Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 51

Your beard

Another Lying Liar

The utterly corrupt world of big-time college football is currently in full spasm over the resignation of one of it's high priests. Jim Tressel has resigned as head football coach at Ohio State University. Tressel was found to have lied to virtually everyone he spoke to since the story of his players receiving discounts on tattoos broke last December. Turns out, like every single big-time college athletics department in the country, some of Tressel's players had received a range of discounts, cars, and cash in violation of the rules of the NCAA.

It may come as a surprise that there are people out there, monied adult people, who enjoy college athletics so much, and enjoy being in the presence of athletes so much, that they are willing to offer discount tattoos and the like in order to feel that they are somehow part of the game. That a coddled teenaged athlete would succumb to the temptation to accept $100 handshakes and loaner cars and anything else is no surprise. Those arrangements are as old as college athletics. The only thing that surprises me now is the outrage over the whole thing.

Are college football fans so deluded that they think it can't possibly happen at their school? That since the Tressels of the world claim to 'mold young men into adults' while wearing a sweater vest and at the same time winning football games that they couldn't possibly be bald-faced liars and cheats? Have the Jim Bakkers and Jimmy Swaggarts, not to mention the John Caliparis and Bobby Bowdens of the world taught us nothing? Surely we're aware by now that the men who most loudly preach such platitudes are the ones most likely to lie.

Or perhaps the ones most likely to lie are each and every college athletics fan, to themselves. We have bought the myth of intercollegiate athletics so willingly, so completely that we must elevate these people to heroic stature no matter what evidence we see to the contrary. No matter how many times one of them is caught we must instantly believe that the next one will be the one that will never cheat. To do otherwise would render the whole thing nothing more than a bloated, tawdry display of money and hubris wrapped in the thin veneer of education.

Or maybe we all just show up to see the marching band.

There goes the coveted vampire vote

via

In a failed attempt to seem more like regular folks, Mitt Romney says:

“I mean, I like the Twilight series. I thought it was fun,” Romney said. 

That would normally be a sufficient occasion to stop and ponder on the candidacy of our man Mitt. But he kept going:

“I don’t like vampires personally, I don’t know any, but you know my granddaughter was reading it and I thought, ‘Well this looks like fun,’ so I read that.”

Holeee crap. There are several possible explanations here, and Steve Benen delivers the conventional wisdom:

One can almost see the gears shifting in Romney’s mind, as if he’s thinking, “Wait, will social conservatitves throw a fit if I like tween vampire fiction? Maybe I should mention that I don’t like vampires. But will that make it sound as if I know vampires? Maybe I should mention I don’t know any.”

But if we take the statement at face value, Mitt Romney believes that vampires are real enough that he could know and/or like one. 

This is actually scary. If Mitt Romney believes in vampires, maybe we should too!

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart - A Fond Look Back at Our First 50 Installments

1. Bertie Higgins - Key Largo
2. Dan Hill - Sometimes When We Touch
3. Orleans - Dance With Me
4. Loggins and Messina - The House at Pooh Corner
5. Michael Murphy - Wildfire
6. Dave Mason - We Just Disagree
7. Isaac Hayaes - Walk On By
8. Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze
9. Christopher Cross - Sailing
10. Kenny Rogers - Lady

Special Week-end Edition - Jethro Tull - Thick As a Brick

11. Michael McDonald - What A Fool Believes
12. Ambrosia - Biggest Part of Me
13. Stephen Bishop - It Might Be You
14. ZZ Top - Rough Boy
15. Leon Russell - A Song For You
16. The Beatles - Let It Be
17. George Harrison - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
18. Ringo Starr - Photograph
19. John Lennon - Instant Karma
20. Billy Preston - Will It Go Round In Circles

Special Week-end Edition - The Allman Brothers Band - Whipping Post

21. The Band - I Shall Be Released
22. Joe Cocker - You Are So Beautiful
23. Bob Schneider - 40 Dogs (Romeo and Juliet)
24. Billy Joel - New York State of Mind
25. Little Feat - Fat Man in the Bathtub
26. ELO - Telephone Line
27. Fleetwood Mac - Oh Well
28. Gary P. Nunn - London Homesick Blues
29. Waylon Jennings - Luckenbach Texas
30. Willie Nelson - Good Hearted Woman
31. Split Lip Rayfield - Drink Lotsa Whiskey
32. Band Of Heathens - Hallelujah / I've Got a Feeling
33. Charley Daniels - Long Haired Country Boy
34. Merle Haggard - There's a Pair of Blue Eyes Down In Texas
35. The Black Crows - Soul Singing
36. Bob Marley - Exodus
37. Dr. John - Such a Night
38. Grateful Dead - Ripple
39. Blaze Foley - Oval Room
40. Darrell Scott - A Crooked Road

