Lyle Landry?

I'd be more enthused if it were Lyle Lanley. You know, Commons put North Haverbrook, Brockway, and Ogdenville on the map!

Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Commons!
What'd I say?

Ned Flanders: Commons!

Lyle Lanley: What's it called?

Patty+Selma: Commons!

Lyle Lanley: That's right! Commons!

[crowd chants `Commons' softly and rhythmically]

Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud...

Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud.

Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?

Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.

Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs?

Lyle Lanley: You'll be given cushy jobs.

Abe: Were you sent here by the devil?

Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I'm on the level.

Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can.

Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man.

I swear it's Eddy's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!

All: Commons!

Lyle Lanley: What's it called?

All: Commons!

Lyle Lanley: Once again...

All: Commons!

Marge: But Stepan's still all cracked and broken...

Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!

All: Commons!
Commons!
Commons!

[big finish]

Commons!

Homer: Comm... D'oh!

Alias

In my legal writing class, we have to submit our papers under pseudonyms. Clearly, I used Johnny Rico as my first one. Now, I have to decide where to go for my next three. So many choices. . .

Continuing the Starship Troopers theme: Ace Levy, Drill Sergeant Zim, and Sky Marshall Tahatmaru.

Marvel Villians with ridiculous names: Victor Von Doom, Otto Octavius, and the Mandarin.

My favorite X-Men's alter-egos: Peter Rasputin, Remy LeBeau, and Bobby Drake.

Underused and underappreciated Smash Bros. characters: Yoshi, Fox McLeod, and Captain Falcon.

One-time Simpsons appearances: Frank Grimes, Hank Scorpio, and Sideshow Cecil.

James Taranto: Simpsons God

From today's Best of the Web:

Life Imitates 'The Simpsons'

*Database: "Uh, the trail has become indistinct. I suggest we split up to cover more ground." Bart: "Good idea. Milhouse, you and me will be Omega Team. Todd, you and Data are Team Strike Force. Nelson, that leaves you and Martin." Martin: "Team Discovery Channel!"--dialogue from "Lemon of Troy," originally aired May 14, 1995

*"Spaniard Alberto Contador won the drug-tainted Tour de France. . . . Contador, who rides for the Discovery Channel team . . ."--Associated Press, July 29, 2007

How the heck to you catch something like that? One marvels.

Here's the video for those miscreants who don't remember one the great all-time Simpsons episodes:

Anagramticus Says...

Big Jim Dwyer = Jib Wed Grimy

I think that means you're supposed to marry Frank Grimes, but he's dead. So I'm not sure what you need to do.

Thither Europe?

From Treehouse of Horror XI:

There are numerous parallels one could draw; however, the one that stuck with me the most was Homer's: "Hey, you gotta hand it to those dolphins. They just wanted it more."

My Heroes

I don't know who made this video, but they deserve a medal. And a lifetime supply of chicken nuggets.

Now We're at 14

Ummm, I don't quite know how you can top Candy Robots (unless with Seizure Robots) but whatever. And yeah, Brownback, like Feingold, is independent. Isn't he exactly that rare beast that Democrats allegedly mourn for?

The most important news of yesterday was, of course, the commitments of Golden Tate and Ian Williams to Notre Dame. While Tate looks to be that receiver with elite speed which Weis needs for his offense, I’m most excited by the commitment of Ian Williams, the first true DT to commit to Notre dame in well over half a century. Williams’ verbal will finally gives Minter the freedom to unleash the defense Weis has been recruiting for: the famed, yet elusive, 1-3-7:



Speed is never a bad thing, right?

I've never been good at titles

If you're goint to compare us to two Simpsons characters teaming up in seemingly unstoppable fashion, only to be summarily stopped, I would have preferred this one. If I'm going down, it might as well be God who does the dirty work.

I've actually been a fan of Brownback for a while. He is a genuine statesman who acts out of deeply held personal beliefs with little regard for political calculations. He takes turns offending liberals and conservatives, Republicans and Democrats. Even if I don't agree with all his positions (and I don't), there's no question we need more people like him in the Senate.

Still, his newfound popishness is a cause for concern. Secret ceremonies, clandestine sponsors, the next thing you know, he'll be teaming up with giant albinos.

