IS JOHN GRISHAM A RACIST?

We are hearing that insiders in Hollywood think so. Why? Well, he sold his book, The Runaway Jury, and got cast approval. A deal was either in place, or was iminent, for Will Smith to play the male lead. Grisham nixed that idea. So, a whispering campaing about Grisham, 'a good old boy from Mississippi' as he was referred to by one studio higher-up, being anti-black is making the rounds.

Grisham had to dump Smith because he was black, right? It couldn't have been that Will Smith is nothing more than a former rapper who has never revealed any acting talent whatsoever, could it?

STEALING CALIFORNIA?

Don't you get the feeling that if the Bill Simon campign for Governor were made into a movie, Tom Green would be playing the candidate? Yesterday, Simon spent the day trying to both disavow and embrace gay rights in California, while getting pummeled by the press in the Bay Area.

Today, longtime conservative Lyn Nofziger denounced Simon as "inept, weak ... and too dumb" to beat incumbent Democrat Gray Davis, according the this morning's LA Times.

Actually, it gets even better. Earlier in the summer, the Simon campaign announced Nofziger was described as a 'senior advisor' to Team Simon. Then Nofziger writes on a conservative website:

"Californians now are going to have a clear choice when they go to the polls to elect a governor this November," Nofziger wrote.

"They can reelect an inept, corrupt incumbent Democrat named Gray Davis," he added. "Or they can elect an inept, weak and not very bright Republican named Bill Simon. Take your pick. But be smart. Bet on Davis. Simon is too dumb to win and his senior consultant, Sal Russo, isn't much better."

Sadly, as bad as Simon is, and he is a very, very bad candidate, he's running against an almost as bad candidate. Maybe, while Green is playing Simon, David Arquette could play Davis.

REILLY VERSUS RYAN

Flat out, Rick Reilly is the funniest sportswriter in America. In this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, Reilly tells of how he got to take three at bats versus Nolan Ryan. Here's how part of it went:

On the next pitch, parts of my body were in mutiny.

Feet: Screw this. We're out of here.

Me: Please stay. At least until he starts his windup?

Colon: Uh, we may have a problem.

If Reilly doesn't make you laugh out loud, you might want to check your pulse.

A REAL WHODUNIT

Teenagers Alex and Derek King are on trial in Florida for allegedly murdering their father. In a related matter, King family friend Ricky Chavez just faced trial for the very same crime. The jury returned a verdict, but it is sealed until after the trail of the two teenangers.

Now we know it is legal, but we have a hard time with the idea of Prosecutors arguing, in two different trials, two different theories of the case. We would love to hear Glenn Reynolds' (Instapundit) or Jeff Cooper's (Cooped Up) take on this matter, as they are certified legal eagles. It just seems to us that Prosecutors ought to KNOW what they think happened, rather than just spray a machine gun and take out as many as people as possible.

58-1

We don't want to sound un-patriotic, but nothing could have been better for the sport of basketball than the USA losing to Argentina yesterday in the World Championships. The loss, the first for the USA in 59 tries, will add foreign interest to the sport, and MAY get the attention of the USA players who seemed to have been bored over the last few Championships.

GETTING NERVOUS, BILL?

Our buddy Bill Quick has to be disheartened with Campaigns And Elections upgrading Gray Davis' chances at re-election from 52.6 percent to 54.5 percent. Considering The Daily Pundit will have to link to us in every post for a week after Davis' re-election, Quick must be pretty disgusted with the Simon campaign.

Naturally, the idea that Simon COULD win, and we'd have to link to The Daily Pundit in every post for a week after the election isn't really being considered around here.

WE KNOW, WE KNOW

We are not supposed to judge a book by it's cover, and technically we're not. But based on the commercials, newspaper ads, and billboard signs, we really can't imagine how anybody could justify paying cash money to see the new motion picture, The Four Feathers.

It just looks SOOOOOOOO bad.

YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS

Curtis and Kuby pointed out today that there is a t-shirt on the market that has printed on the front:

You should hear the names the voices in my head are calling you.

Pretty funny, right?

Here's the response from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI):

The t-shirt perpetuates prejudice and discrimination against people with mental illnesses throught the initmation of threats flowing from auditory hallucinations.

Sadly, it looks like NAMI has some pull, because after they complained, Sears pulled the t-shirt from their stores.

