Author Archive: Paul Epps

Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne

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The most fitting eulogy I’ve read for Senator Kennedy . . . A Senator from Massachusetts has left office in the only manner possible for an incumbent Democrat, i.e., in a coffin. The New York Times leads off their story on Ted Kennedy’s death with “his sometimes-stormy personal life.” When I think of Ted Kennedy, though, my first thought is always sadness at the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a promising young woman killed by Kennedy, who waited more than eight hours before seeking help for her rescue. One expects politicians to impoverish constituents with reckless spending; one does not expect them to kill constituents. . . . [Some friends asked today how I would have summarized Ted Kennedy’s biography, if not the way the New York Times did. I observed that he had spent his entire life either as the child of a wealthy family or as a government… Read more →

What Makes Me Mad

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You know what makes me mad? People asking me, “Are you mad about something?” If I’m mad about something, I’ll tell you I’m mad about something. When someone asks me if I’m mad about something, it makes me think they know something I should be mad about. From now on, when someone asks me if I’m mad about something, I’m going to say yes. And when they ask what I’m mad about I’m going to say, “You know what I’m mad about.” Read more →

Twitter: 2009-08-27

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RT @PeteCarroll: congrats to matt barkley on being named our starting qb… let's rip it matt! http://bit.ly/o7hbG (@USCRipsIt) # RT @OCWeekly: We round up our top five favorite things to eat at Disneyland: What'd we miss? http://bit.ly/15dKgE # Read more →

Appeasement

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There’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness . . . It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled. — Paul Krugman   As we all know, you can’t appease terrorists. Oh wait, sorry–appeasing terrorists is worth a try. It’s Republicans you can’t appease. — Best of the Web Today Read more →

Personal Space

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The guy at the Green Burrito drive-thru leans all the way out the window and almost into my car to ask, in an Eastern European accent, “Can I get you any taco sauce or something?” Uh, no thanks, Miroslav. I know different cultures have different ideas about personal space but here in America we like you to stay inside the window and just talk to us from there . . . Read more →

Dwight Howard’s Reality

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[Dwight] Howard has also expressed the desire to have his own reality show. Here’s a suggestion: The show should focus on Howard’s learning how to make savvy passes when he’s doubled, how to shoot a short-range jumper and how to make free throws. That’s the kind of reality that the young man should be interested in. — Charley Rosen Read more →

The Moreno Valley: Junkyard of OC Dreams

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The Moreno Valley is now the poster child for American housing gone wrong, and the New York Times weighed in with one of their stock magisterial pieces, the kinds that read purty but don’t say jack shit about reality. The Orange County connection is that two of the homeowners profiled in the piece moved to the MV because they couldn’t afford apartments in OC, which should clue the rest of the nation into how stupid they were to buy into Moreno Valley. Reporter Jennifer Steinhauer doesn’t note that even people in Colton ridicule Moreno Valley residents for living there. It’s not an area “filled with people priced out of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, or looking to escape louder, less-safe cities,” as the Times notes; it’s a place for fools who weren’t smart enough to buy a house in Calimesa. Shit, even Beaumont is better than Moreno Valley, and Beamount… Read more →

Twitter: 2009-08-23

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@ReporterHaley Love the food at Lucille's. And they make a very good mint julep… in reply to ReporterHaley # RT @capricecrane: I was trying to make exercising fun but apparently after a certain age its no longer "appropriate" to play Ding Dong Ditch # Read more →

The Death of Ivan Ilych

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It occurred to him that what had seemed perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend. “But if that is so,” he said to himself, “and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and… Read more →

White House Adds $2 Trillion to Deficit Forecasts

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The nation would be forced to borrow more than $9 trillion over the next decade under President Obama’s policies, the White House acknowledged late Friday, bringing their long-term budget forecast in line with independent estimates. The new projections add approximately $2 trillion to budget deficits through 2019. Earlier this year, the administration had predicted that Obama’s policies would require the government to spend $7.108 trillion more than it collects in tax revenue over the next decade. An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the report will not be formally released until Tuesday, said the change is due primarily to updated projections of economic growth that are far less rosy than data used when the White House released its first long-term budget outlook in February. — washingtonpost.com I think I’d be way more upset about this if the numbers weren’t beyond human comprehension . . . Read more →

Pug Photos on Flickr

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Originally uploaded by Kerbear…NYC bound….. Originally uploaded by Madness Rivera Originally uploaded by wombatarama Originally uploaded by geraldbrazell Still want more? Here’s a bonus set. Read more →

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