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ISSN: 1525-898X
Observations by and for the vaguely disenchanted by Kevin G. Barkes

 

Conceived above a saloon, delivered into this world by a masked man identified by his heavily sedated mother as Captain Video, raised by a kindly West Virginian woman, a mild-mannered former reporter with modest delusions of grandeur and no tolerance of idiots and the intellectually dishonest.

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network solutions made me a child pornographer!
The sordid details...

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Anniversary

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Requiem for a fictional Scotsman

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Oh my God! They killed Library!! Those bastards!!!

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Elegy to a Mostly Maine Coon

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It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day

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A Pittsburgher in the Really Big City

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Da Burg Annat

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I Have Issues

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Yeah, yeah, I'm inspired

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At least the rivers freeze in Pittsburgh

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He knows if yinz is a jagoff

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Please support KGB Report by making your amazon.com purchases through our affiliate link:
 

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dcl dialogue online!

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no. we're not that kgb.

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KGB, CIA linked

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The Carbolic Smoke Ball
Superb satire, and based in Pittsburgh!

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Americans United for Separation of Church and State

"No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Article VI, U.S. Constitution

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Geek of the Week, 7/16/2000

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Cruel Site of the Day, 7/15/2000

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miscellany

Hard to describe.

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"a breezy writing style and a cool mix of tidbits"

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Our riveting and morally compelling...

Privacy statement

One of  51,847 random quotes. Please CTRL-F5 to refresh the page.

	kgbreport.com Web

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(July 2000 and earlier)

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Saturday, April 12, 2008
posted by KGB at 11:43 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day (special Saturday edition)

Only busy saints and true villains forsake activities which give them pleasure. If you regard yourself as neither, enjoy the world as your own.
~Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam

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posted by KGB at 11:24 AM (permalink)

Oh, all right...

Some folks who read what I wrote about Charleton Heston were insistent. "Come on," they said, "We know you. What immediately popped into your head when you heard the news?" I'm somewhat ashamed to admit:

Soylent Green! Now with more Chuck!

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posted by KGB at 10:39 AM (permalink)

Book of the day you'll never hear about from the media

(via Crooks and Liars...) for all their talk about balance and bringing on Republican strategists and talking heads when a liberal appears, there’s no similar inclination when it’s a Republican.  The media will talk to McCain or his mouthpieces like Hazelbaker all by themselves with absolutely no balance from the other side of the aisle.  In fact, I talked to Cliff today and asked him if he had been able to land any TV appearances to promote The Real McCain, maybe to refute Hazelbaker or some other Republican strategist who wants to minimize McCain’s nasty temper and disrespect of others.  Not one.  

Isn’t that amazing?  A few months ago, Jonah Goldberg writes this vitriolic piece of tripe without a single fact or even a basic high school understanding of  sociology and civics and he gets on all the major networks to pimp his fact-free (and really badly written) drivel, especially since he targeted liberals generally and Hillary Clinton specifically.  That’s good television, apparently.  But Cliff, who is no stranger to TV, can’t find a single outlet willing to take a look at a book that may not show McCain–the Republican candidate for the highest office in the land– in a less than glowing light.  God forbid the voters hear about McCain’s negatives when the media is busy talking about Hillary’s lies and Obama’s ties to controversial figures. They’ll put on McCain to refute a book that they won’t talk about, but not bring on the actual author of the book.  That’s what I call teflon, baby.

If you are of the mind to, in addition to supporting one of our progressive voices by purchasing his book, consider please using the “Spotlight” function at the bottom  this post to contact members of the media and ask them to get Cliff’s book in the spotlight and stop giving McCain a pass.

And for your enjoyment, Max and the Marginalized has come up with a new song using some of the revelations that Cliff has in his book:  John McCain is a Hotheaded Coot Who is Unfit to Lead, and We Wrote a Song About It.  The lyrics are great:

(Read the rest of this story…)

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Friday, April 11, 2008
posted by KGB at 6:31 AM (permalink)

Most alarming sentence in a news story of the day...

"The image is of the vice president's hand on his fly rod."

I think I would have less disturbed if indeed it had been a reflection of a naked woman in his sunglasses.

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Thursday, April 10, 2008
posted by KGB at 10:24 AM (permalink)

From those geniuses at ESPN

Click here for the latest in interactive entertainment.

As Beau on the ABC World News Now discussion group on Google notes, "And here's what you'll be doing with your next hour..."

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008
posted by KGB at 12:37 PM (permalink)

Happy 80th Birthday, Tom Lehrer!

Low bandwidth, PDA version:

Base eight is just like base ten, really... if you're missing two fingers.

I feel that if a person can't communicate the very least he can do is to shut up.

I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that!

If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared to not only retract it, but also to deny under oath I ever said it.

In my youth... there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can't say "girl."

On my income tax 1040 it says "Check this box if you are blind." I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away.

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean
But that couldn't happen again.
We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen
And they've hardly bothered us since then.
-MLF Lullaby (1964)

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Muslims
And everybody hates the Jews...
But during National Brotherhood Week
National Brotherhood Week
It's National Everyone Smile At
One Anotherhood Week
Be nice to people who are
Inferior to you
It's only for a week so have no fear,
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!
-National Brotherhood Week (1964)

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posted by KGB at 12:00 AM (permalink)

Happy 80th Birthday, Tom Lehrer!

