Sleepless in Midland

I like Juan Williams even when he goes off the deep end

Juan Williams had his share of problems with the leftist media -- recall that NPR sacked him because of his job with Fox News.

He's a regular on one or more of the Fox news shows, and he's popular because he's friendly, smart, and respectful. Many Democrats we see on TV are strident Republican haters. And that makes Williams' presence very refreshing.

But when we see thing like this: Juan Williams: Trump's risk of impeachment rises, it makes some of us want to say, "Get real!"

In his article, he contends that polls favor Trump's resignation or impeachment. Well, polls come and go. But hopefully Trump stays. And even more hopefully, there will be some thorough investigations into all the crap that went on before and after the election. Democrats will try to play up any chance encounter by a Republican with a Russian, no matter how innocent. But it looks like the real crimes to manipulate the elections were committed by the Obama administration. Let justice prevail.

Good luck Megyn Kelly -- the niche you carved out at Fox News Channel might not be portable

Megyn Kelly made her mark during the 2016 Republican primary debates when she went toe to toe with Donald Trump. I predicted that should Trump win she would be snapped up by one of the other cable network. She went with NBC, close enough.

But that network is overflowing with Trump haters, and it's hard to imagine Kelly rising to the top of that pack. So it's time for a new niche. But this? Megyn Kelley trying to change image and go Oprah? Thomas Lifson is skeptical:

I can understand why Kelly wants to change her image. She has done a great job of perfecting the hard-edged, slender, cool blonde, whose sharp questions trap her interview subjects. But do the lefties and squishes who watch NBC want her to use those talents? Getting interviews with Trump administration figures may prove difficult. Heaven forbid she exercises her talents on the likes of Maxine Waters or Nancy Pelosi! The NBC brass and their bosses at Comcast wouldn’t like that at all.

Then there's the daytime audience. Maybe Megyn can win them over. After all, she just wants “to help people the way Oprah did.” What's not to like?

Humans -- the TV series

It was based on a Swedish TV show called Real Humans, then remade by some Brits into the Humans that was broadcast on AMC. It was pretty good -- Rotten Tomatoes gave Season 1 88/91.

It was about a product innovation that had become very popular -- lifelike robots who would perform all our daily tasks. So far so good.

Spoiler alert!

It seems that one of the developers had implanted a chip in some of them that made them a little bit too smart, a little bit too independent, and a little bit too ruthless. Drama resulted.

The bots were presented as sympathetic near-humans who were persecuted and hunted down by vindictive human government agents. Season one ended when a bot owning family helped the rogue bots escape.

Smart viewers may make a connection with the immigration problem facing Europe today whereby new immigrants from repressive cultures arrived unaccustomed to their new social freedoms and sort of go crazy. But jaded American viewers won't have any trouble tuning out any leftist message. We've been doing that for years.

Anyway, Season 2 begins Tuesday, February 13, 2017, on AMC. I've set my VCR. (That's an antique video recording device seldom seen except at nursing homes and garage sales.)

Enhanced Interrogation-- watch EIT architect on CSPAN2

James Mitchell authored the book, "Enhanced Interrogation," which is an insider's view of the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA on terrorists.

He was on CSPAN the other day, and that program will be re-run Monday, 1/30/2017, from 3am til 4:30am Central on CSPAN2. If that's inconvenient, visitors who don't mind allowing CSPAN2 to plant cookies, it can be watched at this link.

I'm currently reading his book which I'll go into at a later date. But for starters, he provides some valuable lessons about EITs. First, they work. Second, they were used by the CIA not to punish, but to obtain intelligence that would prevent future attacks. So when politicians get high and mighty about EITs, it's useful to remember that the alternative might be a terrorist attack.

Set your VCR.

Mars -- the captivating TV mini-series from Nat Geographic

I watched a recording of the final episode of Mars on Christmas morning, and somehow it seemed fitting to experience the possibility of discovery of new life on that particular holiday.