Special Week-end Edition - Free - Alright Now

41. Steve Goodman - You're the Girl I Love
42. William Elliott Whitmore - Old Devils
43. The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band - Mama's Fried Potatoes
44. Luke Kelly - Dirty Old Town
45. Eric Clapton - It Hurts Me Too
46. Ray Lamontagne - Empty
47. Manfred Mann - Blinded By The Light

Special Zimmerman Birthday Edition - Bob Dylan - Baby Let Me Follow you Down

48. Bruce Springsteen - Spirit in the Night
49. The Avett Brothers - St. Joseph's
50. Cat Stevens - Peace Train

More to come...

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 50

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 49

Brotherly beards II

Huntsman!

The fact that videos such as this are circulating already makes me think there isn't much of a shot for old Jon in 2012:



The maker of this video thinks that Huntsman should get in the race, though, saying:

Like many others, I strongly believe that traditional conservative ideals can and should prevail in 2012. But the path will not be laid for us, and conservative policy ideas, around entitlements and budget reform especially, still need to be tested with the electorate. So consider the primary campaign a warm-up for the main event, and Huntsman a proxy for what we might face in the general election.

Reasonable. I also think this might all work out very well for Huntsman, in 2016. In fact, I think this is actually Huntsman's grand plan. He'll walk into 2016 as the "you should have picked me" candidate and be facing a non-Osama-catching-incumbent-President.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 48

New Jersey beard

Who ya got?

"The GOP field is now officially so weak that Rick Santorum is going to announce he's entering the race."

Zing! But seriously, it seems like all the real candidates are keeping their powder dry for 2016, when they won't be facing the second coming of Bill Clinton. Which means it's time for the second string, and it looks like it's going to be a party!

Who will enter, who will win?

For my part, my money is on the money, and the money is with my man Mitt. But I think Rick Perry is just dumb enough to run. And except for the scary possibility of him actually becoming president, I think a Perry run would be totally awesome. A failed bid that drags on long enough for the national machines to totally tar him in ways that his regional foes (for example, me) just can't manage might be the only thing that derails him from being our Governor for Life. 

What do you think, dear reader? Gary Johnson? Herman Cain? With Huck out, will Palin actually come in?

* Edited to fix Cain's name. It ain't Herbert, stupid. -Jason

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart - Special Zimmerman Birthday Edition

Dylan beard

Happy 70th Bob

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 47

But mama, that's where the beard is

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 46

Breathy beard

The Quick and the Undead

Survival in the zombiepocalypse will require more than just luck. Of utmost importance is the survival mindset and a working knowledge of zombies.

But even the most determined individual will need some supplies. The Centers for Disease Control recently released suggested survival supplies and they are great, insofar as they go.

But they left out one important item: a machete.

Image courtesy of sgoralnick.

Luckily we at the Bellman have been prepping for this eventuality since before 2008.

The Zombie Research Society is another great resource for learning more about the coming undead pandemic.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 45

Clapton is beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 44

Dubliner beard

Laughing last, laughing best

Eternal Earth-Bound Pets is an atheist-operated business that will rescue and adopt ("save") the pets of those who are called to heaven during the Rapture. They charge $135 for the first pet and $20 for each additional pet. And the best part is, all sales are final and no refunds honored, for any reason. From their web site:

"If subscriber loses his/her faith and/or the Rapture occurs and subscriber is not Raptured (aka is 'left behind') EE-BP disclaims any liability; no refund will be tendered."

Wait, I was wrong. The best part is, they already have 259 clients, which means they've made at least $35,000. I'm sure they'll sucker--I mean, comfort--plenty more between now and Saturday May 21st, the latest alleged Doomsday.

From the AFP article via Yahoo News:

When judgment day happens, Eternal Earth-Bound Pets co-founder Bart Centre "will notify all of our rescuers to go into action and they will drive to the homes of anyone who's signed a contract with us, pick up their pets and take them home and adopt them as their own, keeping them happy and healthy for the rest of their lives.

"This will happen only if and when the Rapture happens. So we do not expect to have to do anything on Saturday," Centre told AFP.

