This week’s teeny-bopper icon in “vox parvi populi” (voice of the tiny people, though Daddy says “little people”) is Miranda Cosgrove, now star of “iCarly” and previously a living demonstration of how girls are just smarter than boys in “Drake and Josh,” where two boys– even one who was supposed to be smart in school– were just no match for a girl– even several years younger. Daddy says Miranda’s character, Megan, was like a young Hillary Clinton: totally smart, totally focused, totally ruthless. (Click on Miranda for an explanation of her fashion statement.) This has been… Vox parvi populi.

Jesus’ General J.C. Christian writes to the Dean at U.C. Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law School in praise of its faculty member John Yoo, proudly espousing the vision of the America we are becoming… that shining interrogation center on a hill. (I note that Prof. Yoo himself was actually pretty courteous in declining my request for an interview with this blog, at one time; it’s mostly a free country, after all, even if he doesn’t seem to think so.) The General spots a fascinating trend between youthful cruelty to animals and adult cruelty to, well, everyone… that other servant of Jesus,...

California Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) (who, you’ll recall, was the one-time-car-thief-turned-car-alarm-king and financial force in the recall of Gray Davis that gave us Governor Schwarzenegger) appears to have put his foot in his mouth by calling the events of 9-11 “just a plane crash” resulting in “just another fire”. The usual suspects– numerous Republicans, “the families,” New York’s tabloids, etc.–have duly jumped on this statement. The statement was apparently intended by Issa as a justification for opposing funding of an aid-to-New-York-bill, thereby screwing various rescue workers and other New Yorkers sickened by toxins released from the 9-11 events– who were...

I have been quite critical of the lack of political courage shown by the Democrats since re-taking control of Congress, but this morning’s surprise announcement at a joint news conference with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers that articles of impeachment against the President for high crimes and misdemeanors will be presented to the House Judiciary Committee certainly puts an end to such criticism on my part. Pelosi and Conyers announced that their articles of impeachment “were much better than that lunatic Cynthia McKinney’s” and “made a whole lot more sense than that idiot Kucinich’s.”...

Damned if I know. That’s kind of the point, is it not? I got an e-mail from Randy earlier in the week, to tell me some dreadful news about someone we both knew from our work lives. As coincidence would have it, Norman was someone I had met in the job I managed to secure in White Plains, New York shortly after September 11th (I lost my previous job because of the proximity of that office to the WTC site, i.e. one block North of what is now the north side of “Ground Zero”). Norman was often kind enough to...

“If I can’t have it, NO ONE CAN!” Thus is the classic tantrum of many a small child, or, at present, twenty small, rich, spoiled children, who wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi essentially threatening not to contribute to Democratic causes any longer unless Speaker Pelosi takes back her statements critical of Hillary Clinton’s attempts to save the party by stealing the nomination back from those stupid voters. I suspect that when this tactic starts to spin out of control (or be spun out of control, as the case may be), as with many a prior gaffe, Team Clinton will...

While I think of someone to post a picture of, check out Daddy’s Amercan Street entry of the week, If God Wanted Us to Keep these things, He wouldn’t have put them in the way. Daddy tells me I haven’t yet done… Ashley Tisdale. ! That’s right, Ashley Tisdale. (Click on her to see what she thinks about the dog she’s holding… and someone else.) I’m pretty sure that, like Selena Gomez, Ashley’s cool exterior hides a seething cauldron of petty jealousy and supreme rage. At least, I hope so. This has been… Vox Parvi Popui.

The first and still most logical reaction to the announced kerfuffle that each of the three remaining candidates (Clinton, McCain and Obama, in alphabetical order) had their passport files “breached” by State Department contract employees is “wtf”?. The first announced “breach” was of Obama, and his file was accessed three times (at key moments in the primary cycle) while McCain’s and Clinton’s were accessed once each, at different times, though in McCain’s case, by one of the same accessors. The first hope one has is the notion that maybe the powerful needed to be reminded once in a while that...

And so we come to the fifth anniversary of George and Dick and Don’s Excellent Iraq Adventure; MSNBC has a bit of a retrospective here. Fifth year traditionally marks the “wood” anniversary (I guess one would give gifts of… furniture or salad bowls?) And in the case of the Bush Administration, wooden sums up the thought processes surrounding the war. With the benefit of a little time, we can now see that there was no basis for anyone to have trusted this Administration in its claims of the allegedly grave threat presented by Saddam, and his now established to be...

This week, I’m going for a teeny-bopper celeb Daddy doesn’t even know about, Selena Gomez from “Wizards of Waverly Place” (click on her picture, and you’ll see how she really feels about one of those other teeny-bopper superstars). Selena is very popular with lots of kids I know. Honestly, she’s very pretty. On the outside. But inside, I’ll bet she’s a raging cauldron of jealousy and anger. And she’ll probably grow up to be a Republican (that’s Daddy saying that.) Speaking of Daddy, he makes me, as always, tell you about his American Street post of the week, called Secrecy...