Rottentomatoes gave it warm reviews -- 63/58. So maybe the shows they have for comparison are more entertaining to their reviewers.

It's Elon Musk's vision of a manned mission to Mars, and most of the known risks are presented. The actual travel time between the two planets would be long, and thankfully, that happened off screen. And somehow they managed to overcome the cancer risk from radiation exposure during the trip.

Like that masterful real life crew of Apollo 13, the intrepid explorers portrayed in the TV series prevailed over the environment and the hardships it presented. Although, it's probably won't give too much away to point out that one of their members didn't adapt as well as the others.

All in all, it was a great TV mini-series. It doesn't make me want to volunteer for the expedition -- plenty of others have signed up already -- but it does make me hope to live long enough to see it happen. The U.S. couldn't afford it, but maybe a consortium of billionaires and 1st world countries could all chip in. Just like in the movie!

Musk is a master crony capitalist, and the series was a long commercial. It was made when the pundits were predicting a Clinton victory. So one has to wonder whether season two will be directed at Trump supporters. Would it matter? It's not too hard to imagine Trump supporting Musk's space endeavors, nor is it hard to imagine the "Trump" brand emblazoned on a compound on the red planet.

Obama will try to remain relevant -- will the msm oblige?

Not long ago there was speculation that Barack Obama, once he's out of office, would try to establish his own network to try to stay relevant. A post at this blog encouraged him to do that so that he and his cohorts could exercise their lamentations over their victimization in their own bubble.

So here's a quote from this article: Obama's threat to meddle with Trump’s administration if Muslim registry is created. To wit:

Speaking to The Daily Show, Mr Obama, who will be leaving the White House in January, suggested he would not sit idly by if the billionaire implemented policies “going against American values”.

Lefties have been co-opting our language for a long time. And there's an example. The phrase "American values" can't possible mean the same thing to him as it does to those of us who don't subscribe to the leftist agenda. Obama has put his thumb in the eye of real "American values." But for him to sound hypocritical is not a new thing.

Anyway, one has to wonder how big a market there will be for Obama's opinions about current events once he is out of office. Currently, the cable news channels shut down normal programming whenever Trump, Obama, or Clinton walk up to a podium. Most cable viewers are probably getting tired of it. If it continues much longer maybe it's time to turn off the TV and open a book.

Obama to work in media after leaving office, as if we will still need his opinion

If this is true, Barack Obama hopes to establish an online media entity after he leaves office. That's good. Many of us feared he would be one of those pundits the cable channels go to when they need a guest to fill time. And we imagined a constant, tiresome, presence. His writers would give him a pithy statement which would saturate all the channels.

Here's one source for news of his plan: Obama considering post-presidential digital media career, sources say. Via Of course: Obama reportedly considering launching his own media company.

With his own company he can live in his own bubble. And his audience will be like minded people. He won't change any minds, and in fact, few outside that bubble will bother looking at his web channel, Youtube channel, or whatever it is he puts together.

So do it, President Obama. We would prefer that he leave the public sphere like other former presidents have done. But he has no skills -- he can't paint, he can't build a house, he can't even organize a community. But if he must be in a spotlight, then his own private channel is the best route for him and us.

Rachel Briers, a meteorologist with amazing hands

It's probably not a compliment to say that a TV meteorologist could be a hand model. But Newswest9's Rachel Briers could be a hand model.

A meteorologist has to watch herself on a monitor and move her limbs to coincide with what the viewer sees on the small screen. Watch the opening segment of the movie "Groundhog Day" as Andie McDowell mugs in front of the green screen to see how difficult the job must be.

Anyway, Rachel Briers makes it look effortless as only someone with an athlete's body control could do. Her hands move right along the edge of a cold front with the grace of a ballerina.

It's memorizing. And the weather reporting is good too.

Here's a video compilation that appears to have been made at her previous place of employment. Newswest9 probably saw that and declared her a must-have. Now she's a keeper.