All that aside, statesmanship and principle are the reasons I'll stomach a dozen Russ Feingolds over one John Kerry every day of the week. While I disagree with Feingold on most issues, I appreciate the fact that he acts on his beliefs, not his ambitions. Plus, I can't imagine you'll ever see Feingold doing this.

Liberals and Religion

Together we're unstoppable, eh?

Does this mean we're going to be shut down in favor of a candy robot blog?

That said, I guess I'll kick this thing off with a rather weighty topic. I recently read Noam Scheiber's article in The New Republic on Sam Brownback, Kansas senator, and his possible chances of winning the Republican nomination for president. The article's pretty long, so I'm only going to list a couple of quotes.



First, we have the good old "Poisoning the Well":

For the most part, though, it's not the continuity between the young Brownback and today's Brownback that is striking: It's the change. Because the longer Brownback goes on, the more you sense a distinct lack of passion for standard Iowa fare like agriculture policy or the budget. Compared with the previous speaker, local Congressman Steve King, he's not even worked up about Iraq. What Sam Brownback clearly wants to talk about--what he thinks people need to know about--are the issues you might store in a mental file called "Judgment Day." The Judgment Day file begins with standard culture-war causes like gay marriage and abortion. But it is a sprawling file, and, before long, it sprawls to such far-flung locales as Sudan and the Congo, where Brownback wants to stop genocide and human trafficking. "We're a great nation," Brownback says. His voice is still composed, but now there's a firmness that wasn't there before. "And I believe, in my heart, that for our greatness to continue, our goodness must continue.

I should make clear that this phrase "Judgment Day file" comes neither from Brownback nor his supporters. It is solely the creation of Scheiber. As we later learn, Brownback is a convert to Catholicism, so the whole End Times spiel doesn't really apply to him anymore. Why does Scheiber feel the need to paint him with the extreme Evangelical brush? So it would appear that Brownback is being condemned for taking his religion seriously and then applying that religion not only to the bugaboos of liberal America (abortion and gay marriage) but even to issues which I would assume deserve support from either side of the aisle: putting an end to genocide and human trafficking.

Another dandy:

Brownback's conversion the following year made him both a Catholic and a member of the rarefied flock of John McCloskey, priest to Washington's conservative establishment. McCloskey had previously converted conservative journalists Bob Novak and Larry Kudlow, and Brownback's "sponsor" was his fellow senator, Santorum. As with most secret societies, the accounts of Brownback's admission to this circle are remarkably thin. No one describes it as much more than a "quiet ceremony" officiated by McCloskey in a K Street chapel.

I like the quotes around sponsor. Is Scheiber not aware that it's a religious term? And if he is, couldn't he explain it to those who don't know it? By leaving it alone, he makes it seem shady and cultish, which, of course, is the whole point of this portion. I like the final two sentences too. I would assume that it was Mass which McCloskey presided over, in which Brownback received the Eucharist for the first time. Scary stuff, I tell you.

Finally, Scheiber once again manages to turn a rather liberal position on Brownback's part into a condemnation:

Then there is the immigration issue, which is either a colossal political miscalculation or the policy equivalent of Catholic self-flagellation. In 2005, Brownback signed on as a co-sponsor to the relatively moderate Kennedy-McCain bill. The reaction from rank-and-file Republicans has not been kind. Steve Scheffler, the head of a conservative evangelical group in Iowa, told me, "The biggest thing [Brownback would] have to address is why did he vote for that horrendous bill?" Kensinger says Brownback's answer is simple: "The Bible says you will be judged by how you treat the widow, the orphan, the foreign among you. That's the end of it." He believes the key is how Brownback manages his position--not the position itself. But Chuck Hurley, a Brownback law school classmate who runs the influential Iowa Family Policy Center, has hinted a shift could be in the works. "I understand he's been doing some consulting about that issue," Hurley told me conspiratorially, citing an upcoming meeting with a local anti-immigration politician.

So what he have here is yet another liberal who just doesn't get religion. Need I say that this isn't tremendously helpful for the Democratic Party? Does Scheiber not know any religious people who could look over his article for him. Reading between the lines, I've found a new respect for Brownback, whom I didn't really know a lot about before. He seems like an independent minded, committed conservative who takes his faith seriously, with nary a skeleton in his closet (since I'm sure Scheiber would have mentioned any of those).