Vacation, all I ever wanted…

November 16, 2006

I have bad news and good news. The bad news is I’ll be stepping away from my desk for four whole days, Thursday to Sunday. It will be my longest time away from the blog in over three years. (It’s up to Dale and TAIO to try and guess exactly what I’ll be doing with my time off…)

The good news is I’ve lined up some great guest posters for your reading pleasure. Agreeing to fill in during my break are Balloon Juice’s John Cole, Anonymous Liberal, and The Reaction’s Michael J.W. Stickings.

As for the weekend, “Morbo” will have some words of wisdom on Saturday morning, and with any luck, my small army of guest posters will be dropping in with some additional posts. I might make an appearance at some point, but don’t hold me to it.

And with that, I’m off. Be nice to the subs. Their lessons will be on the final exam.

right, and the clinician said the methadone was just as good as the smack.

btw, cbr might be the only venue of any sort on the planet that hasn’t rung in on the michigan-osu game. i say, michigan.

  • Okay, so you’re going to go to a meeting of Really Nice People who Control the Planet, where you will gather a Commando Strike Team of Congressional Pages who hate all things Republican. Armed with the Missing WMDs that Georgie Porgie could not find if they were sitting in Rumsfeld’s basement (what do you think that long-ago handshake was all about—eh?), they will attack Rush Limbaugh and use his radio station to announce the Revolution in which Mr. Clinton is officially re-established as “THE PRESIDENT”—thus causing an eternal sunset of irreversible proportions to fall upon the Republican Reich. Film at 11.

    Aw, heck—go and have a good break. If you see Limbaugh, though, slap him. Repeatedly, and remorselessly. Please….

  • i especially want to welcome john cole. there aren’t enough honest conservatives in america; john is one of them. i’m glad that steve is providing him this platform for real debate.

  • My fellow Americans. I take my responsibility for speculating on CB’s vacation activities very seriously. So I’m going to wait for the first long-range paparrazi photos to come in before I start outrageous rumours.

    Oh god, the internecine struggles have begun. I feel like I’m in Iraq. Michigan? Buckeyes? Can’t we all just along?

  • Ohioan,

    Normally I just root for Iowa in the Big Ten (my wife’s alma mater), but I’m pulling for OSU this weekend.
    Should be a great game, not to the level of the 1971 Nebraska-Oklahoma “Game of the Century”, but then again I’m a biased Husker fan.

    CB,
    thanks, now I can’t get the Go-Gos out of my head.
    WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME????????

  • When I lived in Seattle, if you wanted to change the topic of an uncomfortable conversation you’d say something like “So how ’bout them Mariners?” Since I don’t follow sports, it somehow seems appropriate. 😉

    Anyhoo, enjoy your time off, CB. It’s well deserved.

  • I promise I’ll be nice to the subs.

    **hides typographical spitballs under his desk**

    Although I’ll probably be truant later today and tomorrow.

    On the football angle, I just want a great game — I’m thinking Michigan’s defense will probably be able to contain the OSU offense, but there’s a reason I don’t bet on sports. 🙂

  • So who is guest-posting for you Unholy Moses?

    First long-range paparazzi photo in. Appears to be CB’s unoccupied beach blanket. 3 objects: a discarded Speedo, a little paper umbrella and a Money Order for $15.00 made out to Friends of Katherine Harris. Developing.

  • Since aym brought up the Ohio-Michigan game, let raise a question which I think is very important. Does the NCAA and big time college athletic program deserve the tax-exempt status they currently have? This status is granted on the assumption that athletics helps to server the educational mission of the schools. This claim stretches credulity. The outgoing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Bill Thomas has addressed this issue in a letter to Myles Brand the president of the NCCA. Should Rangle pick up where Thomas left off?

  • Good issue, rege #12

    Big time college sports is pro sports. Treat it like it.

    Fox is a network. Same rules for them as the other networks.

    There’s a lot of rethinking that needs to be done. Emphasis on ‘thinking’.