TV commercial -- Duracell and Children's Miracle Hospital -- but why R2D2?

R2D2 is the most innocuous droid on this or any other planet. All he does is deliver messages. Well, I guess the messenger is important -- after all, the telegraph operator was an important part of a cowboy movie, right? However, far, far in the future one might think that a bulky, rolling post-it note wouldn't be the way they did it.

Anyway, the commercial will bring tears to your eyes as a sick kid receives a free toy. It's quite touching even if the toy is an R2D2. Watch it at this Youtube video.

But, the Star Wars theme reminds us there are battles to be fought in space.

Duracell donated a million batteries to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Thus the TV ad with the sick child transformed into a Star Warrior complete with movie set, villains, and most important, blaster pistols!

Now, let's not take anything away from Duracell or the hospital network. This is a great thing they did. But the question that comes to the mind of a casual viewer is, "Why did they give the kid a droid?" Any youngster who received a Star Wars toy and an invitation to join the rebellion would prefer a blaster over a droid.

Oh well. We mustn't look a gift droid in the input orifice.

Flags banned on fire truck -- story tailor made for Fox News

Anyone who thumbs through the TV channels in the mornings has seen these type episodes on Fox News. American flags flown by patriotic Americans, and some axehole wants them removed.

This particular story involved American flags flown from fire truck tailboards. For the news item, see US flags called 'liability,' ordered removed from New York fire trucks. Cue the outrage.

Common sense suggests that type flag display is a potential hazard either to the firefighters or passers by. It's going to be in someone's way. Throw in a stiff wind like the ones we have out here in Midland, Texas, and the hazard is amplified. Furthermore, you don't want to take a flag to a wildfire. Imagine if it caught fire.

So when that particular city's council told the fire department to take the flag off the truck, then that's a battle that's not worth fighting. There's a better way to display a flag and more important fires to fight.

BTW, Pierce, the big fire truck manufacturer, will put a neat looking flag pattern on the radiator cover for just a few dollars more. You know, buying a fire truck is probably like buying a car -- the salesman is going to try to up-sell as many accessories as the buyer can afford. "Now, about that undercoating."

That's the Texas flag, in case you're unfamiliar with it. Hey, maybe you'd like a nice chrome bell, too.

Michael Phelps put that Chad le Clos dude in his place -- YEAH!

That disgusting video of the South African dude disrespecting Michael Phelps is all over the net. Here's a youtube vid of the scene. Looks almost like the le Clos character is trying to do a Muhammad Ali number, but without the skill to back it up.

It's a metaphor. It seems the whole world is disrespecting the U.S.A. these days.

It would have been refreshing to see Phelps jump up and smack le Clos in the kisser. But Phelps had a bigger goal in mind, which was to beat the hell out of him in a race. And he did!

U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

And to think that anyone wonders why the phrase "Make America Great Again" has so much traction.

Shepherd Smith as Fox News gap filler is doing a lousy job

Mike Rowe once described the test he had to take for a job as a host on a TV shopping show. He was handed a pencil and asked to talk about it, indefinitely. That's what the job entailed, and that's what an applicant had to be able to do.

Apparently, TV news channel hosts have to do the same thing, and it must not be that easy as Fox News Channel always assigns the job to Shepherd Smith when there's day long coverage of a single event. Problem is, since he doesn't have a script and isn't required to promote any product, he makes it a Shepherd Smith opinion piece.

We probably remember how bad his reporting was during the hurricane Katrina coverage. Now we have him trying to cover the murders of the police officers in Baton Rouge. Turns out he felt entitled to criticize Bobby Jindal for saying "All lives matter." Not everyone was thrilled. See ‘Shepard Smith is a damn idiot!’ Unforgivable fight with Jindal after ambush has people calling Fox News!.