20 IN A ROW

Since making known our love and affection for the Anaheim Angels, we have gotten several rambling e-mails from alleged Oakland A's fans rubbing our noses in the fact that the A's haven't lost since what seems like early May. Well, answer us this, you Oakland-come-latelys, does it scare you that while the Athletics have won a score of consecutive games, they are still ONLY 3 games ahead of the Angels in the loss column?

It should. It really should.

IN ARGUENDO'S BRUSH WITH THE FAMOUS

Last night, coming home from an Intellectual Property class, we were cut off by former TV star Robert Clary. We shined our high beams in his rear view, passed him and cut HIM off, and then flipped off the former star of Hogan's Heroes.

At least we think it was Robert Clary.

WE QUOTE, YOU DECIDE

President George W. Bush speaking on education today: I want to thank the three members of Congress for coming. Appreciate you boys coming over here after a long, long vacation. Yeah, glad you're in town.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

You are President George W. Bush, the most notable African American in your cabinet disagrees with you on the upcoming war, and you still think you want to get more than 7 percent of the African American vote in the '04 election. What's the next move? Hustle the only other African American in your cabinet, Education Secretary Rod Paige, before the cameras. Bush did it today, and they made sure that Paige was in the same shot with The President.

AMERICAN IDOL FINALS!!

We would like to take just one moment to, well, brag really that we have NEVER watched one single episode of ANY reality show that has come out in tha last couple of years. Not Survivor, Big Brother, Fear Factor, Who Wants To Marry A Millionaire, or any of them. Yes, this makes us feel good, and we just wanted to share.

CHANGING THE TONE

We stumbled on to a repeat of last night's Laura Ingraham radio show, and she and Howard Fineman both agreed that they, as well as most Republicans, were snickering when George W. Bush claimed during the campaign that he would 'change the tone in Washington.' They both said they KNEW that wasn't going to happen. Funny, we remember Bush saying that, but the only snickers we remember were coming from the Democrats.

24 EPISODES OF 24

We finally finished watching the 24-hour marathon of the Fox TV show 24, and it was pretty good. While watching the antics of Jack Bauer and Sen. David Palmer was interesting, our only complaint is that Bauer's attractive but brain-dead daughter Kimberly didn't get whacked the first week. She was just so stupid, you can imagine or disappointment when the final episode ended and she was still breathing.

THE POWER OF THE BLOG, PART DUEX

Last week we mentioned that we attempted to reach our Congressman, Howard Berman (D-Ca), to discuss the bill he’s offered to limit the liability of copyright holders for protecting their works on peer-too-peer networks. We didn’t get far until we mentioned that we ran this here little website, and then we got referred to the Congressman’s point man on the matter, Alec French.

Mr. French is the Minority Counsel on the House Judiciary Sub-Committee on Courts, Internet, and Intellectual Property (MCHJSCCIIP), and was kind enough to call us back today to discuss the bill.

Now, allow us to be the first to admit that we claimed the bill would be bad law, and frankly that we didn’t understand it completely. You can imagine how excited we were when Mr. French told us that due to some of the ‘erroneous’ reporting, NOBODY really understands what the bill is aimed to accomplish.

We asked Mr. French to give us a simple explanation of the bill, and he says:

“The bill is ONLY designed to impair the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material.”

Naturally, we asked Mr. French to dumb it down a little more for us, and he gave us an example that even we could follow:

“Um, OK, say somebody steals your bike, and you see it on the sidewalk in front of his house with a sign that says ‘Free Bike’, you would, under this type of bill, be able to stand on the sidewalk and make sure nobody takes your bike.”

Mr. French, correctly, points out that Congress Berman represents over 600,000 people in the greater Los Angeles/San Fernando Valley area, and a good number of his constituents are in the copyright holding (entertainment) industry. This is a bill, basically, that the Congressman’s constituents want.

Based on Mr. French’s analysis, which is far better than our own, this bill only allows copyright holders to stop the illegal distribution of their own copyrighted material. Period. If they do ANY damage to anybody, they can be sued. This bill, which Mr. French doesn’t believe will be enacted for a minimum of 2 years, will also be shaped and amended as the Congressman hears from constituents and citizens. If anybody has ideas about any unintended consequences or has reasonable concerns about the bill, Congressman Berman, according to French, is all ears.

