Blog: Culpepper Log

Barger's Boutique - Pins, Magnets, Keychains for Obama, Palin, The Shield, David Bowie, Frank Sinatra, Hee Haw, Hank Williams, James Cagney,South Park Ol' Al's got a brand new bag going at Barger's Boutique, with groovy pinback buttons, refrigerator magnets and keychains representing lots of my favorite things - and maybe a few scarier ones to keep it real. I wouldn't want to ask people to just give me money cause they like my website, but do please take a quick look at these Barger's Boutique selections. Roll over to find links to sales [...]

Sarah Palin Turkey Interview Governor Palin went to an Alaskan turkey farm to officially pardon a Thanksgiving turkey, and then proceeded to do a local tv interview with other turkeys absolutely being slaughtered in the background. It's a huge YouTube hit. And you KNOW ol' girl is doing it like this absolutely on purpose. She had to know what was going on behind her. She could have just took a few steps to the side where the slaughtering would have been out of frame. She's a professional politician, [...]

New CD Album Releases, 11-18-2008: Dido, Beyonce, David Cook Dido's probably the best pick this week. I've listened to Safe Trip Home a couple of times. So far, it sounds pretty good all the way through - but I can't remember a bit of any of these songs after a couple listens. Yet I can tell how carefully and intricately the tunes are constructed. They just don't strike me as being very catchy. But she has a compelling voice and arrangements. She's clearly spent a lot [...]

Greensburg Indiana Honda Plant Opens It's a rough time in the US economy here at the end of 2008. Stock market's to hell, times are tough. Now the big American automakers are a half step from absolute bankruptcy unless the federal govenment doles out tens of billions more dollars for them to keep losing for another year before they go bankrupt. Creditors would probably in fact revamp the companies and keep their better products in production. Yet if GM and Ford both went down the tubes and completely quit producing cars [...]

Sarah Palin vs "Elite" Republicans Syndicated conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, of whom I have sometimes been a fan, made waves in the 2008 election by her vigorous distaste for Sarah Palin. She went so far as to call on her to drop off the ticket because she was supposedly so ill-qualified. She's milked the controversy and negative responses that she's gotten for several columns, including a new one just today. Writing her a response, it got big enough that I figured to [...]

PJ O'Rourke explains the free market PJ O'Rourke does serious reporting and analysis as a humorist, but between his classic clever metaphors, his new Weekly Standard piece on the 2008 election fallout has more weeping and nashing of teeth than about any other conservative post-mortem I've seen. He's really putting on the sackcloth and ashes for the supposed "conservative" movement. It's not the flagellation part, but I was particularly struck by this useful analogy that people should understand and remember, explaining that free markets are not an [...]

New CD Album Releases, 11-11-2008: Cheap Trick, Christina Aguilera, Flaming Lips, Seal, Enya Christina Aguilera has a Target store only release Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits . It has four new songs. The Flaming Lips have a soundtrack album for the seven years in gestation movie Christmas on Mars . On the one hand, anything fooled with for that long makes me suspicious. I'd expect the soup to be long cold, and for stuff to be just way too convoluted from way [...]

The Sarah Palin 2008 Lipstick Vogue Button Collection from Barger's Boutique Barger's Boutique is pleased to introduce the 2008 Sarah Palin Lipstick Vogue Button Collection. These 20 unique designs capture small bits of the awesomeness and all round raw mad political skillz dat Sarah Palin gots. The opposition has already done their worst, and Sister Sarah stood up to the full frontal assault and maybe as much as got her hair mussed. But she's a working girl and not really primarily a show horse to start with, which you can see as she's siting [...]

The Barack Obama Golden Child Inaugaral Button Collection Barger's Boutique is pleased to introduce the Barack Obama Inaugaral Button Collection. These 18 unique designs capture small bits of the history of America's first black president. Professor Obama took the Republicans to school, with Faith and Hope to Heal the Planet with THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW!!! Ultimately, the Golden Child and his muse Michelle and the ever quotable Joe Biden are heading to the White House. While the nation waits with baited breath for the answers to that question, you can get [...]