John Ziegler provided a clue for why the networks do that in By the Way, I Am Right About the News Media Being Afraid to Offend Blacks With the Truth.

If only those talking heads could stick to reporting the news and quit trying to shape the news.

Bad ad -- Direct TV's power to turn back time commercial

What we see in the commercial is a couple about to watch a TV program, but it has already started. Too bad they can't turn back time.

Turns out they can. A rock star shows up in their living room singing about turning back time, and he uses the remote to restart the TV show. Watch it at this Youtube video.

But he doesn't stop there. Time continues running backward as the guy on the couch grows back hair on his balding pate -- it's 70s style long hair. Then while the singer is restoring the past, the gal's former boyfriend pops up between her and the current boyfriend. She doesn't waste any time getting reacquainted.

So what's to like about this ad? The main point would seem to be that the TV viewer can restart a TV show. But in the commercial, the current boyfriend gets a major put down. Is the target audience single women yearning for the days when they actually had live men next to them? Men certainly aren't in the target audience.

Maybe a narrow audience is the goal these days. I'm not amongst the Mad Men of modern advertising, because I think it's a shame that they can't target their audience -- single women -- without alienating men who would seem to be half of the general TV audience.

On the other hand, these days maybe ads really are aimed at narrow audiences. After all, we learned just the other day that Subaru's ads target lesbians in such a subtle way that straight people don't even notice the badges of lesbianism.

Badges? DirectTV don't need no stinking badges.

Bad ad -- E-trade customers milked like cows

Sometimes advertisers get so caught up in some creative idea that they forget that the job is to sell widgets. Not everyone will agree with this, but the E-trade ad in which Kevin Spacey plays the director instructing Robert Duvall is an ad that falls in that category. Watch it here.

You're a *young farm hand E-trade is your cow. Milk it.

Are the customers the cows? That's not an image that would make a customer want to buy the product. Let's look at something the advertising wizard David Ogilvy said:

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.

But that was the Mad Men era. Maybe things have changed.

*It sounds like he says "dumb farm hand," but the closed caption says "young farm hand." So let's give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.

"The Americans" doing a good job of not whitewashing the ruskies -- the honey trap catches its prey

This week's episode of "The Americans" was sobering. Scenes in the episode titled, The Day After, from the made for TV movie "The Day After" brought back memories of how startling that movie was at the time, and some of the characters in "The Americans" did fret about nuclear annihilation. However, that was not the highlight of the episode, because the character Elizabeth took some giant strides toward earning the Cruella De Vil award for on screen villainy, small screen category.

The scenes in which Elizabeth pulled a honey trap on Don, the devoted husband and father in a Korean-American family, were very distressing. Elizabeth had been playing up to Don's wife for several episodes, but it appears as though Don was the target all along. Elizabeth was getting nowhere with the wife, so she tricked Don into giving her a ride home. Then once home, she persuaded him to come in and move a chest for her.

Then, oh, while you're here, sample this expensive wine and tell me what you think. In went the mysterious, apparently tasteless, little pill. After drinking a glass, poor Don was unconscious on the floor.

Elizabeth put him in the bed, stripped him naked, stripped herself, crawled in bed next to him, lubed his penis, and waited for him to awaken.

What a shock for him to wake up nude next to a nude female who was supposed to be his wife's friend.

We don't know whether Elizabeth is going to work him for spy stuff in future episodes or whether that's all we'll see of him. But it certainly was a good demo of what must have happened to a lot of otherwise innocent Americans who ended up providing information to the Russians during the cold war.

No doubt spies from every regime are still working that technique with good effect these days. Maybe our own spies do it.

In any event, "The Americans" often makes the main characters sympathetic even though they are Russian spies. But they killed enough people and betrayed enough trust to dispel any notion that they are really just nice people with rotten jobs. They're bad. But, it's just a TV show, and often villains can exhibit the most interesting behavior.

So what did we learn from this? Beware the honey trap.

