At the Thai Garden Café...

... you can chat about anything.

How did Chevrolet manage to make such an effective commercial?

We use a DVR to scroll through the commercials, and this one was effective even when sped through. It also made us go back to watch it, and then rewind and watch it again. We both nearly cried both times!



Now, I see that this was an entry in a "short film" contest that Chevrolet ran. More here.

IN THE COMMENTS: Rose said:

Just think how many of those got crushed during cash For Clunkers - that was sick.

"9/11 anniversary programming: Is there too much of it?"

Ken Tucker scolds you for asking:

The argument against the volume of 9/11 programming, which has cropped up on various blogs and in newspapers such as The New York Post, has been articulated most reasonably by Brian Lowry in Variety. In a piece titled “Cacophony of voices dull anniversary,” Lowry writes, “So many networks have scheduled specials, movies, even entire themed weeks centered on Sept. 11 that they risk trivializing the event, making it equivalent to... Halloween or Christmas episodes… networks with no logical connection to the story have piled on, defensively or opportunistically. Either way, it’s unnecessary.” Lowry concludes: “TV’s immersive approach to marking the anniversary unwittingly seems more reminiscent of another tower — the biblical one in Babel.”...

Too much? You mean, as opposed to airing Big Brother three times a week? Or the hours and hours of Bravo’s various Real Housewives franchises also coming this same week? It’s “too much,” too numbing, to replay footage of the planes going into the World Trade Center towers, but it’s not too much to air two hours of Bachelor Pad and two hours of America’s Got Talent, which combine to form four hours of entertainment that are numbing in a different way, not emotionally but intellectually numbing?

So... if you're going to be numbed, get numbed the lofty way? I think it's fine to preempt the usual junk on TV, but the problem is trying to make something profound and, as so often happens, making junk anyway. That is the definition of profanity.

And one other thing: After 10 years of remembering what happened on the day we sustained a great loss in a war, have we ever — as a nation — celebrated a victory? I remember when President Bush tried to do that. And he was crushed by criticism so harsh that it has served as a warning: never ever savor a victory. Now, it's: "we don't... spike the football... that's not who we are."

And who are we?  Is our preferred self-image the collapsed towers?

10 Principles of Modern Design...

... from Dieter Rams (who was chief of design for Braun — the German manufacturer — from 1961 to 1995).

Oddly, I came away feeling that the 10 principles were all the same, and if that principle was simple functionality, the make that one thing into 10 is a violation of the principle itself. But then Rams wasn't purporting to dictate the principles of website content, so there really is no paradox.

"If Biker Guy shares your orientation, there are two things that you can most impress him with..."

"... your glutes and your quads."

Meade gives advice to Banana Seat Betty.

"Don't You Fret."

Hey! I feel like I made this video...



But it's from jenzeppelin, who says: "Don't You Fret" is "a beautiful song, often overlooked." I wasn't overlooking it. I was scanning the songs in my computer picking out a Kinks song I was in the mood to hear, and that was the song I picked. And the driving-around-the-city-to-music video is just the sort of thing I'd been doing.

"Don't You Fret" was originally on the album "Kinkdom." I have the CD set "Remastered," but if you want a CD available these days, I recommend "Well Respected Kinks." 10 songs, all richly playable after — gasp! — almost half a century.

And here's jenzeppelin's channel. She's got a driving-around-video for "I Am Free" and a bunch of other Kinks songs. She specializes in The Kinks and... who would go with The Kinks if you had exactly one other musical passion?

Django Reinhardt!

"Tripoli Zoo: Libyan Lions Left Behind."

A HuffPo headline suggests the notion of a Rapture for animals.

If there were a Rapture for animals, which animals would be left behind? I'd say hummingbirds and butterflies. They are jerks.

And, sorry, I don't mean to seem unsympathetic to the zoo animals who are suffering in Libya. Who thinks of the zoo animals when there is a war? Here's a book: "The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo."

And a truly cool novel about zoo animals at the mercy of a human-made disaster is "Life of Pi." It's not a war, but a ship wreck after a zoo in India is dismantled and some of the animals are packed on board en route to Canadian.

"Bush was flayed for Enron. Where does that put Obama and his green-energy pet?"

Rich Lowry on Solyndra.

Via Hot Air.

The White House insists it didn’t intervene with DOE on Solyndra’s behalf, but — go figure — the company’s key investor was a foundation headed by George Kaiser, a billionaire known for raising boatloads of money for Barack Obama.

Via Instapundit.

"Dark brown and shiny worm-like pieces of batter, soft to the touch, piled in a biodegradable cup."