  • Our intrepid defenders of freedom The Carpet Baggers made their way up the Potomac in The Monkey Shocker, their state of the art submarine armed with venom-tipped idiot seeking missiles. So silently did the sub slip through the foul waters it startled the dreaded snakehead fish that were busy eating baby ducklings and a few members of Georgetown University’s rowing team. Miles above the Earth’s surface, the Carpet Baggers’ satellite – The Clinton I – gazed down, searched, located, transmitted.
    Electronic notes began to chime within the cabin. The noise, strident to the untrained ear, caused our heroes to smile. The sound told them there were many targets within striking distance.
    On a holographic display that would make George Lucas bite his beard in envy, a 1/25 scale image of the White House floated in mid-air. In one room a bloated silhouette lurked. Cheney. Hastert perhaps. Hard to tell one globular, greedy arsehole from another at this distance. But it did not matter. Soon both these stains on the pages of history and more would be neat piles of ash that could be used as compost. Unlike their enemies, our heroes care about the planet and they worked long and hard to create a weapon that would not contribute to global warming. Those late nights in the secret lab – constructed of environmentally friendly materials – were about to pay off.
    A new and shriller note joined the cacophony. “There he is,” cried the first mate of the vessel, love of Carpet Bagger’s life and weapons specialists extraordinaire. Ms. Carpet Bagger pointed at a smaller figure with simian like ears and a sloping brow. The Master of Idiots and The Fat Bastard in the same room! Her finger hovered over the launch button eager to unleash overdue destruction on the more than deserving. But she hesitated, turned to her Capitan and knew they were sharing the same thought: What if Rice showed up? Or Rumsfeld? Or even…Dobson? It would be a shame to strike down two rats if they could bag a few more.
    “Rove might drop by,” the Capitan of the Monkey Shocker said thoughtfully. “Computer, locate Karl Rove, code name Turd Blossom.” After a parcel of pico-seconds the computer replied in a voice that sounded just like the greatest president ever. The Carpet Baggers found the faint Arkansas drawl soothing: “Rove, AKA Turd Blossom is currently at the Undisclosed Location, polishing the Master of Idiots’ bike to make up for his bungling of Mission 2006 and Beyond.”
    The Captain thanked his electronic helper and shrugged. They had long known where the UL was, they could take that out later. He glanced at the display again before giving the order to fire, paused, squinted. His first mate peered over his head and felt the ripples of nausea fill her throat. There was a third creature in the room with The Fat One and the Master of Idiots.
    “Honey, is that…a goat?”
    It was, indeed a goat.
    The intrepid couple recoiled in horror and disgust.
    “Take them, out, take them out now!” The Capitan roared.
    “Firing rockets!”
    The First Mate brought her fist down on the launch button. The goat kicked and butted its tormentors and welcomed oblivion.
    A moment before the missiles struck The Master of Idiots looked up giggled, and tried to speak: “Stay the, umm. Stay the–”

    From – What The Carpet Baggers Did on Vacation. Not coming soon to a bookstore near you.

  • Carpetbagger: You are such a treasure to us all. Have a great vacation knowing that you helped your country begin to turn things around. People in the MSM dis the “liberal blogs” but thanks to you and a few others, we the people got to find our voice.

  • re college sports, i can tell you from experience that at the very large university where i went to grad school, the football team came through with the cash for my department to have summer classes. that same team really really needs michigan to win to advance their own cause.

  • aym, I don’t know where you went to grad school, but the situation you describe is certainly the exception. Very few schools with big football and/or basketball programs break even let alone run a surplus. Further the schools which do run a surplus typically feed the money back into the non-revenue sports. On the other hand, big sports has a corrosive effect on academic standards. Derek Bok discusses this at some length in his book “Universities in the Marketplace.” Hence contrary to the claim that big time athletics helps the school in achieving it academic mission, it has quite the opposite effect. University presidents are, for the most part, helpless in reigning their athletic departments-again see Bok’s book. Rolling back the tax-exempt status of these programs would be a step in the right direction.

  • Enjoy your vacation, CB. It’ certainly is well deserved. Mine, which isn’t, begins today also and goes through the 29th. I’ll be leaving the Great Pacific Northwest (actually, Bellingham WA where we had 100 mph winds yesterday … great send-off: no power all day and night) and going to “the O.C.” (Orange County CA for those who don’t follow the gripping teenage soap opera). I’d say nanner, nanner, nanne, except that you’re probably going someplace even nicer. Have a good Thanksgiving, everyone (or is that now politically incorrect? aw, who cares?).

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