More computer power helps weather forecasters fine tune their forecasts but still won't improve long range forecasts

Anyone who watches TV weather men/women describe the regions weather will probably stay with it long enough to look at their chart of temperatures and precipitation forecasts for the next week or ten days. If they kept a record, they would likely find that those precipitation forecasts on the far end of the range are the least accurate. At least it seems that way out here in the Western side of Texas.

Eric Niiler at Discovery.com basically confirms that in How Far Ahead Can We Predict the Weather? He says this:

One of the country’s leading commercial forecasters, AccuWeather, said earlier this month that it could predict the weather conditions and temperature three months ahead of time. It’s a bold claim that has been refuted by some meteorologists who say such a 90-day forecast will only be as good as historical averages and not much use to someone planning a hike or outdoor wedding this summer.

That’s because the Earth’s atmosphere is a chaotic system that doesn’t follow an easily predictable path, according to Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society in Boston.

The good news is that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has upgraded its supercomputers to give them more capability. More from Niiler:

In simpler terms, it means that the faster, bigger computers will allow the agency’s scientists to:

-Better predict the amount, timing and type of precipitation in both winter storms and thunderstorms
-Create “water forecasts” and more accurately predict drought and floods
-Connect the air, ocean and waves to track eight hurricanes at once

These supercomputers are the brains behind the weather forecasts you see on TV each night or your smartphone when you wake up.

Interesting article with bonus points for not carving out an exception for global warming predictions.

Adam Carolla didn't just get fired, he got shafted on Trump's Celebrity Apprentice

Adam Carolla has a website for downloadable podcasts each of which is free until it's moved into the premium section. I mention that up front, because the podcast I recall would now cost money to download.

Carolla was one of the celebrity apprentices on Donald Trump's TV show of that name, and Carolla spoke of it on one his podcasts after he got fired. According to him, here's the way it happened.

Carolla was the team leader, and his team was given a product with instructions to come up with some way to promote it. I believe the product was a car made by one of the big American car companies. The team came up with a plan which involved most of the team members and some dialogue and jokes written by Carolla. But they ran into objection from one of the show producers. The producer wanted their presentation to be like Steve Jobs' introduction of a new iPhone, i.e., one person standing on stage explaining the product. Carolla's team objected, but the producer prevailed. And the presentation consisted of Carolla standing alone on stage advertising that new car. Their team lost. Nothing about the producer or his demands were ever made available to the TV show audience.

Someone on the losing team had to be fired. In the board room with Trump presiding, Carolla was asked who he would fire. Carolla said he would fire the producer for steering them off a winning course to a losing one. He was told he couldn't fire the producer, but he persisted. None of that got shown in the TV show. However, we did get to see Trump fire Carolla and one other team member because Carolla refused to name a team member he would fire.

Viewers were left with the impression that Carolla was too weak to fire anyone and wouldn't take the blame himself. That was simply wrong.

The narrative is everything in a reality show. We all know that they are heavily influenced by the show producers and edited to fit a story line. So this shouldn't surprise us too much that Trump didn't change that part of the formula or that he manipulated some important details to make someone other than him look bad. Carolla's side of the story was very credible, and for those who heard it, Celebrity Apprentice lost a lot of its credibility. But when the star of the show holds himself out as the master of the art of the deal, someone is going to get a raw deal.

Anyway, nothing in this story would persuade anyone for or against Donald Trump. But it's a little detail that nags at me when I hear some die hard Trump supporter call into C-Span's Washington Journal blaming everyone but Trump for anything bad that comes his way.

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Meanwhile, I'm still a one issue voter: future Supreme Court nominees. Currently Ted Cruz is leading in that category. However, Ilya Shapiro imagines that Trump's nominations might not be all that bad in There Are Better Reasons To Vote Against Trump Than Judge Picks. Well, OK then. Maybe someday I can stop worrying and learn to love the Donald.