(Some things never change...)

In a phone call to Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post in February 2008, Lehrer instructed Weingarten to "Just tell the people that I am voting for Obama."

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Tuesday, April 08, 2008
posted by KGB at 3:51 AM (permalink)

More than Moses and the NRA.

Charlton Heston initially made his mark portraying Moses and Ben Hur. Most recently, he's remembered for his tenure as NRA president and the comment about prying his gun from his cold, dead hands.

That's unfortunate.

Heston was a man who did not wear his beliefs like seasonal sportswear. He did not parrot the official party line or mindlessly repeat the neocon talking points du jour. His famous sound bite overshadows his true legacy: a conservative whose dedication to dignity, manners and reasoned discourse should be adopted by those of all ideological leanings.

Whenever I heard him speak at length- not the snippets pulled out of context for cable news, but in full conversations with qualified interviewers- he accomplished something that very few conservatives have been able to do. He made me think about my position, review the logic that he used to arrive at his different viewpoint and- in some cases- reconsider my stance. He rarely, if ever, actually changed my mind. But in eloquently stating the opposing view, he made me respect it and seek potential areas of compromise.

He didn't accomplish this with ad hominem attacks, alliterative or rhyming jingoism, macho bluster, or any of the other quasi-intellectual blunt instruments typically employed in what passes as discourse these days. And no one would have been better at it than Heston. Who else but Heston, True Lies director James Cameron noted, could play someone who could believably intimidate Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Read Heston's famous Winning The Cultural War address to the Harvard Law School Forum. While you may not agree with everything he says, you must agree it is a quintessential example of what free speech and political discourse should be in this country.

Heston was a gentleman and an American. We've lost a great guy.

"Political correctness is just tyranny with manners. I wish for you the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history's pocket change. Courage is history's true currency."
-Charlton Heston

(Thanks to David Kifer. I had this half-finished on Sunday; he sent an email with another link to Heston's speech that reminded me to finish it.)

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posted by KGB at 2:37 AM (permalink)

Ouch.

Sorry Maureen, Rodger, and The Wisconsin State Journal Staff. As Steve Martin said, "Some people have a way with words, and other people... not have way, I guess."

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Monday, April 07, 2008
posted by KGB at 8:57 AM (permalink)

My "Y" Chromosome. I think I'll keep it.

• Your last name never changes.

• Chocolate is just another snack.

• You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.

• Car mechanics tell you the truth.

• The world is your urinal.

• You never have to drive to another gas station because this one's just too icky.

• Wrinkles add character, and gray hair makes you look distinguished.

• Wedding dress - $5000; tux rental - $100.

• People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.

• One mood all the time.

• Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

• A five-day trip requires only one suitcase, and it's a carry-on.

• You can open all your own jars.

• Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.

• Everything on your face stays its original color.

• You only need three pairs of shoes: dress, everyday, and athletic.

• You don't have to stop and think which way to turn a nut or a bolt.

• You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

• The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.

• You don't have to shave below your neck.

• Your belly usually hides your big hips.

• One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons.

• You can "do" your nails with a pocketknife.

• You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.

• You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives, on December 24, in 45 minutes.

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Sunday, April 06, 2008
posted by KGB at 5:59 AM (permalink)

Birthday of note

The Twinkie turns 78 today. And, one presumes, a
Twinkie purchased on April 6, 1930 is still edible today.

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posted by KGB at 5:47 AM (permalink)

Movie of the week

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Copyright © 1987-2024 by Kevin G. Barkes
All rights reserved.
Violators will be prosecuted.
So there.  
The kgb@kgb.com e-mail address is now something other than kgb@kgb.com saga.
kgbreport.com used to be kgb.com until December, 2007 when the domain name broker Trout Zimmer made an offer I couldn't refuse. Giving up kgb.com and adopting kgbreport.com created a significant problem, however. I had acquired the kgb.com domain name in 1993, and had since that time used kgb@kgb.com as my sole e-mail address. How to let people know that kgb@kgb.com was no longer kgb@kgb.com but rather kgbarkes@gmail.com which is longer than kgb@kgb.com and more letters to type than kgb@kgb.com and somehow less aesthetically pleasing than kgb@kgb.com but actually just as functional as kgb@kgb.com? I sent e-mails from the kgb@kgb.com address to just about everybody I knew who had used kgb@kgb.com in the past decade and a half but noticed that some people just didn't seem to get the word about the kgb@kgb.com change. So it occurred to me that if I were generate some literate, valid text in which kgb@kgb.com was repeated numerous times and posted it on a bunch of different pages- say, a blog indexed by Google- that someone looking for kgb@kgb.com would notice this paragraph repeated in hundreds of locations, would read it, and figure out that kgb@kgb.com no longer is the kgb@kgb.com they thought it was. That's the theory, anyway. kgb@kgb.com. Ok, I'm done. Move along. Nothing to see here...