I've been battling a sinus infection all week and today it is winning so I'm off to bed. Besides I just took some Nyquil and it says to not operate heavy machinery, so it looks like the computer is off limits.
Pre-Friday Random Ten There are men lost in jail Crowded fifty to a room There's too many rats in this cage of the world And the women know their place They sit home and write letters And when they visit once a year Well they both just sit there and stare
Sparkly - Hope Sandoval and The Warm Inventions Scooby Snacks - Fun Loving Criminals How To Make A Baby Elephant Float - Yo La Tengo Randomness - TV On The Radio Misery Whip - Everclear Drown - Son Volt See Who We Are - X Until The Morning - Thievery Corporation Deadhead - Stereophonics Divine Thing - Soup Dragons
I haven't read Webb's books, so I'm in no position to say whether they are written in such excellent style, and I don't know whether the language Webb wields in his new senatorial guise is all that different from his novelist's approach. But I suspect that what we're seeing is not a man who has instantly succumbed to Washington's ways but a man with a novelist's mentality in a new setting. One way to explain his awkward behavior with respect to the presidential receiving line is that he thought through that scene like a novelist. If you were writing a novel about a character like him going through a receiving line with a President like Bush, wouldn't that be exactly the sort of scene you'd want to think up?
Ordinarily, in all sorts of social and political situations, people try to figure out how other people usually act and to stick to the convention and proceed smoothly along. This is nice enough, but rather boring. In a novel, a conventional social situation tends to be a set up for our hero to do something that shakes things up. The ordinary characters are aghast. They condemn the bad behavior of the protaganist, and we readers, in our armchairs, know how right he is. Of course, a novelist who concocts scenes like that is himself utterly conventional.
I don't think Webb has quickly picked up the Washington style. I think he's got the novelist's style, and he's his own hero Senator in a novel about Washington. And, what immense fun this is going to be!
How wonderful that George Bush was in on the whole improv bit and played Bud Abbott to Jim Webb's Lou Costello, except for that churlish part about "That's not what I asked you,".... "How's your boy?" which was distinctly unfunny. Yesterday it complimented neither man, but Webb sounded "mental". But somehow, in Althousetopia, this story now says more about an "awkward" Jim Webb and not much about an unsympathetic social maladroit like George W. Bush who still hasn't picked up the "Washington style" after six years in office.
Must be a learning disability. I mean, George has one. I don't know what Althouse's problem is.
Everybody has something to say about the Iraq Study Group not- gonna-be-implemented final report and, as usual, Dan Riehl, ever the defender down to the last drop, can't understand it when things are going so well:
-----The bipartisan Iraq Study Group reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal …
I'd refer you to the lost Roosevelt Eisenhower memo.
---- About those German camps you've scouted out, Ike. We've been taking some losses, so just pull back to the wood line and we'll see what develops. I'll get back to you after the next election.
Exactly the type of worthless watered down piece of crap one would expect from a bi-partisan commission. I'm unaware of any President in history who needed a civilian commission to wage a war.
Of course, the enemy were firing back. Captain Malich himself was hit, but his body armor easily dealt with a weapon fired at such long range. And as the enemy fire slackened, Malich counted the enemy dead and compared it to the number he had seen in the village, moving from building to building. He gave the hand signal that told the rest of his team that he was going in, and they shot at anyone who seemed to be getting into position to kill him as he descended the slope.
In only a few minutes, he was among the small buildings of the village. These walls would not stop bullets, and there were people cowering inside. So he did not expect to do a lot of shooting. This would be knife work.
He was good at knife work. He hadn't known until now how easy it was to kill another man. The adrenalin coursing through him pushed aside the part of his mind that might be bothered by the killing. All he thought of at this moment was what he needed to do, and what the enemy might do to stop him, and the knife merely released the tension for a moment, until he started looking for the next target.
By now his men were also in the village, doing their own variations on the same work. One of the soldiers encountered a terrorist who was holding a child as a hostage. There was no thought of negotiation. The American took aim instantly, fired, and the terrorist dropped dead with a bullet through his eye.
At the end, the sole surviving terrorist panicked. He ran to the center of the square, where many of the villagers were still cowering, and leveled his automatic weapon to mow them down.
The old man still had one last spring in his ancient legs, and he threw himself onto the automatic weapon as it went off.
Captain Malich was nearest to the terrorist and shot him dead. But the old man had taken a mortal wound. By the time Malich got to him, the old man gave one last shudder and died in a puddle of the blood that had poured from his abdomen where two bullets tore him open.
Reuben Malich knelt over the body and cried out in the keening wail of deep grief, the anguish of a soul on fire. He tore open the shirt of his uniform and struck himself repeatedly on the chest. This was not part of his training. He had never seen anyone do such a thing, in any culture. Striking himself looked to his fellow soldiers like a kind of madness. But the surviving villagers joined him in grief, or watched him in awe.
Of course, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders are going to eat this shit up because, when they look in the mirror, what they see is:
But the reality is that, at the sound of a car backfiring, a loud boom in the distance, or hearing a bunch of imams praying in an airline terminal they become:
I welcome our flightless sea-bird overlords. Teach us your waddling and possibly gay ways. Putting the erect in erect-crested penguins
Michael Medved, the Wile E. Coyote of "film critics" (airquotes intentional) runs off of another cliff having moved on to chasing penguins instead of road runners.
In America's ongoing culture war, with ferocious combatants grabbing every available weapon to strike at each other, innocent children and adorable penguins simultaneously qualify as collateral damage. Recent controversies involving environmental and gay-marriage messages in Hollywood cartoons and storybooks for young children show that in our current climate, even the youngest kids and the most endearing denizens of Antarctica can become targets and instruments of powerful propaganda.
Oh dear. Whenever I hear Medved talking about culture wars I reach for my gun, because it must mean that the Silly Season is upon us. Harken to the call of the Medvedloon calling out to well-meaning but dullish common-sense mummies and daddies everywhere.
On the eve of our annual holiday season, Warner Bros. released the lavish animated extravaganza Happy Feet, featuring the voices of Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and Elijah Wood in a PG-rated story about a tap-dancing penguin. The studio promoted the picture as a feel-good frolic for the whole family, featuring an endorsement quote that promised, "Adults and kids alike will be dancing in the aisles."
Unfortunately, the marketing never acknowledged the movie's unmistakably alarming, discomfiting and politically potent elements — enraging no small number of unprepared parents. The endearing creatures on screen face the deadly menace of leopard seals, killer whales and, most of all, human pollution, overconsumption and exploitation. In the advance screening I attended, one worried mother of a 5-year-old took her anxious, fretful, anguished little boy from the theater during the film's relentless scenes of cute and cuddly penguins in intense pain and deadly peril. The next week, a correspondent who called himself "MikeP29p" wrote on my website: "Unfortunately I read Michael's movie review a day too late. We took our kids ages 6 and 4 last night because they wanted to go because they saw the commercials. I thought an animated movie about penguins would be OK. One of the darkest most disturbing movies I have ever seen. Needless to say, my 4-year-old was terrified."
Needless to say, these children are probably unaware of the complete works of the Marquis de Disney from the doggy snuff film Old Yeller to the brutal murder of Bambi's mother to the incarceration of Dumbo's mother:
...and who could ever forget the hubris of Simba which leads to the death of his father Mufasa:
Of course, many parents might not relish the idea of exposing their kiddies to a "view of hell," no matter how much they agree with a movie's propagandistic purposes ...
Quite frankly they've been mailing it in since 2004's Whoo Hoo! Wiggly Gremlins! and then the urban-flavored (or flava'd) Bitch be Wiggin' failed to capture the all important 3 to 6 year-old Lil' Gangsta demographic.
We kept telling Greg Page that nobody, and I mean nobody, can hang with Courtney Love and live to tell....
If we limit out goals in Iran and Syria to knocking them out of the terror game and don't try to rebuild their societies from the ground up, we can do so relatively easily by crushing the ability of Iran to threaten Persian Gulf shipping and by taking out its refineries. Ironically, Iran is oil-rich, but gas-poor.
Coalition air strikes targeting the Iranian Navy, refineries, and other key targets could bring the mullacracy to it's knees within weeks, without the significant use of U.S. ground forces, and only a (relatively minor) projection of air power. A U.S. Navy blockade of Oman would keep Iran from importing the gasoline it needs to survive.
Syria, minus Iranian support, would be even easier to destabilize.
Take Syria and Iran out of the terror game, and Hezbollah begins to falter in Lebanon, giving Lebanese democracy a chance. Take Syria and Iran out of the terror game, and Israeli citizens wouldn't have to worry about Hezbollah's ability to so quickly rearm and instigate another war.
Take Syria and Iran out of the terror game, and manpower, weaponry, and funding for al Qaeda in Iraq begins to abate, as the growing number of Sunni tribes embracing the Sahawa movement hunt down and kill foreign fighters. Take Syria and Iran our out of the terror game, and Muqtada al-Sadr, the thug-leader of Shiites in the Baghdad slums, suddenly finds his Medhi Army militia without new munitions, or training, or financial support, and as his capability as a military threat fades, so does his political power.