We hate to say this, because it’s admitting we were wrong before, but the bill doesn’t sound that bad. We know a lot of people in the entertainment industry, and they deserve to get paid for their work just like you or us. It appears that the only people that will be adversely affected by the bill will be the ‘piracy profiteers', as Mr. French calls them.

However, like the honorable Congressman, if anybody wants to convince us this is bad law, we’re all ears as well.

WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE FICTIONAL PRESIDENT?

We've pondered the question, and yes, we have too much time on our hands. Henry Fonda deserves consideration for having to make the toughest decision a President would ever have to make in Fail Safe. Kevin Kline was awfully likable as Dave, but that character was not elected President (The President he played was not overly likable). Michael Douglas, who played Andrew Sheppard in The American President scores points for his wide ranging plans to limit gun ownership. Martin Sheen, as President Josiah Bartlett, is pure money on The West Wing, and Harrison Ford playing President James Marshall in Air Force One was probably the toughest fictional President.

So, who gets our vote? We asked ourselves who we would want as President this very minute, and the answer was clear to us. We'll take Martin Sheen from The West Wing. He's smart, funny, and occasionally a smart ass. That's the hat-trick of our favorite qualities. Who would you pick?

IS THE HEAT WAVE OVER?

We are pleased, thrilled actually, to report that the noontime temperature at the In Arguendo corporate headquarters is 87 degrees. Considering that it is, literally, 20-25 degrees cooler than it was over the Labor Day weekend, we can't be any happier. (And, no, it doesn't matter if it's a dry heat!)

WE DON'T EXPECT TO WIN

There's a cool new contest over at wKenShow, where THEY will give one reader a month a gift worth $50. We entered, asking for an evening with the chick at the top of the blog, but we are nearly certain that would cost much more than $50.

CAN FLORIDA DEMOCRATS LEARN FROM CALIFORNIA REPUBLICANS?

Last spring, California Republicans had a choice: right-wing, nut-job Bill Simon, or moderate Republican Dick Riordan. The difference betwixt the two? Riordan would have beat Davis like he stole something, while Simon will be lucky to carry Orange County. Now in Florida, Democrats may have a similar choice. In the primary, they have the choice between Janet Reno and Bill McBride to face a very vulnerable Jeb Bush. From here, it sure looks like McBride has the chance to bloody Bush's nose, while Reno's campaign will fall under it's own weight. A new poll shows that McBride is tied with Bush, while Reno trails badly. Let's hope California's history is not lost on Floridians.

THE CONSERVATIVE UNDERGROUND IMPLODES!


Well, it looks like Oubai Shahbandar doesn't like criticism. Here are two posts that were on The Conservative Underground today:

I am not now, nor was I ever, I writer for the Conservative Underground. Mr. Shahbandar continues to defame me by placing his name next to his. This post serves as official notification to Oubai Shahbandar and the rest of the world that I am not affiliated with either Mr. Shahbandar or the Conservative Underground.

Mr. Shahbandar:

I ask that you please remove my name from your website immediately. I will no longer allow you to drag my name through the mud. I may have accepted your invitation to be a poster on your blog, but I never once gave you permission to use my name as publicity for your site.

Daniel R. Moody

And this:

By the way, there is only one College Republican group at ASU and Oubai Shahbandar is not affiliated with it in any way. Oubai used to be the president of the club last year (although he never held a meeting and didn’t have any members to speak of), but he forgot to register the club this year. Unfortunately for Oubai, someone else registered the club and is now the president of the officially recognized club. Too bad Oubai: You should stop touting yourself as the president before you get sued.

Daniel R. Moody

If you happen to go over to The Conservative Underground now, BOTH posts are missing and Dan Moody is no longer listed as a featured writer. Further, Shahbandar now refers to Moody as a 'freak', and makes seemingly libelous claims concerning Moody's sexuality. Just when we thought Oubai Shahbandar could sink no lower, he proves us wrong again.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE?

What exactly is going on over at The Conservative Underground? The leader of the polemic site, Oubai Shahbandar, is being accused of lying about being President of the College Republican Group, and a featured writer, Dan Moody, wants nothing to do with the site or Shahbandar. In fact, if Oubai Shahbandar keeps claiming to be Prez of the College Republicans, he might find himself on the business end of a lawsuit. Wow, we merely thought Oubai Shahbandar was an intellectually lazy writer, but it seems that he may be more despicable than even we dreamed.