"It comes topped with cola syrup, more icing sugar, whipped cream, and two cherries."

Fried Coke!

What are you deep frying these days?

Sarah says: "I think there’s room for more, though, because..."

"... spirited debate and more competition will allow an even better discourse and more rigorous discourse that the public deserves."

Rigorous, spirited discourse. I love it.

When America thinks of rigorous, spirited discourse, it thinks of...
	Sarah Palin!
	The current field of Republicans plus Sarah Palin.
	The current field of Republicans.
	Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, head to head.
	Thaddeus McCotter!
pollcode.com free polls

"Tripoli Files Show CIA Working With Libya."

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Central Intelligence Agency and Libyan intelligence services developed such a tight relationship during the George W. Bush administration that the U.S. shipped terror suspects to Libya for interrogation and suggested the questions they should be asked, according to documents found in Libya's External Security agency headquarters...

The files provide an extraordinary window into the highly secretive and controversial practice of rendition, whereby the agency would send detainees to other countries for interrogation, including ones known for harsh treatment of detainees. The program was ramped up for terror detainees after the Sept. 11 attacks.

When taking over the CIA at the outset of the Obama administration, then-director Leon Panetta said the agency would continue to use rendition, but would seek assurances that the detainee wouldn't be tortured—which has been the standing U.S. policy...

At the Purple Café...

... curl up.

The anguish of coffee.

ADDED: Oh, [expletive deleted] I meant to put up the non-remix:



It's like... do you want caffeinated or decaffeinated.

BONUS: A poll:

Are these old commercials sexist?
	Yes. That's what we were taught in school.
	Yes. That's why they're so hilarious.
	Yes. And wipe that smirk off your face.
	No. It's a comic exaggeration that everyone at the time got.
	No. "Sexist" is just a word that's supposed to make us feel sensitive about meaningless crap.
	No. It's a simple truth that women have trouble making decent coffee.
pollcode.com free polls

An Isthmus writer finds it "startling" to see an attack ad against Tommy Thompson so long before the primaries for the Herb Kohl Senate seat.

Here's the ad:



Judith Davidoff writes:

[T]he ultraconservative Club for Growth... has made it a habit in recent years to oppose moderate Republicans.... [but] Thompson has not officially entered the race and the Republican primary is still a year away.

"I think it is pretty remarkable," says Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison. "It tells me something is at stake here. Conservatives in the party are really concerned about Tommy winning the election. They are trying to head off his really owning the nomination at this point, and I think that's why they're in so early."

I remember back in 2010, when people thought Thompson would challenge Russ Feingold. I video-recorded the speech he made to the Tea Party crowd, when he said he would not. He said "I told my family... that it's time for new voices and new faces." He declined the hard work of unseating the longtime incumbent, and Ron Johnson stepped up to that task. Now, it's a year later and nobody's gotten any younger, yet Thompson sees himself as the man for the Senate. What happened to the need for "new voices and new faces"? Why are old faces good? Because now it's a shot at a vacant seat?

The 2012 GOP primaries are about defining conservatism, and the Club for Growth ad has its idea of what the conservative message should be, and it's not Tommy Thompson. Let Thompson present a crisp version of his definition.

On the other side of the equation, the Democrats have to define liberalism, and if Isthmus is genuinely worried about candidates swinging too far to the extreme and losing the moderate voters in our passionately purple state, they ought to handwring about Tammy Baldwin. (But they won't.)

Who's this baby?

Hint:

When I was born my granddad wanted to send a telegram to the president. Both sides of my family were staunch New Deal Democrats, and Granddad was sure that FDR would want to know about the “little stranger” with whom he now had a birthday in common.

After you've answered, click here.

ADDED: Page 29:

I traveled from job to job with one large suitcase, driving a 1949 Chevy for a while. When it had to be junked, I hitched a ride or caught a bus until I managed to buy a ’58 Ford. Living accommodations were never fancy, usually a room in an old hotel or roadside motel....

After work, the guys on the crew would spend considerable time in one of the local bars, ideally a place that would cash our checks or carry a tab until we made our first payday. We consumed vast quantities of beer. If something stronger was called for, we’d drink shots of bourbon with beer chasers—a combination that helps explain how I managed to get arrested twice within a year for driving while under the influence....

And I was sleeping off a hangover in the Rock Springs jail. It had taken a lot to drive the message home, but I realized the morning I woke up in that jail that if I didn’t fundamentally change my ways, I was going to come to a bad end.

"ATVs and (off-road) motorcycles have a pretty bad name in terms of the relationship with environmentalists and things like that."

"They don't really care for ATVers ... but it seems like they're the only ones really saving anybody right now."