Megyn Kelly's threat to quit Fox News leaves viewers asking -- why couldn't it be Geraldo?

Megyn Kelly has been a big hit for Fox News. After her role as inquisitor in that first Republican primary debate Donald Trump put a target on her back. Shortly after that I predicted that if Trump got elected president then Kelly could write her own ticket at any of the other cable news channels.

That didn't take long. Daily Mail is reporting that she's demanding Bill O'Reilly level money in negotiations with Fox and threatening to quit. Well, OK. But if someone has to leave Fox, why couldn't it be Geraldo Rivera?

Sure, Fox needs some liberals around to balance out the broadcasts. Good, likable, liberals who will work for Fox must be hard to find. There's only one Juan Williams. And people like Kirsten Powell don't come along very often. The attacks they get from other liberals must be torturous, yet they endure.

But Geraldo? Just the way he injected himself in the news about the Paris terrorist attack was enough to get most viewers to switch channels. (Seems his daughter happened to be in Paris at the time, so he had to go see her there, camera crew in tow. What a scene hog.)

All the best to you Megyn. Go for the big bucks while you're in demand. Your fans will probably follow.

Fight Song -- the song for cancer kid and Hillary Clinton

On the TV news the other day was a poignant story and video about a bald boy in a hospital bed getting his dream come true -- a visit by Rachel Platten and the opportunity to sing her "Fight Song" along with her. The song was a personal favorite of his. In fact it was Jeremiah Succar's theme song in his fight against cancer. Get out your handkerchief before watching the video.

[OK. Take a moment before going forward.]

Then on the TV the last night Hillary Clinton came along with a passel of women bopping and rocking to the same song. Watch that one here. What a disaster.

It almost seemed like an episode of "Some people can ruin anything."

On the other hand, maybe there's a common theme. When all indicators say you're about to lose an important battle, this song might provide a little bit of solace and encourage others to support you even if they think you're a goner.

But to Jeremiah Succar, all the best to you kid. All the best.

Samuel Jackson wants to know what's in my wallet, William Devane wants to know what's in my safe -- hey guys, none of your damn bees' wax

Samuel Jackson wants us to do something with credit cards. Get one, charge more, buy more on credit. William Devane wants us to prep for financial breakdown by buying commodities. One wants to know what's in my wallet. The other wants to know what's in my safe. So go the TV commercials featuring these two.

Interest rates might be going up, due to the Fed's recent hike. Or they might go down due to fear we are heading back into a recession. But in either instance, who needs more credit card debt?

Commodities are in a free fall, and aren't likely to rise during any recession that may be coming. As for a real calamity, such as a blackout from a man-caused electrical grid breakdown, gold and silver may not be worth all that much. Food, water, fuel, medicine and bullets will be in high demand, and those gold coins would be worth only as much as someone wants to discount them for some future value in a better economy.

So both these guys are selling something we don't necessarily need right now. But as long as companies are willing to pay those actors, then more power to them. Best to think of them as mere entertainment. Not as good as the Geico ads, but entertainment nonetheless.

The good news: We'll get a new season of Mythbusters. The Bad news: It will be the last

Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman had jobs to envy. They had access to some incredible tools and equipment. They got to experiment. They had their own popular TV show. And they had fun. It's sad that it all has to come to an end, but all things do.

The good news is that fans will get one more season. I can't wait.

Source: Mythbusters to end with final season. Excerpt:

For the final season, I know you’re blowing up a cement truck with 10,000 pounds of ANFO, and crushing a 60-ton train tanker with steam implosion …
SAVAGE: When we construct the final season list of stories, our guiding principle was what are the iconic categories that fans of Mythbusters that should not be ignored in the final season. We really tried to address each one of those. The series finale is pretty amazing. I wanted Jamie and I to wake up to Suzanne Pleshette afterwards, but we did find a way to say goodbye.

P.S. Their new website, tested.com, looks interesting.