You would think after all of the "Iraq is going to be a cakewalk" rah-rahism, these guys would get a clue that Middle East destabilization is not a necessarily a "plan" so much as a "uncontrollable downhill-rolling fuck-up of epic and far-reaching scale".
But, no. And Gomer even has his Apocalypse Somebody-Else t-shirt ready to be printed up at the mall:
You would negotiate with the wolf to be eaten last; I seek to see him starved.
Ooooooo. I bet he practices saying that in front of the mirror, putting the emphasis on different words so he can dazzle the guys over in camping gear.
And he would starve the wolf if only it weren't for that trick knee....
I have often thought that Hugh Hewitt brought Mary Katherine Mallrat and Dean Barnett onto his blog to make himself look smarter. Not smart - smarter. There's a fine distinction there. (And for a guy who wrote the book on blogging and has a radio listenership in the supposed millions, shouldn't the Townhouse blog be doing a tad more traffic? Discuss.) Anyway, the MK-Rat beat seems to be surveying media coverage of any event and sniffing out bias and anti-Americanism and maybe a sale on those cute strappy tops at Wet Seal. The other day she was the Scourge of Black Friday Coverage which didn't pan out so well for her. Today she tackles the ever-evolving story of the six Sunni's who were apparently burnt alive, something that has kept the 101st Fighting Keyboarders all nipply because there was some question about it and if there was some question about it that obviously means that we are winning! in Iraq and the MSM is a bunch of terrorist-luvin' poopyheads. Or something like that. I'll leave it to you to follow her progression of the story as it evolves before her wondering eyes before she finally admits:
Horrible things happen in Iraq. I make no attempt to deny that. Terrible violence happens there every day. But just because this incident could have happened in Iraq, doesn't mean AP reporters are any less obligated to make sure they've got it right. Given that many/most of Hussein's comments to the media have come through al-Bashir, and that CENTCOM says Hussein's not a police officer, I'd think AP would be interested in finding out a lot more about him and al-Bashir.
Because if they find out that al-Bashir is, for example, a Muslim, that could mean that the story is not true no matter how true it is.
Wait till MK-Rat finds out that baby chicks might come out of eggs if you wait long enough. I predict squeals of delight and surprise. Mainly surprise.
(Updated): You have to feel sorry for Flopping Aces who got his blog in the headlines only to have America discover that he was chasing his own tail, the end result being biting himself in the ass...
Okay, you don't have to feel sorry, just keep the giggling down...
This is a soccer post. You have been warned. No bitching in comments. Okay. Maybe a little.
First off, a correction to last Tuesday's game: it was a scrimmage, and therefore doesn't count in the record book. Thank god I cleared that up before some blogger spends days in Google for their A-HAH! moment proving that I was wrong...and that we're actually winning in Iraq.
Anyway, tonight was another scrimmage which, if it wasn't a scrimmage they would have won 4-0, but it was a scrimmage so just pretend it didn't happen, okay? The whole team played well considering they have only had two days of practice together and they are trying to fill six starting spots - due to graduation - including both center mids, their stopper, both left and right defensive backs, and their top scoring forward (if you don't know what these positions are...go ask someone with a funny accent. They'll explain it to you in a delightful way; possibly involving beer bottles.) Casey has been moved up to both right and left midfield, a position she hasn't played since her freshman year, and it's pretty obvious that she has lost a step since last years knee blow-out. The knee is fine but the conditioning isn't and so she is out a lot. This doesn't really bother me so much, since playing in college is pretty much a done deal, and I could live without another major injury between now and March.
Having said that, I'm glad to see her move up from defense because defense is boring and I like saying "Casey got a couple of assists" or "Casey scored off of a corner" instead of "Casey didn't get burned' or "Casey sure cleared a lot of balls today. Boy. Howdy.".
Not much else to say besides the fact that she didn't have a foot in any of the scoring. As for college, she has her acceptance letter in hand, and we're hoping to wrap up the soccer part of it in a few weeks, possibly before Christmas.
Political parties in Presidential primary states should host events that invite candidates from both parties to discuss issues, said Gingrich, who criticized the sharpness of today's politics.
But the clearest expression of Gingrich's philosophy of media came in a GOPAC memo entitled "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control." Distributed to GOP candidates across the country, the memo's list of words for Democrats and words for Republicans was endorsed by Gingrich in a cover letter: "The words in that paper are tested language from a recent series of focus groups where we actually tested ideas and language." Next time you hear Gingrich complain about media focusing on the negative, refer back to these lists.
As you know, one of the key points in the GOPAC tapes is that "languagematters." In the video "We Are a Majority," Langauage is listed as a key mechanism of control used by a majority party, along with Agenda, Rules,Attitude and Learning. As the tapes have been used in training sessions across the country and mailed to candidates, we have heard a plaintive plea: "I wish I could speak like Newt."
That takes years of practice. But we believe that you could have asignificant impact on your campaign and the way you communicate if we help a little. That is why we have created this list of words and phrases.
This list is prepared so that you might have a directory of words to use in writing literature and mail, in preparing speeches, and in producing electronic media. The words and phrases are powerful. Read them. Memorizeas many as possible. And remember that, like any tool, these words will nothelp if they are not used....
Contrasting Words
Often we search hard for words to help us define our opponents. Sometimeswe are hesitant to use contrast. Remember that creating a difference helps you. These are powerful words that can create a clear and easily understood contrast. Apply these to the opponent, their record, proposals and theirparty.
Vietnam Analogies [Jonah Goldberg] There's been a lot of talk here and elsewhere about whether Iraq is like Vietnam. I've never thought much of the comparison for a bunch of reasons, but there's one place where it seems to me it really falls apart: Morale. Maybe I'm just buying into a lot of mythology about Vietnam, but it's always been my impression that the troops in Vietnam were pretty down on the whole thing (with many important exceptions), particularly at the end. Yet, I get lots of e-mail from troops in Iraq and I've never gotten the sense that they see Iraq like a Vietnam. Maybe I'm just getting a very selective sample. But everything I read or see on TV or hear on the radio gives me the same impression. There are lots of stories, many heartbreaking, about family hardships, soldiers missing their homes, battle stress, and the like. But they don't "feel" like stories coming from another Vietnam. Lord knows the press is looking for these kinds of stories. And yet we do hear a lot from troops about how they want to see this through and how they don't want this to be another Vietnam (i.e. they don't want to see America turn its back on the Iraqis the way it did on the South Vietnamese). Maybe I'm missing something(s), but as far as dogs that don't bark go, this is a pretty big dog.
Every time Jonah posts at The Corner, tuition at Goucher drops another $100.
Like winning a People's Choice Award...only this means something
You may have already seen the crawl on CNN, but Norbizness is about to crack the 1,000,000 visits barrier any moment now and he's giving away a years supply of Zima* to the lucky bastard who rolls his turnstile over from 999,999.
* A years supply of Zima is about a half of a bottle for most people. Your mileage may vary. Void where prohibited. Pants required. Quit picking at that or it's never going to heal.
The Short Economic Honeymoon of Nancy Pelosi Not so fast there Cindy Lou Ham
The other day I mentioned that Mary Katherine Foodcourt was just so darned sure that the MSM (a wholly owned subsidiary of Democrats-R-Us LLC) last year poo-pooed the holiday Festivus du Jesu retail season because Nancy Pelosi hadn't yet been annointed the boss of us all. But now that Pelosi is wearing Dennis Hastert's tiara and XXXXL sash, all is raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Or maybe not.
Wall Street had its worst day in more than four months Monday as the dollar weakened and concerns about the strength of the retail industry arose following a rare sales decline at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The Dow Jones industrials fell 158 points.
Investors were uneasy after the dollar fell for the fifth straight day and after Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, reported a 0.1 percent drop in same-store sales, those from stores open at least a year. Same-store sales are the industry standard for assessing a retailer’s strength, and while overall retail sales appeared strong last weekend, Wal-Mart’s first deficit in a decade raised concerns about the strength of consumer spending during the holiday season.
At this point, Ms. Mary Katherine ponders a petit jeté allowing her to blame the poor holiday economy on the Democrat party... those Christmas-hating bastards.
No war for us please. We're Dartmouth legacies. Charles Rangel essentially said what we all know to be true. Nobody really wants to go to Iraq to fight and most enter into the service to take advantage of the increased bonuses and educational opportunities. So while John Hinderaker calls it "foolishness", perhaps he can explain why neither he, Paul Mirengoff, or Scott Johnson (all three of whom have children old enough to serve) have yet to have a child enlist to fight this Clash of Civilizations that threatens Apple Valley via Baghdad. It was only today that Paul, writing about Chuck Hagel, said:
Senator George Aiken once said we should leave Vietnam and declare victory. Lacking Aiken's audacity, Senator Chuck Hagel urges that we leave Iraq and declare a draw.
Hagel may not be the biggest fool in the Senate, but after reading his piece in today's Washington Post I'm at a loss to identify a bigger one. Hagel insists that "there will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq." But if the U.S. leaves Iraq and, with our soldiers gone, al Qaeda establishes a base for terrorist operations, that sure sounds like defeat. And if our forced exit, to which Hagel will have contributed, becomes a huge morale victory and recruiting tool for terrorists, as less dramatic past U.S. exits have, surely that would be a defeat too.
If we are going to stay and fight than we're going to need some of our best and our brightest, and that includes the children of bland, white, upper-middle-class attorneys. Anyone unwilling to contribute to the cause, and curbside waving of the flag or pony-wishing doesn't count, must be considered deeply unserious.
Sad, middle-aged loser guy Nobody in the shire will have sex with me
Mark Steyn has another one of those fascinating columns of his that, as usual, says a lot more about him than the world he thinks he's writing about. In this case it's about wimmins, and what's up with them? It's like they're from Venus and he's from Canada.
First there is Fatma An-Najar, a 64-year-old grandmother who recently became the world's oldest not-living suicider:
An-Najar gave birth to her first child at the age of 12. She had eight others. She had 41 grandchildren. Keep that family tree in mind. By contrast, in Spain, a 64-year old woman will have maybe one grandchild. That's four grandparents, one grandchild: a family tree with no branches.
Maybe she was just tired of the incessant cries of "Nana" and slipping 41 $5 bills into 41 birthday cards every year. And don't even get me started on the babysitting every time her grown kids wanted to go to a Death To Israel block party. The important point that Mark is making is that An-Najar and her brood liked to do the 'two-backed Steyn', if you get my drift.
Which leads us on to Katharine Jefferts Schori, the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church who had the audacity to point out to Mark that Episcopalians aren't "doing it" as much as Mark would like to imagine they are doing it ("....mmmmmm...Episcopalian sex"):
She was asked a simple enough question: "How many members of the Episcopal Church are there?"
"About 2.2 million," replied the presiding bishop. "It used to be larger percentage-wise, but Episcopalians tend to be better educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than other denominations."
This was a bit of a jaw-dropper even for a New York Times hackette, so, with vague memories of God saying something about going forth and multiplying floating around the back of her head, a bewildered Deborah Solomon said: "Episcopalians aren't interested in replenishing their ranks by having children?"
"No," agreed Bishop Kate. "It's probably the opposite. We encourage people to pay attention to the stewardship of the earth and not use more than their portion."
Now, that may or may not be a great idea, but it's nothing to do with Christianity, only for eco-cultists like Al Gore. If Bishop Kate were an Episcogorian, a member of the Alglican Communion, an elder of the Church of Latter-Day Chads, this would be an unremarkable statement. But, even in their vigorous embrace of gay bishoprics and all the rest, I don't recall the Episcopalians formally embracing the strategy that worked out so swell for the Shakers and enshrining a disapproval of reproduction at the heart of their doctrine.
One imagines the government setting up National Episcopalian Preserves for the few remaining specimens who still wander the earth. Held captive in tasefully appointed homes full of Ethan Allen furniture, they will be subjected to a controlled breeding program where they will be forced to watch American Catholic sex-ed tapes (thoughtfully donated by the Catholic League) to learn the One True Position... but unfortunately they'll keep nodding off and the experiment will be deemed a failure.
Next we have this lovely little naughty bit from Mark about our favorite gal-pal as of late:
Which brings me to our third Jill in the jeep: Scarlett Johansson. Like every other sad middle-aged loser guy, I fell in love with Scarlett's fetchingly pert bottom in the opening of ''Lost In Translation,'' and it pains me to discover she's no different from Bishop Kate's generation when it comes to being in thrall to the cobwebbed pieties of the 1960s. In a bit of light Bush-bashing the other day, she attacked the president for his opposition to "sex education." If he had his way, she said, "every woman would have six children and we wouldn't be able to have abortions." Whereas Scarlett is so "socially aware" (as she puts it) she gets tested for HIV twice a year.
Well, yes. If "sex education" is about knowing which concrete condom is less likely to disintegrate during the livelier forms of penetrative intercourse, then getting an AIDS test every few months may well be a sign that you're a Ph.D. (Doctor of Phenomenal horniness). But, if "sex education" means an understanding of sexuality as anything other than an act of transient self-expression, then Scarlett is talking through that famously cute butt.
That would be this Scarlett: These are not for you Mark
I'm not sure what Mark's point is about Scarlett other than the fact that she is obviously having sex with LOTS of men (or women, if we want to be open-minded about this, and trust us, we do) and none of these people with whom she is having sex is named Mark Steyn whose sperm is so powerful that it would cause her to spontaneously give birth to quintuplets named Mark Jr, Mark III, Mark IV, Mark V, and Steve...thereby saving the human race and Christianity . Is he bitter? Hey, does he look like a hobbit? Of course he is and does.
And then there is this:
Here's the question for Bishop Kate: If Fatma An-Najar has 41 grandchildren and a responsible "better educated" Episcopalian has one or two, into whose hands are we delivering "the stewardship of the earth"? If your crowd isn't around in any numbers, how much influence can they have in shaping the future?
Well, the Episcopal head honcho and even Scarlett Johansson are not the most powerful figures in the world, so let's usher on our fourth Jill: Condoleezza Rice.
"The great majority of Palestinian people," said the secretary of state to Cal Thomas the other day, "they just want a better life. This is an educated population. I mean, they have a kind of culture of education and a culture of civil society. I just don't believe mothers want their children to grow up to be suicide bombers. I think the mothers want their children to grow up to go to university. And if you can create the right conditions, that's what people are going to do."
Cal Thomas asked a sharp follow-up: "Do you think this or do you know this?"
"Well, I think I know it," said Dr. Rice.
"You think you know it?"
"I think I know it."
Fortunately, Steyn cut off the interview between Cal Thomas and Condoleezza Rice because, if they were going to start talking about sex, well, that would make all of us stop having sex just like the Episcopalians and nobody wants that.
Reaping George Bush's whirlwind Somebody better put the plans for George W. Bush Victory Square in downtown Baghdad on hold:
In interviews across Baghdad on Saturday, Sunnis and Shiites said they were preparing themselves for upheaval, both violent and psychological. They viewed the bombings that killed more than 200 people Thursday in the heart of Baghdad's Shiite Muslim community of Sadr City as a trigger for more reprisal killings.
"We feel our world has become narrow, and we are being squeezed," said Karar al-Zuheari, 31, a Shiite taxi driver. "We have no place to run."
Since those attacks, quasi-armies of residents in mixed and majority-Sunni Arab neighborhoods have formed to protect their streets. Sunni Web sites are offering advice on how to kill Shiite militiamen. College students and executives pace at their homes, clutching rifles and handguns around the clock. Iraqis are posting pleas on Internet message boards to buy extra ammunition and weapons.
Despite a government-imposed curfew, Iraqis described Shiite militiamen murdering Sunnis at checkpoints, controlling neighborhoods with impunity and conspiring with Iraq's majority-Shiite police force, which the Interior Ministry controls. Other Iraqis spoke of mortar shells raining on their mosques and gun battles outside their houses, deepening their mistrust of Iraq's security forces and elected politicians.
[...]
As Sammaraie watched from his front gate, two militiamen stopped a Sunni man who worked in an electrical shop. A local informant looked at him and nodded. Then one of the gunmen shot him dead and left. Two weeks ago, the electrician had complained loudly when Shiite gunmen attacked a nearby Sunni mosque.
Mary Katherine Mallrat, for whom the mall is, like, totally the Library of Alexandria, uses her Super Nancy Drew Decoder Charm Bracelet to solve the Post-Election Headline Code:
It's sounding like Black Friday shopping was bigthis year.
I ventured out last year and bought myself a pair of jeans. Yeah, I know. Bah humbug, right? But I'm not ready to shop for anyone else this early in the season.
Early reports last year seemed to indicate that the season would be good, and it was, but a lot of news outlets did their darndest to hide the good under gloomy headlines and misleading ledes on this day a year ago. But now that the New Age of Prosperity in a Time of Democratic Control™ has dawned, the stories look very different on this day after Black Friday, 2006. Let's compare and contrast.
Several major retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Macy's, as well as mall operator Taubman Centers Inc., estimated they drew bigger crowds for the official holiday season launch than last year.
Sure, there were a lot of shoppers, but they were very reluctant.
Millions of crazed Christmas shoppers stormed retailers across the city and the nation yesterday to take advantage of the wee-morning store hours and spectacular sales - making it one of the strongest starts to the holiday season in years.
The National Retail Federation is predicting that sales this holiday season will rise a whopping 5 percent from last year - to $457 billion...
It was absolute madness as those shoppers, armed with lists, circulars and cash to burn, lined up outside stores in the city before dawn to snag the cheapest deals on electronics, toys and clothes.
