Midlantic Monstro-idiocy

We were out boozing yesterday at such diverse spots as the awesome tapas joint Cigala and chav mecca Spice Island. So we don't really have a coherent thought in our head right now.

So we'll instead highlight a couple of things that will make us look like a smarty-pants. The first thig was the following nugget from top centrist McCain frotter and former right wing thug Marshall Whitman in his Bull Moose blog. Whitman thinks that framing policy questions by looking at how King of the Hill's Hank Hill might look at them might be a good way to peel of wary Republican voters inn western states. It's seductive stuff, and makes a certain amount of sense when it adresses voters' values. The entry draws heavily on a New York Times piece on North Carolina governor Mike Easley. Who promptly exposes the idea for the corporate-sponsored nonsense that it is:

"Voters like Hank, if they had heard about it on the evening news, would have supported Easley's ''Clean Smokestacks'' law, which forced North Carolina's coal-powered electric plants to burn cleaner, but only because industry was a partner in the final bill, rather than its target.'"

So, Mr. Hill would be completely happy nodding long to drivelly lobbyist-drafted nonsense about "partnership with the industry" rather than asking whether the damn thing would have reduced asthma rates. Riiiiiiiight.

Next up, an impressive haul of nonsense for such a short nib in the Observer's Pendennis column:

"Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell empire has upset American media firm Wenner Media by poaching the editor of its New York Daily News to launch a US version of OK! magazine. Nicola McCarthy, who was editor in chief of the British OK! title until 2004, quit last month as an executive editor of the US weekly, where she was paid $240,000 a year, plus bonus. But Desmondo's launch plans for his new mag have hit a snag. Court papers stipulate that McCarthy is now prohibited from 'working for a competing magazine' before 25 April 2006."

By stealing a story from the NY Daily News, the diary has unfortunately conflated it with the aggrieved party. The Wenner title is of course US Weekly, which is, as Pendennis notes, weekly, unlike the, um, Daily News. Bad, cut and pasting diarist! Bad!

We're going to see the White Stripes in Coney in September. Huzzah!