New CD Album Releases, 11-4-2008: Brad Paisley, Mavis Staples, Harry Connick Jr Looks like pretty thin gruel this election day - and there's not much in the way of good new music either. But Brad Paisley's Play: The Guitar Album might be worth a listen. This album is largely instrumental, and includes contributions from among others BB King and Andy Griffith. I particularly like the CD cover image, which invokes the alternate idea of "playing" in a schoolyard. I'd be particularly interested in hearing the "Cluster Pluck." [...]

The Palin Doctrine on SNL's Election Eve Presidential Bash Funny that Tina Fey doesn't seem to like or support Sarah Palin . On SNL as Palin, at one point she described herself as among other things "one part high school bitchy." But then Tina Fey some months ago on the Weekend Update before Palin's emergence famously declared that "bitch is the new black" and that bitches like her and Amy Poehler and Hillary Clinton get stuff done. It was a perfectly valid point. Which brings [...]

The Methamphetamine of the People Ralph Peters is an always excellent and thoughtful reporter and analyst. Today he has a column arguing that we shouldn't be too happy over the severe economic setbacks from recession and falling oil prices among our adversaries, particularly Putin's Russia. Broadly, the more you got to lose, the less risky behavior you're likely to engage in. Putin stopped halfway across Georgia based on what kind of most likely economic punishment he might get if he went all the way. [...]

New CD Album Releases, 10-28-2008: Hank Williams, Toby Keith, Pink, Ryan Adams The biggest release this week is That Don't Make Me a Bad Guy from Toby Keith. I generally actively avoid modern commercial country music, but Keith has actually had at least a couple of good songs in time. He's definitely above average in such things. Plus, he's perhaps the only person alive who hates the danged Dixie Chicks worse than I do, so I'll have to give him some credit there. Pink [...]

Sarah Palin Ain't Much of a Redneck Sarah Palin ain't much of a redneck. Don't get me wrong: I got a lot of love for Sister Sarah, but I am a little disappointed with her and Todd regarding this Troopergate business. They've got this dick of a state trooper ex-brother in law screw-up named Mike Wooten. Frankly, you can just take one glance at this guy and intuit that he needs to be taken out behind the barn and knocked in the back of [...]

Barack Obama's Messianic Pretensions David Warren has a lovely column up on Real Clear Politics today about Barack Obama's "messianic pretensions." Other people have noted that obvious basic point, but Warren states it particularly nicely Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational" leader -- and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which the U.S. itself, like the [...]

New CD Album Releases, 10-21-2008: AC/DC, TSOP, High School Musical, Lee Ann Womack The big deal this week is the Wal-Mart exclusive Black Ice , the first new AC/DC album in seven years. I've listened to it now a couple of times, and I'm somewhat less unimpressed than I would have expected. When my high school classmates were losing their minds over Back in Black , I was knee deep in Elvis Costello. Still, that was a classic album, and I wouldn't deny "Highway to Hell" or Dirty Deeds . There [...]

Nuclear Energy Facts Just a quick note to recommend special attention to a National Review article about nuclear energy . It is written by a man named William Tucker, who is the author of the book Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America's Energy Odyssey . It's a fairly lengthy article, and explains pretty much about the issues involved to some degree of technical specificity - but written simply enough that an intelligent layman can reasonably understand it. Some of the basic points are [...]

New CD Album Releases, 10-14-2008: Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, Aretha Franklin, Kenny Chesney Kenny Chesney has a new album out, Lucky Old Sun . Sounds like lazy beach music, from what I've heard about it. I know he's sold some records, but has he ever had a memorable song? I can't remember any. Lucinda Williams has been rather less commercially succesful, probably largely because she's made something more like real country music. Couldn't play her back to back on the radio with some Shania Twain or Garth Brooks crap, or there'd [...]

Churches of my childhood I have been out visiting lots of different churches in recent months, all fine houses of worship. I could go to 100 different Christian churches within 20 miles or so - and I just might over a year or two. This Sunday morning, I went back to my old home church about 5 miles away, the Andersonville Christian Church, in which I was baptized as a wee lad of 10 or 11. It has that deeply reassuring old church smell about it, and the congregation [...]

Tim Robbins gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Actor and activist Tim Robbins, age 49, just got a well deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He's been quite the productive and multi-talented dude. He's an actor, writer, director and even something of an accomplished songwriter. Among his more noteworthy acheivements, he co-wrote Dead Man Walking with his long time partner Susan Sarandon, and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Director in 1996 for this movie. Granted [...]