Of course, you may know the New York Post as the official party organ of the Democratic Party, so you're probably not a flummoxed as Mary Katherine. But then: who is?
The fact of the matter is it doesn't matter how many people come out at 4:30 in the morning the day after Thanksgiving to buy $4 DVD's and a $9.27 Wal-Mart Bag O'Crap™. With the exception of the gotta-have-it items like Tickle-Me Dyslexic Lemo the early dollar shoppers are driven by loss leader items (products sold below cost) which are offered as a bet that those same shoppers will purchase lesser discounted items or, praise be, full-margin items. Says Mary Kate NotOlsen:
The bottom line is I don't think there's a whole lot you can know, scientifically, about Black Friday sales until retailers turn in their numbers on Dec. 1, but there's a whole lot you can learn about the press in the way they approach the early reporting.
Actually, there isn't a lot you can know about Black Friday sales, even when numbers are released on 12/1, if they don't indicate net margins. Any fool can increase same store sales for a month by offering across the board discounts or low-to-no margin promotional goods. But at the end of the day, or more importantly at the end of the fiscal quarter, margin is the king that decides whether you live or die.
Take the Black Friday numbers with a grain of salt.Take MK's words with a jumbo Wal-Mart sized one...
It's those little things you do that make me come back to you
Whenever the erudite and va-va-voomish mrs tbogg and I hop on up to LA we like to stay at The Standard because the locations are great and, although their rooms are still hotel rooms, they don't feel like hotel rooms. They're just much more roomier without the expense of a suite.
I also appreciate a hotel that, along with an elaborate and original mini-bar, offers Mr. Bubble and their own personalized packs of condoms with helpful hints: Good fun
According to Dr. James Dobson, it's going to take about four to five years to get Ted Haggard back on the straight and narrow and, quite frankly, Jimbo doesn't have time for the pain:
KING: Have you spoken to him?
DOBSON: I have talked to him. I was asked to serve on a three person restoration panel and I originally wanted to be of help and said that I would, but I just don’t have the time to do that. And I called my board of directors, we talked about it at length and they were unanimous in asking me not to do that, because this could take four or five years and I just have too many other things going on.
Now I didn't think that Dobson was really gonna go all Cats In The Cradle with Haggard and teach him how to throw (and to this day we still don't know if Haggard is a pitcher or a catcher), but I thought that Dobson might at least follow some of his own advice:
"[T]he boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger."
One would think that taking a shower with Dr. James Dobson would make just about anyone swear off the dick. No matter how big it is.
And there really will come a time, believe it or not, when a future American President baffled and paralyzed by the latest insanity from the Middle East—whether an Iranian nuke or a Syrian invasion of Lebanon or another Middle East war or the usual assassination and killing of Americans—will ask former president George Bush II for advice, as a then fawning media will look back to his past "toughness" and "determination" when under fire. That seems unhinged now, but it too will come to pass, as they say.
We can't go on together with suspicious minds Sneaky terrorists keeping a low profile
It's just like those wily Islamoaisleseatgrabbers to try and sneak onto an airplane posing as Muslim clerics jibber-jabbering in their weird moonman language saying things like "Allah" and "Ice Age: The Meltdown is the in-flight movie...again? Crap!". But, in a post-9/11 world, you can't slip anything by the sharp eyes of a nation of Annie Jacobsens.
Quite frankly, I know the feeling. Last Friday when the childlike and excitable mrs tbogg and I were at Disneyland, a family of four sat at the table next to us at the Pizza Port, joined hands, and commenced to pray before turning to their over-priced pizza slices. I hate to be, you know, one of those suspicious kind of people, but I couldn't help but wonder if the father was one of those Christian family men I keep hearing about, who sneak off to cheap motels to smoke crank and indulge in tawdry (yet strangely exhilarating) gay sex with masseur-hookers.
I though about alerting security, but we had speedpasses for Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and I didn't want to be late. While eternal vigilance may be the price of liberty, it won't get you to the front of the line to blast Spaceislamicists.
Everyone has been fed including the dogs who had their favorite Thanksgiving meal of... dogfood. The girls are upstairs watching Grey's Anatomy (which is like oxygen to the lovely and talented Casey), so here we go:
Action shot! Beckham in mid-tug-of-war
...and Beckham does the weird ear-nibble thing he does to Satchmo's ear
Satchmo is off to the vet tomorrow (if we can get him in) due to an alarming loss of weight in the past couple of months. Although, uncommon in dogs, he has several symptoms indicating hyperthyroidism. We'll see.
We are off to dine with family and will return later with basset pictures, offensive comments, and ad hominems when called for. In the meantime, Empire Explained:
Thanksgiving Random Ten Last winter I found a man and wife Just about daybreak Layin’ in a frozen ditch South of the interstate I wrapped ‘em both in blankets But she’d already died The next day we sent him back alone Across the borderline.
I don’t know where they came from Or where they planned to go But we carried her all night long Through the California snow.
The old iPod picture is messed up so we have a new one. Change is good. Change is great, so let's get going:
My Bag - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions On The Radio - Regina Spektor From A Motel 6 - Yo La Tengo Gravity Rides Everything - Modest Mouse The Land of Rape and Honey - Ministry Untitled 6 - Sigur Ró --- from () California Snow - Dave Alvin Ferry Cross the Mersey - Pay Metheny Jesus Christ Was An Only Child - Sun Kil Moon (Modest Mouse cover) Trouble Man - Marvin Gaye
Bonus #11: La Pistola y El Corazón - Los Lobos ...and now a completely unrelated video:
Completely gratuitous post that only exists because it allows me to use a picture of Scarlett Johannson
Ever since creepy Eric Keroack landed his job at HHS (and don't you love a guy handed a $300 million program who is no longer a certified OB-GYN because he "missed" the recertification deadline. That was a rhetorical question. Of course you love him.)...where was I? Oh yeah, The Corner's K-Lo has been going on and on about sex... and mormons too (wink wink...hint hint...third wife third wife). She even linked to an article she wrote about birth control and how it is bad bad bad. Now she is completely put off by Scarlett Johannson talking about sex and the President:
We're guessing ours, but never mind that. For the record, when K-Lo talks about sex it kind of sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher; wah-wah-wah. But when Scarlett Johannson talks about sex: We hang on every word.
Robert Altman [Jonah Goldberg] His passing is no doubt sad to his friends, family and fans. Though when an appropriate period has passed, we might have a fuller discussion of his merits as a director. Personally, I never saw the genius his fans saw.
Did you see Brokeback Mountain? No. I don't much like movies about men who cheat on their wives with hot chicks. Hence I have considerably less interest in movies about dudes who cheat on their wives with other dudes.
Hollywood has yet to make a "great" movie about Washington. This is the cinematic corollary to the even hoarier cliche that the United States has yet to produce a great novel about the nation's capital. These cliches reign supreme because they happen to be true.
But the recently released Thank You for Smoking comes closer than most.....
[...]
In the 1990s, Hollywood produced a string of occasionally amusing but generally absurd films about politics and the presidency. Dave, The American President, Bulworth, Wag the Dog, Air Force One, and so on. TV played its part too, starting in 1988 with Murphy Brown straight through the mercifully soon-to-end The West Wing.
And we know that Hollywood never made any movies about Washington before the nineties, like Advise and Consent, Seven Days In May, Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe, The Manchurian Candidate, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, The Best Man, All The Presidents Men, The Candidate and jumping up to the nineties: Bob Roberts .Oh, and a favorite of mine: Nasty Habits.
No. That is not what the poop deck is for... I'll get a bucket and a mop.
Victor Davis Popeye the Sailor Man Hanson is back from his NRO cruise, which started and ended here in San Diego (I never saw him, but I think I saw his chariot in long-term parking), and apparently he jotted down a few notes while hot-tubbing on the Lido deck with Kate O'Beirne. Like Kate, they're not pretty.
The lovely and talented Casey steps on the field tonight for the first time with her high school team since she blew out her ACL almost eleven months ago. Last years team went 23-3-3 and won the county championship for the thirteenth time in sixteen years, and she got to watch it from the bench.
Let's hope this year goes a little better for her.
Back soon.
....and.
They lost. 0-1 on a goal with two minutes left to play. Not that you care, but I do and it's my blog. I'll try to keep the soccer posts to a minimum.
Help Wanted [Jonah Goldberg] I'm gonna need a meticulous, smart, diligent intern/assistant type to help me with the house-cleaning on my manuscript. In particular, I need someone to help get my copious footnotes and the like in order. There will also be some serious research-related stuff to do as we head into galley mode. It would be best if he or she — or conceivably it — went to school or worked in the DC area so we could meet from time to time. I haven't thought through the money question, but you can be assured it won't be lavish. But what's filthy lucre compared to a glowing mention in the acknowledgements and my eternal gratitude? Anyway, anybody interested in said gig should send an email with appropriate info (resume, experience, dancing ability etc) to JonahResearch@aol.com.