I can't stop laughing about this.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 43

big damn beard

Newt Gingrich is…

img by DonkeyHotey

 "… probably one of the most dangerous people for the future of this country that you can possibly imagine. He's Richard Nixon, glib. It doesn't matter how much good I do the rest of my life, I can't ever outweigh the evil that I've caused by helping him be elected to Congress."


quote of the week via MoJo

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 42

Devil beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 41

Goodbeard

So did any of you see my blog post about Pink Floyd and the Neural Lace?

Dude.

If so, don't admit it! 

I find that when posting certain items related to futurism and transhumanism, the blog always implodes. In this case, the whole of Blogspot ate itself soon after I posted. They have restored "almost all" posts, but not mine.

It's just a damn shame that--for cover, I guess--they had to take one of Bill's beard-pop posts with it into the void.

Here is a totally unrelated item to distract the sheeple and/or the bots in black.

The head of the IMF, and former about-to-be-leader-of-France, was arrested yesterday for allegedly raping a member of the cleaning staff at his hotel in New York.

If true, that's Kobe/Tiger stupid.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart - Special Week-end Free Edition

Free beard

RIP Paul Kossoff

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 40

Crooked beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 38

Grateful beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 37

New Orleans beard

Okay, who broke America?

Kevin Drum asks,

Who's to blame for our fiscal problems of the past decade? Paul Krugman says elites deserve a lot more of the blame than the general public, but Dan Drezner disagrees: the public, he says, was in favor of tax cuts and in favor of the Iraq war, so they deserve a big chunk of the blame too.

Drum then presents Drezner's data, and concludes:

But guess what? Despite this broad support, nobody was crying out for either huge tax cuts or invading Iraq until George Bush and the rest of the GOP started talking them up. Without that, the public would have continued to vaguely think that taxes were too high and Saddam Hussein was a bad guy before switching the TV to Monday Night Football and forgetting about it.

It's true that public support was probably necessary in order to pass the Bush tax cuts and invade Iraq. But the polling evidence is pretty clear that it was far from sufficient. Nothing about public opinion changed in 2001. The only thing that changed was the occupant of the Oval Office. The public isn't blameless in all this, but the polling evidence makes it pretty clear that it was a minor player.

I'd say that there's plenty of blame to go around. It's easy (and right) to assign a lot of blame to the so-called "elites." As Stan Lee continues to teach us, with great power comes great responsibility. Drum and Krugman are indicting not only the Bush administration, but also the elite institutions (the New York Times, etc.) that didn't forcefully present the opposing view. No pun intended, but that's a drum worth banging. Success in the public sphere often hinges on how well the referees have been coached.

However, I'm really uncomfortable with Drum's assertion that the public is a "minor player" because, he basically says, they are always willing to go along with certain dumb ideas. His sentiment is, well, elitist.
The public is made up of all of us (elites and not so elite), and we ought to expect more from ourselves, one and all. And we should take the blame when policies we support turn out to be stupid.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 36

Rasta beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 35

Brotherly beards

So there was a republican debate tonight

I'm so high right now

And like an idiot, I watched it.

 Lessons learned:

• By applause, Ron "We Buy Gold" Paul was the clear victor. Who (other than the powerful) doesn't love Ron Paul? He articulates a clear, consistent philosophy. Even though the philosophy is pretty dumb, it's still super refreshing. 

• Luntz and his focus group were absolutely crazy for Herman "The Godfather" Cain. I've never even heard of this guy, but now I can say: You, sir, are no Ross Perot. That he did so well in Luntzville is just further proof that Republicans are crazy.

• Santorum was a delightfully frothy mix. Luntz's focus group gave him second place. 

• T-Paw was smooth, and he really could be a contender. And I love that he embraces the appellation. It's fratty, but still pretty cool… for a presidential candidate. I'm hoping Obama embraces "B-Rock."

• Luntz's group thought, to a person, that Barack Obama is a socialist, even when challenged by Luntz. 

• Luntz's group was heavily populated with mouth-breathers (there's video evidence). 

Did you watch? Who is your guy or gal in the republican field? My pick is clearly Gary "Smokey" Johnson.

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 34

Haggard beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 33

Long Haired Country beard

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 32

Heathen beard

(Austin Beard IV)

Bearded Men Singing from the Heart, Part 31

Split Lip beard

RIP Kirk Rundstrom

One Hit Wonder

I'll leave the announcement to the incomparable John Cena: