The Malcontent

It’s a good thing.

Here they come!

(And they only cost $50,000. This will drive the anti-technologists wild.)

If you are missing little Snowball and are rich, desperate, and a little off kilter, click here. (Though we here at The Malcontent House of Ghoulish Sympathy hope your wee kitten hasn’t been dead too long–see “How long after death can you obtain viable DNA?” in the FAQ.)

Look, and you can see the puppet’s strings! But who is the puppetmaster?

Cross-posted to Minimum Safe Distance.

If you like polls, this is your kind of website.

Not only do they have all the political race polls, but they have little nuggets like the June 2004 ABC news poll on whether people favor replacing Hamilton’s face on the 10-spot with Reagan’s.

Hmm….Hamilton, a founding father, author of the Federalist Papers, first secretary of the U.S. Treasury or Reagan, mindless advocate of trickle-down voodoo economics? It’s a tough call.

(A wise 54% opposed it, 11% were clueless as to the nature of their own minds. A shocking 36% said they wanted Reagan’s wrinkly mug on the 10-dollar bill–I can only assume because they hate America.)

Sorry, but here at The Malcontent Amalgamated Business Enterprises, we just ain’t hiring.

That New York Times–they’re always looking for the next wave. It’s cute, in an Old Media sort of way.

We here at The Malcontent want to get in on that whole prognosticatey vibe. Here we go….

Next trend?

Business consultants to help you created the right kind of blog to attract the best applicants and thus maximize your human capital!

Please note: The Malcontent is available for this very purpose for a very reasonable fee.

Also note: The previous note is crap. Don’t take business advice from the kind of people who waste endless hours on fripperies like this blog. What are you, an idiot? Oh! You say you used to head up Enron…..

OK, OK, in today’s food post, The Malcontent crumbles under the pressure of public opinion like a sweet, buttery cookie!

The new Gourmet Cookbook is out, it’s awesome, and it is definitely not just good looking.

All hail the glamorous culinary goddess Ruth Reichl! She also writes a damn fine memoir.

You just won’t be happy without a recipe? Fine, try this one. (Hey, we here at The Malcontent Test Kitchen warned you that we are obsessed with apples.)

Any regular reader (though frankly, we suspect most of our readers are irregular, in one fashion or another) will know that The Malcontent is no fan of the truth-disregarding, profligate-spending, religious-pandering 43rd president.

However, in presenting such a smug, callous, imperial approach to governance, he appears to be firing up artists in a way that we haven’t seen in a long while. Among the examples:

Sam Shepard has a new play.

The Beastie Boys are afire with political rhymes on their new album.

Tony Kushner’s new work, Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy. (OK, maybe T.K. would be blowing up regardless, but still.)

Philip Roth’s new book, The Plot Against America (which spawned an insanely long review in the Times.)

Playwrights, novelists, musicians, visual artists, and filmmakers, of course.

Hmmm… He is a uniter!

Josh Marshall catches Bush out on the 100,000 “trained” police officers in Iraq.

Really, it’s just too easy. When the emperor doesn’t care if anyone knows he’s lying…..

That’s right, folks. It’s the first monday in October, and that means the Supremes are gettin’ the band back together!

Linda Greenhouse breaks down the 2004-2005 Supreme Court’s docket (so far) for you in the NYT.

Remember, some of these Honorable cats will be retiring in the near future, so whoever is elected in November will likely have an opportunity to appoint some new folks–so, go register to vote!

Despite The Malcontent’s pledge to avoid the debate (mindless pageantry! yet another meaningless spectacle!), all eyes were on CNN last night at La Casa de los Malcontents.

Here in The Nation’s Crapitol…I mean, CAPitol…everyone seems to be endlessly parsing the debate. Who won? What did it mean? What about W’s expression? What about Kerry’s message? Blah, blah, blabbity, blab, blab.

But there was one thing on TV last night that was new. Something that you haven’t seen before.

It was this: you saw someone–in this case Senator John Kerry–holding the President accountable for his actions–for his lies, half-truths, incompetencies, and inactions.

And since this President never allows anyone near him to question his actions, to contradict his inanities, to call him out on his blatant lies, or to criticize his clear failings as a leader–well, the debate was a real, breaking, television moment.

As this President only allows scripted questions from the faithful, avoids the press, and personally disparages people who dare to question any leader’s decisions (other than those cats in the Axis of Evil), it is probably the first time IN YEARS such a thing has happened.

It was actually not the same old, same old–it was the news. And, well, I’ll be! I’m glad I watched.