It's scheduled to be out 9/11/2007 and, God (if there is one) knows that transfering all of his "copious footnotes" from the assorted Quiznos and Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits napkins is going to be a bitch. I'm not sure that there are too many people who are going to want the "glowing mention in the acknowledgements". That's like being credited with arranging the corn in the poop.
Good taste has many fathers, but bad taste has one mother I teabagged Bernie
Until this past week's dalliance with OJ Simpson, the last time we heard anything about Judith Regan was back when it came out she that she had been playing human wheelbarrow with Bernie Kerik in the shadow of the Twin Towers while the workers were still sifting through the ashes.
As Steve points out, she has a hankering for the maladroit, the obtuse, and the criminal.
I just won my office football pool for the fourth time in six weeks. Not that we do it for money or anything because that is illegal and is probably considered immoral by at least four major religions, two minor ones, and one fake one. No, we do it for funsies, just like our "which one of the Santorum kids is going to be gay" pool.
Yup. It's all in good fun and we like to think of it as the kind of corporate bonding experience you won't find in a Stephen Covey book .
I work in an indie record shop therefore your taste in music must suck Do we look like the kind of store that sells I Just Called to Say I Love You? Go to the mall.
I shall listen to one while reading the other allowing me to achieve Nirvana slacker cool. That would be pre-Bleach Nirvana before they totally sold out...
It's been several days now but Kirsten Powers, part-time "Democratic Strategist" and full-time FetalCrat, doesn't seem to have a lot to say about Eric Keroack the anti-sex, anti-birth control loon chosen to be the chief of family planning programs at the Health and Human Services Department. I find this surprising in light of her professed experience in the field of faith based pregnancy counseling.
The fact the he seems to be Doogie Howser, OB GYN might be a contributing factor in her silence.
Before the election, the conventional wisdom was that Howard Dean would be out as DNC Chairman soon after it was over. Now, given the Democrats' success, it's hard to see how the party can get rid of Dean, notwithstanding calls from James Carville and others that he be replaced. That's good for the Republicans; Dean's mouth is sure to get him in trouble more than once over the next two years, and he is a living reminder of the fecklessness of the 2004 Democrats that helped return George W. to the White House.
So..... because Howard Dean was sucessful in helping the Democrats take back both houses it's a good thing for Republicans that he'll be around for the 2008 elections.
Back from LA which is caught up in the post-election euphoria of seeing America come around to its Coastal Elitist ways as opposed to, for example, Cincinnati; which is to say more sodomy and less midwestern gosh-shucks common sense. Refreshing isn't it?
Casino Royale is quite good on the Bond-ometer scale having reclaimed the brutal Ian Fleming prototype away from the mannequins and the cartoons. Director Martin Campbell and the screenwriters did a terrific job remolding Bond in the same way that Christopher Nolan pulled Batman off of the camp slag heap. Watching the film, I got the feeling that Matt Damon's Bourne movies played no small part in reminding the producers that the James Bond character, much like Jason Bourne, is supposed to be a brutal souless government assassin; more cold-blooded killer and less Smoove B. If this doesn't make Daniel Craig into a big star, I'll be quite surprised.
As for Disneyland, this was my first visit in some time and I was amazed that most every ride now has it's genesis in a film, no matter how flimsy the connection to Disney's own studio; Indiana Jones, Star Wars. Needless to say, the Deliverance Whitewater Flume Ride and Country Hoedown was unexpected in more ways than I care to describe. Also there were too many kids there today and, don't get me wrong I like kids as much as the next guy as long as the 'next guy' isn't Mark Foley, but shouldn't they have been in school or buying PS3's or something?
Really Really Really Early Thursday Basset Blogging
The vivacious and cineastastic mrs tbogg and I have been invited to a private screening of Casino Royale up in Hollywood tonight so I'll be otherwise occupied and traveling and schmoozing for the rest of the day and evening. And being the carefree and easy-to-amuse couple that we are, we decided late last night that we would stay over and spend Friday sampling the finest in Southern California entertainment high culture because we have a convertible, a full tank of gas, and we're wearing expensive designer sunglasses.
Yes. We're going to Disneyland where I will be on the lookout for domestic terrorists at the Jedi Training Academy easily spotted by their I (heart) Michelle Malkin t-shirts and Cheetos-stained fingers.
But enough tomfoolery, let's have some hot basset action: Beckham looking less devilish than usual.
...and here is Satchmo looking...well...less dignified than usual. Okay. He looks demented. ..Actually kind of stupid. I'm going to be hearing from his publicist, I just know it...
Really Early Pre-Friday Random Ten I wanna get married I need to cook meals I wanna pack cute little lunches For my Brady bunches Then read Danielle Steele
I Want To Get Married - Nellie McKay Pity for the World - Ten Pound Brown The Seed (2.0) - The Roots Maid In Heaven - Be Bop Deluxe The Burnt-Over District - Hem Park Avenue - Girls Against Boys Cheney Piñata - The Bad Plus Sergio Leone - Jackson Browne Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys Today - I Love You But I Have Chosen Darkness
I know I've told this story before, but too bad, here it goes again:
Back in the day, when we were living in a different house, we had a dog-door installed for Cooder the Best Dog In the World. Because our house was located on the edge of a canyon we used to have problems with opossums and raccoons coming into the yard who had no qualms about attempting to come inside looking for a snack. Like most dog doors the one we had installed came with a security door, in this case made out of sheet metal, that slid down in order to block critters from using it from either side. Occasionally, okay...lots of times, I would forget to pull up the security door and Cooder, thinking it was free and clear, would clickity-clack clickity-clack across the room and smack his head (thwack!) up against the door. Now most dogs would either bark to be let out or would deploy the Devastating Big-Eyed Imploring Look of Sadness to get a little help here. Not Cooder. Cooder would go back up to the door and press his head against it, leaning forward on his little stumpy basset legs because he knew, he just knew, that... it... was... going... to... open eventually. I could sit there for almost five minutes and he wouldn't move; he'd just lean. Cooder was a sweet dog, but he was never short-listed for a MacArthur Grant.
White House officials said Wednesday that President Bush would renominate six of his earlier choices to sit on the federal appeals court, leaving Democratic senators and other analysts to ponder what message he is sending.
At least four of the nominations have been declared dead on arrival in the Senate by Democrats who have consistently opposed them as unacceptable. All six nominations will remain before the Senate through the lame-duck session of Congress and then will expire.
When the 110th Congress is seated in January, Mr. Bush can deliver another list of judicial nominees to the Senate, which will by then have a Democratic majority.
Mr. Bush’s motive in sending up the nominations has been closely analyzed, with several Democrats and liberals labeling it as provocative and a sign that he does not intend to seek compromise as he suggested he would after Republican losses in the elections last week.
[...]
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who will be the leader of the Judiciary Committee, said, “Barely a week after the president promised to change course by working in a bipartisan and cooperative way with Congress, it is disappointing that he has decided to ‘stay the course’ on judicial nominees.”
But Edward Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who has supported Mr. Bush’s judicial nominations throughout the first term, said Democrats were engaging in “rhetorical gamesmanship.” He said that despite the changed numbers in the Senate, Mr. Bush was not obliged to offer a unilateral surrender. He said the president was resubmitting the nominees for the lame-duck session because Democrats had refused to comply with the usual courtesy and moved to have the nominations expire at the last recess.
The four nominees whose chances of confirmation are viewed as nearly impossible are: William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon’s general counsel who was involved in setting many of the interrogation policies for detainees; William G. Myers III, a longtime lobbyist for the mining and ranching industries and a critic of environmental regulations; Terrence W. Boyle, a district court judge in North Carolina; and Michael B. Wallace of Mississippi, a lawyer rated unqualified for the court by the American Bar Association.
Six years in office and he still hasn't learned a damned thing
Regarding the 39 year-old/lives with his parents/Associates Degree in the Science of Electronics Malkinista:
COOK: Well, I mean, if he is idolizing them, that sounds like hero worship to me. I mean, I think, you know, these, Ann Coulter and Malkin, you know, they sort of present a kind of rhetorical world view where they have their troops out there, and I think he thought of himself as one of their troops and wanted to live up to their standards
And I mean, I don’t think we can always hold these people responsible for the actions of the least hinged of their followers, but I think it is clear that he was an acolyte of the Coulters and the Malkins, and I think that they clearly enjoy having acolytes, and they clearly sort of issue calls to action -- not necessarily to send threatening powder-filled envelopes to you in so many words, but they certainly exhort their followers to let themselves be known.
OLBERMANN: But to that point, I mean, the part—it was one thing—an acolyte is one thing; an emulation is something else. There were students at the University of California at Santa Cruz who protested military recruiters on their campus. Malkin posted their addresses and their personal information on her blog, and then when people harassed the students at their homes, Malkin did the King Henry thing about Thomas Becket, “who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?” I never told anybody to do anything. And then this is the problem, right? You can come out, you can directly encourage people to act violently. Ann Coulter has done that. Or you can do it in this sort of thinly disguised way, the way Malkin has.