Kurt Schlichter's delightful questions for GOP debate participants -- actually some are kinda funny

Here's Schlichter's aricle at Townhall.com: The Obnoxious and Important Questions I Would Ask At The GOP Debate.

He's got a little jab at each of them, and here's one of the good ones which happens to be aimed at Rand Paul:

Like your father, I can listen to you for a couple minutes, find myself nodding in agreement, and then BAM! you say something nutty, usually about foreign policy. How can I be sure you will do the most important thing a president must do – relentlessly and ruthlessly kill America’s enemies?

Chemtrails. Are they a thing?

I had not heard him expound on chemtrails, but if he did, it wouldn't be a surprise. Poor Rand Paul. He was flying high for a while. But he is who he is. To his credit, he certainly isn't a slave to the focus groups.

As for the CNN questioners, they're who they are, too. We don't know just yet which Republican the Democrats want to run against, so maybe we'll get a clue tonight.

Carly Fiorina turns the tables on Seth Meyers -- Hilarious

This is the funniest TV thing I've seen a long time.

Jon Stewart wannabe Seth Meyers was doing his best to try to embarrass Carly Fiorina by pointing out that some sneaky lefty bought the domain name CarlyFiorina.org and is using it to try to damage Fiorina's campaign. Great fun, huh?

Not so fast, Seth. Carly said she bought the domain name SethMeyer.org while she was in the green room. "Actually, it was really cheap."

Wow! What a comeback. In the low information environment those are the type of things that win votes.

Watch the video at this Youtube link.  Via Townhall.com.

Hmm. I wonder how many other famous domain names she has in her inventory. She could use income from their sales to replenish her campaign coffers. Some could be quite valuable, for example, according to nationaljournal.com Rand Paul's campaign just bought RandPaul.com for $100,000.

Postal worker lands gyrocopter on white house lawn -- NEWMAN!

Postal worker lands small helicopter on white house lawn.

Why? Because because the mail never stops!

Correction: It was the lawn of the Capitol Building, not the White House. DOH!

Comparing Hillary Clinton with George Costanza? Aw that's not fair, to Costanza

Andrew Stiles article Hillary Clinton Is George Costanza makes some good points. But comparing Hillary with Constanza is somehow off just a bit.

George Costanza was the character played by Jason Alexander in the "Seinfeld" TV series. The reruns of the series are continual, so they're hard to miss. The Costanza character was a good one, and Alexander's portrayal of him was superb. Alexander may have been the best actor on that series.

Costanza's main objective throughout the series was to get laid. That wasn't easy for a bald guy with no money, no job, and who lived with his parents. But he did it. And when he did get into a relationship, his new goal became getting out of it.

Actually, Bill Clinton would make a better comparison with George Costanza. They both wanted desperately to get laid. And once they scored, they became weasels to get out of the trouble it caused.

Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman ...".

Costanza: "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell ya I gotta plead ignorance... ."

Hillary is better compared with Izzy Mandlebaum, the egotistical, over the hill athlete who was in complete denial about any infirmity.

Or maybe Hillary is more like Newman -- government employee, self centered, uncaring, conniving, vindictive. Yeah, Newman's more her speed.

Heartwarmer of the day -- Kim Kardashian offers to adopt Thai girl. Girl says no thanks.

So am I being cruel? Why else should I find joy in this story?

Here's the headline at USAToday.com: Thai orphan shuns Kim Kardashian adoption offer.

The writer notes the irony of the rejection when the girl didn't even know who Kim Kardashian was. Would it have mattered? Quien Sabe.

Via.

Acura ad -- I did it my way. No, you copied someone else.

There's a TV commercial now airing for Acura TLX featuring non-Asian non-speaking actors portraying proud, happy, and exited car builders. The accompanying music is a punk rock version of "I Did It My Way."

Watch it here. That was the song Frank Sinatra made famous a couple of generations ago. Watch him sing it here when it was just a golden oldie.

