Thursday, January 03, 2008

Back to (my) insanity

Not that I really care much seeing as I don't ever watch the show, but something struck me while reading this little blurb on the return of Elisabeth Hasselbeck to "The View". Why do they refer to her as 'the conservative co-host'? If Whoopi Goldberg returned from maternity leave (this is theoretical only) would it describe her as 'the liberal co-host'? I somehow doubt it. The article goes out of its way to make sure that everyone knows that Elisabeth is a conservative, at least in Hollywood terms. On the left coast anyone to the right of Bill Maher is a 'conservative'.

I am a little more invested on the return of late night TV seeing as I actually do sometimes watch Letterman, Leno et al. I really have no desire to get into the politics of the thing, but hopefully they resolve this soon. Of course most people are taking the side of the striking writers, but I don't really care much about their plight. What makes me sad is that my mother, proud viewer of such quality network fare as CSI, Criminal Minds and House M.D. has been reduced to watching figure skating on Telelatino. Very depressing.

Anyways, Letterman and Craig Ferguson returned with their writers in tow and probably fared a bit better than their NBC counterparts, though Leno (of whom I'm not really a huge fan) did give it his best go with self-written material. Conan O'Brien was just dreadful though, relying on lame tours of his office, his stupid dancing and seeing how long he could spin his wedding ring (!?) on his desk. How these guys continue to beat their far stronger CBS rivals is beyond me and perhaps the advantage of having the writers will make it even clearer as to who the stronger lineup is. I really did like Jimmy Kimmel's point though about the writers continuing to picket Leno and Conan pretty much sums up why I dislike unions.

If the projections are correct (and they usually are, save Florida 2000) it looks like Mike Huckabee will win the Iowa Republican caucus. I'm truly not thrilled here, as I've said time and time again that this guy is a disaster waiting to happen. He's one of those reactionist candidates who looks good in a primary (where one has to run to the extreme of the party) who wouldn't work at all in a general election where you have to run to the center. The Democrats had such a person in Howard Dean back in '04 but they were smart enough to realize that he wasn't even remotely electable beginning with Iowa. I know that it's still early and that the front runner (Giuliani) isn't even focusing any attention there. But now it's off to New Hampshire, where it's likely to be a fight between Mitt Romney and John McCain, the two best (in my opinion) candidates the GOP has to offer. I'm just hoping that they both don't come out of there battle weary leaving mayor Rudy and Huckabee in the best positions.

Over on the other side, interesting to see a very close three-way race between Hilary, John Edwards and Barack Obama with it looking like Obama will win Iowa. I still think that Hilary will get the nod, but I'd probably not place as much money on it now as I would have before. Still never seen where her appeal lies. She has a ton of baggage, is a total carpetbagger and is possibly the biggest black hole of charisma I've ever seen. Seriously, when she speaks she makes Al Gore look like...well, Bill Clinton. Of course I don't care so much with the Democrats, only that hopefully they're the ones who nominate a poor candidate as they've been wont to do in the past (i.e. McGovern, Mondale etc.).

The anti-smoking fascist have gotten struck in France. I suppose nothing is sacred anymore. When did the world stop being fun? If we knew it would come to this, we might as well have let the Nazis stay after the war. Very sad.

Sad is that the two people who killed this poor girl cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and will also probably be out of prison by the time they're 30. Every time something terrible like this happens part of me hopes that there will be enough outrage to start the ball rolling towards repealing the act. But I suppose it's too much to ask in Canada where our liberal sensibilities lead us to believe that criminals have more rights than victims.

Finally, after watching the Pats go a historic 16 and 0, I was dreading that fact that the game would be beaten in the ratings here in Canada by a meaningless mid-season hockey game between the hapless Toronto Maple Leafs and some other team (who cares) that wound up to be a blowout. But thanks to this news, my faith in Canadian sports fans is at least slightly restored.

Thanks for sticking with me folks through this long post and hope you'll all stick through me into 2008. But now I'm tired and I have to take the trash out and I think I might even enjoy a cigarette while I take Bobo out.

2 Comments:

Blogger Daphne said...

Happy New Year :)

January 04, 2008 10:48 AM  
Blogger King Hippo said...

And to you as well Daphne! Thanks for the kind wishes.

January 04, 2008 9:54 PM  

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