COOK: Right. But I think what Malkin wants to do is not to tell people to act violently so much as—I do think she wants to sort of introduce a kind of thuggish sort of intimidating tone into the political debate, this kind of let’s not let them boss us around anymore. I think that’s sort of—she has got a very combative kind of truculent rhetorical pose.
Thank you to Wayne in Colorado Springs for the copy of Sexy Beast, a term often heard around the tbogg household if you know what I mean...but you probably think it's about Beckham, so let's just drop the whole thing, 'kay?
Mr. Lieberman received a standing ovation at a caucus luncheon after Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who is poised to become the majority leader, declared, “We’re all family.”
All of which is particularly touching in light of recent history. It was, after all, just three months ago that Mr. Lieberman became something of a party pariah after losing the Democratic primary in Connecticut but continuing his re-election bid as an independent.
Mr. Lieberman won re-election last week without help from most of his Democratic Senate colleagues, who backed Ned Lamont, his Democratic rival, over their “good friend Joe Lieberman.”
These would be many of the same good friends “who were happy to leave my dad by the side of the road,” as Mr. Lieberman’s son, Matthew, put it in an election night speech. These, presumably, would include “friends” like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, all Lamont supporters.
“It’s clear that the Democrats need him at this point more than he needs them,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, whom Mr. Lieberman genuinely does consider a close friend. “How sweet is this?”
Indeed, it is hard to imagine how Mr. Lieberman could have emerged better from last week’s election. He was re-elected comfortably, and the Democratic Party he still belongs to is now in the majority, assuring him the chairmanship of the powerful Homeland Security Committee.
Yet that majority is slim enough, 51 to 49, to turn Mr. Lieberman into arguably the Senate’s most influential member. If he defects, the Senate would effectively be under Republican control because Vice President Dick Cheney would cast tie-breaking votes.
“It was very painful to him to have all these people he thought were his friends embrace his opponent,” Ms. Collins said. “They just threw him overboard. But now, not only is he re-elected resoundingly, but he is also the key to which party controls the Senate.”
Mr. Lieberman’s situation underscores the precarious calculus of political friendships. People close to him say he remains miffed, if not bitter, about what he considers the betrayal of allies who supported an unknown, untested and unfamiliar candidate.
That would be the candidate that beat him in his own party's primary, but never mind that, because this is just more evidence that the only person that Joe loves more than Joe is still Joe, and now he is coming to terms with the fact that this is the best it is ever going to get for him (unless David Broder's Mystical Magical Unicorn Huggypie Party is found under a leaf in the cabbage patch that was once his brain). So Joe is all set to play "important statesman" and the rest of the Democrats are going to have to grit their teeth and pretend that they like him and that he is a swell guy, and the weekend bobbleheads are going to gobble him up every week because he's their kind of Democrat, and by "their kind of Democrat" I mean: a Republican.
Hard to believe that he could become more loathsome, but there you have it...
Brainwashed RoboBride and former human, Katie Holmes figures if this doesn't work, nothing will:
Tom Cruise’s bride-to-be went to Le Bra Lingerie in West Hollywood and spent more than $3,000 on lacy underthings, more than $1,000 of which was for a “bridal collection” set.
Among the purchases: a Chantilly lace bridal collection, reports a source. Among the goodies: a bra that cost $440, a $340 thong, a garter belt for $220, and silk stockings that went for $95 — for a total of $1,190.
Additionally, Holmes picked out a silk nightgown with a matching robe trimmed with ostrich feathers that set her back $620, a lace bra with Swarovski crystals for $380 and matching thong with crystals for $175, as well as two sets of silk pajamas and matching robes at $425 each.
“They weren’t all white — and they certainly weren’t virginal,” says the source. “But she’s a mom, so I guess that’s appropriate.”
Do you know how many e-meters you can buy for $3000?
Well, I gave my talk at St. Lawrence University last night. And, I should say that I don't think I've ever had a colder audience. I've spoken to scores of college audiences now, including those with vastly more liberal reputations, but this was the iciest reception I've ever had. Quite a few students were clearly sent as class assignments (which is always bad). But it seemed like part of their assignment was to be hostile. I have a bad tendency to tell if an audience is listening by trying to make them laugh. And I'm usually very hard on myself about this sort of thing and I usually know when my material or delivery is off. But this was really amazing. Self-deprecating humor, Bush-bashing humor, humor itself had almost no effect (and anti-liberal humor produced glares and clenched teeth), including all sorts of stand-bys I've used for years to positive effect even with hardcore lefty audiences (I used to be part of a road show that at time featured folks like Ralph Nader, the Indigo Girls et al, so I know from lefty campus audiences). I had a great time with the campus Republicans and some faculty before and after, but I'll tell ya, the longest month I ever spent was the hour I spent talking to kids from SLU.
Actually you have to give credit to Jonah for admitting this. Most of the posters at the Corner usually come back from their college talks pointing out how they totally kicked ass (I'm talking about you, Cliff May). I've seen Jonah on TV and I think he's pretty darn funny...and not in an unitentional way. Maybe they just don't watch The Simpson's at St. Lawrence....
You better stop your protesting before I give you something to protest about
Now would be a good time for all of those people who own Free Mumia signs to make discreet changes so that the signs now read Free al-Marri and we'll pretend like the last 24 years never happened.
Consider this your your Get Out Of Jail Dumb Free card
Behold the Warriors of Conservonerdism Can you spot the domestic terrorist?
So let me get this straight: the guy who may have been sending the fake anthrax letters to politicians and celebrities is a 39 year-old Freeper loner who is into science fiction and has the hots for Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Michelle Malkin*.
Color me surprised.
*Having the hots for Ann, Laura, and Michelle is not a mortal sin, by the way. However having low standards is considered a venial sin, if I remember my catechism correctly.
Maybe she should just become a plumber.. A long way from this...
It has been a loooooong time since the days when I applied for college when it was as simple as "What's your GPA? SAT's? Your favorite color? Okay. You're in." (Keep in mind this was San Diego State in the days when it was rated by Playboy Magazine as the number one party school in the country and the football team didn't blow.) Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, things have changed. After pouring over catalogs and touring campuses and asking countless questions, we have finally narrowed the lovely and talented Casey's choices down to two schools where the academics are suitable (for widely different reasons) and she has been offered a spot on the women's soccer team. One coach from a school that had been recruiting her for well over a year fell off of the face of the earth after the L&TC blew out her ACL last December, so that certainly helped narrow it down. Other schools dropped by the wayside because they either lacked the specific academic program she was looking for or she couldn't see herself enjoying the school or the city/state where the school was located. In other cases she just didn't care for the style of soccer that the coach taught ("They play like thugs," said Little Miss Yellow Card.)
Now we are going through the transcripts/application/SAT/essay/interview funhouse which is complicated in some ways by NCAA rules involving contact with the coaches. Although she's not being recruited by Notre Dame, Nebraska, or Ohio State to play football, the same rules apply. Actually NCAA rules for recruiting football players and basketball players are somewhat more lenient than for the other campus sports that aren't big money and aren't always being accused of cheating. You can look it up.
Anyway, we hope to have a letter of intent signed before the middle of December and then we can finally relax and be truly thankful that she is an only child.
While Atrios chose to point out some specifics from Judy Miller's speech at Kansas State University, it should be noted that her speech was given at a conference entitled:
"Community Readiness Communications: Accurate Messages in Times of Crisis"
What’s more, she had spent several decades acquiring access to Washington’s Middle East experts, some of whom suddenly wielded tremendous influence in the Bush administration. Miller’s many doubters at the Times were effectively silenced. She had emerged as one of the paper’s biggest stars, with the kind of “competitive metabolism” that new editor Howell Raines—he’d taken over from Joseph Lelyveld the week before 9/11—made into a crusade. According to a friend of Raines’s, as well as one of Miller’s colleagues at the paper, the editor pulled her aside after the attacks. “Go win a Pulitzer,” he told her.
For the next two years, she supplied the paper with a string of grim exclusives. There was the defector who described Saddam Hussein’s recent renovation of storage facilities for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. There was her report that a Russian virologist might have handed the regime a particularly virulent strain of smallpox. To protect themselves against VX and sarin, she further reported, the Iraqis had greatly increased the importation of an antidote to these agents. And, most memorably, she co-wrote a piece in which administration officials suggested that Iraq had attempted to import aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons. Vice-President Dick Cheney trumpeted the story on Meet the Press, closing the circle. Of course, each of the stories contained important caveats. But together they painted a horrifying picture. There was just one problem with them: The vast majority of these blockbusters turned out to be wrong.
I assume there is some other defition for the term "Accurate Messages" that I'm not familiar with...