Here's the thing. If you do it your way, don't you come up with your own song instead of redoing some old song you found on a top ten list from years gone by?

Maybe the message is that the Acura contains nothing new. And if you read the lyrics -- see the text at the Youtube site -- you might wonder if it's even appropriate. To wit:

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.

They bit off more than they could chew, and ate it up, and spit it out. Yeah, that's what we want in a car manufacturer.

It's almost as ironic as the Mercedes commercial a few years back that featured Janice Joplin's "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz" -- the satirical hippy jab at the people present day hippies would call "the one percent."

Better Call Saul gets 2nd season -- 1st season hasn't even aired

Just about a year ago we learned that Breaking Bad creators were planning a spin-off featuring Saul Goodman, the flamboyant yet shady lawyer who represented some of the main miscreants of the show.

Now we get some details -- see 'Better Call Saul,' the 'Breaking Bad' spinoff, plots a way to bring back Walter White. The show will skip around in time so that they can use some of the Breaking Bad characters who met their ends before the series ended.

Saul became an important part of the Breaking Bad story as he provided ideas, advice, legal defense and illegal escape for some of the lead characters. And he was such a character himself. Bob Odenkirk made that store front lawyer bigger than his billboard.

Here's the treat. The new show has so much potential it has already been renewed for a second season without having aired once. That's the reputation those guys have. "It's over when I say it's over," as Walter White was fond of saying before it was over.

It should be fun to watch, however it's best not to get our hopes too high. The Executive producer Peter Gould says, "We could never dream of the kind of success that ‘Breaking Bad’ had and the love we got from the fans." Well, if they get the chemistry just right ...

Via Dailycaller.com.

If Hillary doesn't run -- cast and crew of "Political Animals" hardest hit

There was a TV drama in 2012 called Political Animals about a former first lady serving as Secretary of State. By the way, her ex-husband, the ex-president, had a reputation as a womanizer and brilliant political strategist.

Sound familiar? To those of us not in camp Hillary it looked like an attempt by show biz biggies to make that fictional Hillary Clinton look like the greatest thing for our country since Windows 8.

There was only one season of the show, and it ended with lots of questions in the air about whether she would run for president. I suppose they're waiting to see whether Hillary will run. If she doesn't, that'll be the end of "Political Animals."

But wait. What's this? Madam Secretary -- a different cast and crew, but with a lovable and efficient Secretary of State. They don't miss a beat. If "Political Animals" didn't do its job, you can be sure "Madam Secretary" will do it's best to get get this fictional multi-tasking Super Secretary imprinted in the minds of impressionable voters.

Fargo the TV show -- 5 murders in first 2 episodes -- off to good start

Fargo, a TV show that premiered a couple of weeks ago is a spinoff from the movie "Fargo." One of the main features in the movie was the snowy landscape of wintery Minnesota, and we get that in the TV show, too. We also get some similar characters, for example, Martin Freeman plays a character similar to the William H. Macy character in the movie. There are other similarities to the movie but also some big differences. Unfortunately, there's no Steve Buscemi character, at least so far, unless it's supposed to be Billy Bob Thornton's character.

Thornton plays an underhanded problem solver for hire who moonlights as a transient serial killer. So when a bunch of murders occur just after this stranger comes to the small town of Bemidji, MN, some of the townsfolk are suspicious.

Law officers and vengeful mobsters ask around about this stranger, and they got a fairly decent physical description. But it's an icy country. And the temperature is so cold there that it must freeze that portion of the ear drum that detects regional accents. Because no one seemed to have noticed that the mysterious stranger spoke with an Arkansas accent. But the credits say "this is a true story" in all caps, so we have to accept some inconsistencies.

First two episodes: One frozen corpse, one head bludgeoning, one shotgun murder, one brain stem stabbing, and one live person dropped in hole drilled in frozen lake.

So it got off to a good start. Check it out Tuesday nights on FX.