large flower and beginning his brief recitations with his signature catchphrase, "A poem, by Henry Gibson." ...

Gibson also played an Illinois Nazi in "The Blues Brothers," a menacing neighbor in "The 'Burbs" and a priest in "The Wedding Crashers." He also was the voice of Wilbur the Pig in the animated "Charlotte's Web."

A three-time Golden Globe nominee, Swayze became a star with his performance as the misunderstood bad boy Johnny Castle in "Dirty Dancing." ... It became an international phenomenon in the summer of 1987, spawning albums, an Oscar-winning hit song in "(I've Had) the Time of My Life," stage productions and a sequel, 2004's "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights," in which he made a cameo.

Swayze performed and co-wrote a song on the soundtrack, the ballad "She's Like the Wind," inspired by his wife, Lisa Niemi. The film also gave him the chance to utter the now-classic line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."

Swayze followed that up with the 1989 action flick "Road House," in which he played a bouncer at a rowdy bar. But it was his performance in 1990's "Ghost" that showed his vulnerable, sensitive side. He starred as a murdered man trying to communicate with his fiancee ( Demi Moore) – with great frustration and longing – through a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg.

Swayze said at the time that he fought for the role of Sam Wheat (director Jerry Zucker wanted Kevin Kline) but once he went in for an audition and read six scenes, he got it.

Why did he want the part so badly? "It made me cry four or five times," he said of Bruce Joel Rubin's Oscar-winning script in an AP interview.

"Ghost" provided yet another indelible musical moment: Swayze and Moore sensually molding pottery together to the strains of the Righteous Brothers' "Unchained Melody." It also earned a best-picture nomination and a supporting-actress Oscar for Goldberg, who said she wouldn't have won if it weren't for Swayze.

"When I won my Academy Award, the only person I really thanked was Patrick," Goldberg said in March 2008 on the ABC daytime talk show "The View."

Swayze himself earned three Golden Globe nominations, for "Dirty Dancing," "Ghost" and 1995's "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," which further allowed him to toy with his masculine image. The role called for him to play a drag queen on a cross-country road trip alongside Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo.

His heartthrob status almost kept him from being considered for the role of Vida Boheme.

"I couldn't get seen on it because everyone viewed me as terminally heterosexually masculine-macho," he told The Associated Press then. But he transformed himself so completely that when his screen test was sent to Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin pictures produced "To Wong Foo," Spielberg didn't recognize him.

There was also this number, with the late Chris Farley, from SNL:

Though their music sounded serene, Peter, Paul and Mary represented the frustration and upheaval of the 1960s, as a generation of liberal activists used their music not only to protest political policies, but also to spark social change. And even as the issues changed, and the fiery protests abated, the group remained immersed in musical activism. ...



The trio mingled their music with liberal politics, both onstage and off. Their version of "If I Had a Hammer" became an anthem for racial equality. Other hits included "Lemon Tree," "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and "Puff (The Magic Dragon)."

They were early champions of Dylan and performed his "Blowin' in the Wind" at the March on Washington in August 1963.

And they were vehement in their opposition to the Vietnam War, managing to stay true to their liberal beliefs while creating music that resonated in the American mainstream.

The trio's self-titled debut album — named the 19th best album of the '60s by Rolling Stone — was released in 1962 and became an instant hit thanks to "If I Had a Hammer" and another single, "Lemon Tree." Along with folk tunes, Peter, Paul and Mary were among the first to cover songs by up-and-coming writers like Laura Nyro and Gordon Lightfoot and they released one of the first covers from Dylan's Basement Tapes (their version of "Too Much of Nothing" appeared in 1967). Their own songs, like "The Great Mandala (The Wheel of Life)" or Stookey and Yarrow's adaptation of the folk song "The Cruel War," were also infused with social commentary, and they wrote and recorded a campaign theme song for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. For their efforts, they were rewarded with a letter of praise from John Kennedy and a stench bomb set off at a show in Oklahoma.

Peter, Paul and Mary disbanded in 1970, after which the trio recorded solo albums. Travers' first, Mary (1971), had a modest pop hit in a cover of John Denver's "Follow Me," and her 1972 album Morning Glory featured "Conscientious Objector (I Shall Die)," based on the writing of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The trio reunited in the late '70s and picked up where they left off, recording, touring and singing at political rallies for the homeless and against apartheid.

Sunday Funnies "I'm not a racist, but ..." edition

Rick Perry's "What recession?" and Kay Bailey's purse boys

I was all set to post about Governor 39%'s Claytie Williams moment ...

"Why is Texas kind of recession-proof, if you will? As a matter of fact ... someone had put a report out that the first state that's coming out of the recession is going to be the state of Texas ... I said, 'We're in one?'"

For hell's sake, I was prepared to agree with Paul Burka that the gaffe was a turning point -- downward and eventually out. Adios, MoFo!

(It's worth mentioning that Burka, still struggling with the New Media, already is trying to cover his ass just in case the video turns out to be a John-Cornyn-box-turtle-style 'dirty trick'.)

But then I found Wayne Slater's post about Matt Latimer's Speechless excerpt on the queen running to replace the king:

As the elevator proceeded downward, the senator turned to her J. Crew aides. They were 'the purse boys.' That was the nickname staffers gave them because their job seemed to consist of carrying Sen. Hutchison's purse around Capitol Hill. They also were known to drive her from her house to work - a distance of approximately two blocks. They were basically taxpayer-subsidized butlers.

This was an unusual day, since normally only one purse boy was with Sen. Hutchison at a time. (The other must have been a trainee). As one of the boys quietly held her large purse, she started to fish through it. Then she issued a list of instructions.

"Now I want you to take my purse back to the office," she said.
"Yes, senator," the purse boy responded.
"Take the nail polish out and put it in the refrigerator."
"Yes, senator."
"Take the rest of the makeup out and put that in the refrigerator too."
"Yes, senator."
"Then put the purse by my desk." She said this as though it were her routine speech.

The purse boy nodded dutifully, and the trainee looked like he wanted a pen to jot all this down. Elizabeth and I gazed at each other uncomfortably. I felt a little like entering your parents' bedroom and finding your mother putting on deodorant. It was something you knew happened, but you didn't really want to think about. Then the elevator doors opened. We moved to the side to let KBH pass. She did so regally, without a word to either of us, the purse boys following close behind. In those few minutes, my enthusiasm for KBH sunk to a previously unfathomable low.

'Speechless' (as an adjective) nails it.

Why exactly is this harridan so 'popular'? It can't because of all of the legislation she has written and co-sponsored; it isn't because she's a conservative heroine.

It may be that she's so 'popular' because the traditional media keeps repeating it over and over again.

These two miserable jerks are nothing except a microcosm of those Texans who have repeatedly voted for them: insensitive, clueless, and hypocritical.

Update: “The answer is ‘Yes,’ Governor. Texas and the nation are in the midst of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, and just this week your administration announced that the number of jobless Texans is at a 22-year high. Those men and women deserve better than a governor who smirks ‘Recession? What recession.’”