Digby on the continuing adventures of Poppy & Son wherein Father Bush sends his loyal retainers to clean up Junior's mess after what started out as hilarious hijinks somehow left the Middle East in flames.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary on Wednesday, one day after midterm elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican losses.
[...]
Military officials and politicians dissatisfied with the course of the war had called for Rumsfeld’s resignation in the months leading up to the election. Last week, as Bush campaigned to save the Republican majority, he declared that Rumsfeld would remain at the Pentagon through the end of his term.
But a source told NBC News’ military analyst Bill Arkin that prior to the election, Vice President Dick Cheney argued with other politicians over whether Rumsfeld should stay. White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and others said Rumsfeld should be removed, the source said. Both sides agreed the decision would be made after the election, when Bush would make the final call based on how Republicans did.
According to the source, Bush agreed Rumsfeld should be removed after seeing election results favoring Democrats. Cheney then lost another argument, protesting Gates’ nomination as Rumsfeld’s replacement.
Sometime between "Dude, we should totally use 9/11 to invade Iraq" and last Tuesday, the road that Vice President Dick Cheney steered George Bush down dead-ended and they found themselves with four flat tires and out of gas. George Bush who has never been responsible for anything in his life, publicly blamed Karl Rove in the next day but kept his oedipal rage at Dick Cheney in check. Publicly, at least. Unable to sell Cheney Brand Booga-Booga Fear to anyone outside of Michelle Malkin's Short Bus of Couch Warriors, the election was lost "big time" and so, sensing both the rising tide and the sinking boat, George decided to unload the Rummy ballast last week, yet delayed the decision until Wednesday.
Now Dick Cheney finds himself without his only ally in the inner circle, having lost the turf war with Condoleeza Rice and indications are that Robert Gates will be purging the Cheneyites at Defense:
Nor is it clear how Mr. Gates will deal with Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Cheney worked for years to protect Mr. Rumsfeld, who had hired him for his first government job, and the top echelons of the Defense Department have been peppered with Cheney protégés. Many of them have told associates they expect to be leaving, as Mr. Gates takes over with a mandate, in Mr. Bush’s words, to approach the job with “fresh eyes.”
Having spent the last six years calling the shots with his best buddy Don, one wonders how long Dick is going to stick around and when, after enough time has passed so that it doesn't appear he is cutting and running, he will have a "health crisis" that will dictate his retirement.
My guess is next summer handing his replacement the thin-candy coating of incumbency without the stink of the previous six plus years...
Bow down to your Hello Kitty-blogging Media Overlords, bitches...
Having recently gotten over his disappointment in technology's failure to provide him with the flying cars, TV watches, and animatronic robot sex-slaves that were promised to him in those early sixties Popular Mechanics magazines, Roger Simon, themanwhocreatedmoseswine, joins his duddy fuddyduddy-in-arms Jeff Jarvis in splashing about in the sweet sweet waters of the Blogging Fountain of Youth where nobody knows that you're still wearing a Members Only jacket:
57 million blogs?!
Yes, that's the current Technorati number quoted in Michael Malone's latest Silicon Insider column. (He also has some nice things to say about Pajamas Media's video election coverage - thanks, Michael.) If that figure is even faintly correct, we've entered a mind-boggling era of communications here. Assuming that roughly half that number is American, the ratio of blogs to potential readers in this country is around one to ten - not a tremendously optimistic stat from a publishing point of view. No wonder I detect real fear of the Internet from some journalists I know.
Which is why the LA Times is preparing to lay off all of their journalists currently covering Cute Things My Kitties Do.... Why I Hate!!! My Mother.... and Taylor Hicks Is Teh Hot!!1! beats. Let's face it, Ron Brownstein was totally out of his league when he did that four-part series on Veronica Mars Is Sooooo Like Me. I mean, that was pretty embarrassing when compared to the same investigative series done by Nicole Kingston, a fourteen year-old from Cedar Rapids who really does have more in common with Veronica Mars than Ron.
I am personally responsible for at least eight nationally known reporters losing their jobs because I was cutting into their daily basset coverage, basset special reports, and weekend basset wrap-ups.
Here, watch: This is Beckham. He is a basset. Isn't he cute?!?
There. I did it. It's Friday afternoon and a reporter from the Wall Street Journal and a columnist from the Indianapolis Star were each just handed a pink slip and now their kids aren't going to get any toys this Christmas because daddy lost his job because a blogger can do it cheaper.
That's too bad...those kids were really looking forward to getting those TV watches....
My thoughts: Allen is over, certainly at least for this cycle. Santorum I bet could use a bit of a break, but I wouldn't be shocked if a sense of duty brought him into the primary mix or something.
I can tell you this, for whatever it's worth: my most frequently received e-mail (besides the expletive-filled e-mails) says: "Romney/Santorum '08" or "Who will you choose, K-Lo, Mitt or Rick in the primaries?"
Levin's comments:
I'm going against today's conventional wisdom and suggesting that Rick Santorum and George Allen should consider running for the Republican presidential nomination. It certainly wouldn't be the first time politicians who've lost elections have run (and won) office. Indeed, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney have lost elections. Obviously, Richard Nixon lost for president in 1960 and governor of California in 1962.
I still consider Santorum and Allen among the best and most appealing conservatives on the scene. I believe Santorum has national appeal, despite his loss in Pennsylvania. And although Allen's campaign was knocked off stride, nobody will care much. After all, John McCain has overcome much worse, namely the Keating Five scandal; and Rudy Guiliani appears to have put his marital and health issues behind him.
The bodies are hardly cold and he's trying to resurrect them already. When the Doughy Pantload thinks you're goofy, you've got problems...
The Real Reason George Allen Lost With trusted advisor, wife, John Warner and some lady, I don't know who the hell she is
In six short months Senator George Allen went from popular Senator and potential Presidential candidate to sniveling unemployable house-husband (insert your own Jeff Goldstein joke here). How did this happen? Sensing something dark and dirty in his past (those sealed divorce papers) Time magazine put Ana Marie Cox on the case hoping for some whiff of domestic violence or at least some butt-sex; we'll pass on the whiff of that, thank you very much.
As we learned from George Bush's testy remarks about Karl Rove the other day, the ultimate blame in lost elections is usually the result of bad advice from people whose sole job it is to give good advice. And since no campaign collapsed quite as fast as Allen's did, it's time to take a look at just who gummed up the works in the Allen machine.
I blame Wilson: Soon to be thrown away like yesterdays polls...
What seemed like a harmless affectation was a cry for help from a man wallowing in his own uncertanties. Soon he turned to the only thing in his life, a piece of sports equipment washed up on the shores of his isolation. It was inevitable that Allen would soon start listening to the soft murmurings of his inflated friend as he cocked his arm back and waited for a neighborhood kid to "go long" and Wilson, nestled by his ear, would tell him the things he wanted to hear. Soon, it got out of control:
"Call him macaca," said Wilson, "that's some funny shit."
"You can't be Jewish," Wilson counseled. "Look at me, I'm pigskin, and I'm your best friend."
"Dude, you should totally use this porn I found in Webb's book," Wilson exclaimed. "It's totally off the hook."
"Let's you and me go snort some blow off of a Redskin cheerleaders ass." Wilson helpfully suggested.
I'm glad to see that a mere three days after winning the election, Heath Shuler has become the poster boy for Republicans who don't have any of their own poster boys who played football...anymore:
The Dems have an opportunity to act reasonably and to become a party more of Heath Shulers than of Nancy Pelosis. You think they'll do it? I doubt it. The Nutroots won't let them, and the Heath Shulers are gonna pay the price in two years.
Too bad that Lynn Swann thing didn't pan out and Steve Largent was fired a long time ago and J.C. Watts quit. You already know about George Allen, I assume....
They do have Tom Osborne but he's all old and icky and stuff...
Bake Sale Diplomacy Brownies are a dollar, cupcakes fifty cents...and moustache-ride gift certificates are $50 but you have to go to Plato's Retreat to redeem it.
After downing two Venti Mocha Coconut Amphetamine Frappucinos at Starbucks, Pam at Atlas Kvetches went a little nuttier than usual about her boy-toy John Bolton, and quite honestly it's pretty well been covered. But this part is particularly adorable:
UPDATE: Lori Marcus came up with a wildly wonderful idea; What say you readers;
Or, what do you say about taking up a collection so that he [Bolton]can take the job but not get paid, which I understand is an actual option, and then have the collected funds go to him. I bet we could raise the money if we had to. I'll have to check the legality, of course.
Oooooo! A bakesale! Get there early before they run out of nutbars and maccaloons.
For the GOP to make any progress here at all, they need to begin now, and force some nominees --especially Keisler-- out of the Judiciary Committee during the lame duck session, followed by floor votes. Then a constant focus must be kept on Patrick Leahy's four corners' offense. He will never hold a vote he doesn't have to, so if the Senate GOP doesn't start now to demand fairness in that body, it will never arrive. The only way to get a fair shake for any SCOTUS nominee if one should be called for is to have already explained for the public how the operations at the Judiciary Committee are supposed to work.
The unbroken tradition of the United States Senate is to give a floor vote to any SCOTUS nominee who requests one. Abe Fortas was delayed for a few days and withdrew.
No SCOTUS nominee has ever been denied an up-or-down vote if the nominee wanted one.
A seasoned Senate vote-counter, Johnson concluded that despite filibuster warnings he just barely had the support to confirm Fortas. The president took encouragement from indications that his former Senate mentor, Richard Russell, and Republican Minority Leader Everett Dirksen would support Fortas, whose legal brilliance both men respected.
The president soon lost Russell's support, however, because of administration delays in nominating his candidate to a Georgia federal judgeship. Johnson urged Senate leaders to waste no time in convening Fortas' confirmation hearings. Responding to staff assurances of Dirksen's continued support, Johnson told an aide, "Just take my word for it. I know [Dirksen]. I know the Senate. If they get this thing drug out very long, we're going to get beat. Dirksen will leave us."
Fortas became the first sitting associate justice, nominated for chief justice, to testify at his own confirmation hearing. Those hearings reinforced what some senators already knew about the nominee. As a sitting justice, he regularly attended White House staff meetings; he briefed the president on secret Court deliberations; and, on behalf of the president, he pressured senators who opposed the war in Vietnam. When the Judiciary Committee revealed that Fortas received a privately funded stipend, equivalent to 40 percent of his Court salary, to teach an American University summer course, Dirksen and others withdrew their support. Although the committee recommended confirmation, floor consideration sparked the first filibuster in Senate history on a Supreme Court nomination.
On October 1, 1968, the Senate failed to invoke cloture. Johnson then withdrew the nomination, privately observing that if he had another term, "the Fortas appointment would have been different."
Pre-Friday Random Ten Feel the earth move when you're shaking that thing Hard to be around when you've got nothing to gain
For some reason the iPod is on some kind of Air binge.
Don't Call Me Red - Ry Cooder Heartbreak Stroll - The Raveonettes Venus - Air Wake- Darker My Love California Man - Cheap Trick Si Je Tavais Ecoute - Les Nubians Crazy As Me - Allison Krauss and Union Station Straight Outta Compton - Nina Gordon Surfing On A Rocket - Air Incantations - Massive Attack
What is it about David Horowitz that makes college students so unhinged? Once again, he was physically attacked on his way to give a campus lecture. From the Ball State University student paper in Indiana:
[...]
Parents of future college students: Scratch Ball State off your list.
This is really sad. According to Steve Clemons the Bush administration is trying to slip John Bolton back into the UN when all he could muster last time around was a recess appointment.
This is like when your girlfriend comes over to your place to dump you and you ask for a one last blowjob for old times sake as she walks out the door.
Yes. Men can be pathetic that way...
(Edited for clarity. No. Really. It was a lot worse)
As the canvassing continues in Virginia, Sen. George Allen, R-Virginia, is sequestered in his home, "shell shocked," and going through "a nightmare," during this period of limbo, a senior Allen staffer tells CNN.
In a conference call with his senate staff and regional representatives Wednesday afternoon, the Virginia senator "didn't concede but he was clearly not emboldened to fight this," according to the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Could we please have an embargo on the word 'emboldened'. Jesus, ever since we started the Clash of Civilizations In Mark Steyn's Head, emboldened has become the 'paradigm' of our age.
George Allen is not enthusiastic about the prospect of a recount
George Allen doesn't think a recount is called for.
George Allen doesn't want to put the voters of Virginia through the ordeal and expense of a recount.
George Allen is wandering around his house in his underwear sobbing uncontrollably while eating frosting out of the can.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. - W. Sobchak
Congratulations Senator Tester
Then...
...and now
Walter Sobchak: OVER THE LINE! Smokey: Huh? Walter Sobchak: I'm sorry, Smokey. You were over the line, that's a foul. Smokey: Bullshit. Mark it 8, Dude. Walter Sobchak: Uh, excuse me. Mark it zero. Next frame. Smokey: Bullshit, Walter. Mark it 8, Dude. Walter Sobchak: Smokey, this is not 'Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.
Obviously the WaPo had the poll done precisely for the headline "Democrats Lead" ten days out from the election. And the party ID numbers below are all from Maryland, not national numbers. They over sampled Democrats by 8 points based upon voting trends just two years ago.
The Washington Post has released a new poll purporting to show Michael Steele trailing Ben Cardin by eleven points in the Maryland Senate race.
Cardin Steele 10/26/06 LV 54 43
The poll of likely voters over sampled Democrats by 8 points based upon election results from 2004.
Party affiliation as per exit polling in 2004, which in itself may have been a skewed sample given that the exit polls were so far off the mark in many states:
Democrat (48%)
Republican (30%)
Independent (22%)
A recent Rassmussen poll had Cardin up by 5, while a Survey USA poll had the race tied - via Real Clear Politics. With two seemingly skewed WaPo polls in the RCP average adjusted and including the two other polls, it's quite possible the race is a dead heat.
Of course, as you can see, Dan was right and the race was much more dead-heatier than those pricks at the Washington Post let on:
When we made up our list of colleges where we thought the lovely and talented Casey might get both a good education as well as play soccer, we considered San Diego State University. Although we had heard good things about Coach Mike Giuliano, Casey decided that she didn't want to stay in San Diego. Fair enough. Now we see that it's a good thing we didn't waste our time on SDSU:
Five San Diego State women's soccer players, including the Aztecs' top player, Jen Mello, were dismissed from the team this week after clashing with coaches over several issues, including allegations that the coaches pushed religion on players.
The dismissals follow dismissals of two other players in the spring who were later reinstated, plus four brief suspensions earlier this year involving postings on MySpace.com. Others, including the team's second-best player Erika Sutton, now are considering transferring.
Head coach Mike Giuliano, who just completed his third season at SDSU, and associate coach Mike Friesen, did not return calls seeking comment.
“All the controversies that are happening in this program, in this short period of time these two gentleman have taken over the program, is mind-boggling and they seem to be at the center of every one,” said Greg Strickland, father of sophomore Mariko Strickland, one of the dismissed players this week.
SDSU athletics spokesman Mike May said of the five: “We hope they stay at San Diego State. We hope they remain as students.”
Asked for the reason for the dismissals, May said, “At this point, it's a coach's decision, and that's the way we'll keep it.
May said those players on scholarship will be allowed to keep their financial aid through the remainder of their tenure at SDSU and would be offered releases if they want to transfer.
Strickland said his daughter was told if she makes any “negative representations to the press” about what happened, they would “take away her scholarship immediately.”
In a letter to SDSU Athletic Director Jeff Schemmel, Jen Mello's father Gary accused the coaches of “mental and verbal abuse” and trying to “mold them into their vision of the perfect young female with a religious backdrop.”
Gary Mello said the coaches hold religion discussions in team meetings, they question them on whether they are religious and suggest they go to church together. Greg Strickland said the coaches are “very heavy Christians.”
Gary Mello said there are many other issues, including the coaches trying to tell his daughter who her friends should be and that they “care way more about punishing players than winning soccer games.”
“I believe that the bottom underlying theme backdrop is religiously driven,” he said.
Imagine if this had been, say, Steve Fisher's basketball team and he dismissed several star players because they would't join in on lockerroom prayers, and then other players started talking about transfering out. That would be headline news on ESPN. But since these are "girls" who need moral guidance and a firm (but fair) hand to become little buttercups for Jesus...eh, whatever.
If this had happened at BYU or Pepperdine or Liberty it wouldn't be such a big thing, because the students know what they are getting themselves into when they sign their letter of intent with a school with a strong religious affiliation. But this is a public university and coaches Giuliano and Friesen are abusing their authority and this is unacceptable on the taxpayer's dime. We're not talking about a political science professor shoving his leftist/Marxist agenda down someone's throat in a classroom; this is a coach who decides whether you play or whether you sit, and I don't know too many women who accept a spot on a team and play almost year-round with the intent of drawing splinters for four years because the refuse to accept the coaches' Lord into their heart.
San Diego is a hotbed for club soccer and, take my word for it, the local soccer mom/soccer dad grapevine is a miracle of modern communication. Last December when the lovely and talented Casey blew out her ACL, we heard from coaches she hadn't played for in years within 48 hours, as well as an out-of-town college coach who was recruiting her. If what is happening at SDSU is true, Giuliano is toast in this town.
Of course, having just come off of a 6-11-3 season and being the third best college team in town won't help.
How Bush Should Handle Loss [Jonah Goldberg] I think James Baker and Dick Cheney should take Bush out to the woods around Camp David. After 24 hours in a sweat lodge, he should be given only a loin cloth, a hunting knife and a canteen of water. Bush should then set out to track and kill a black bear, after which he should eat its still beating heart so he can absorb its spirit. He should then fly back to Washington in Marine 1. His torso still scratched from the bear's claws, his face bloodied and steaming in the November chill, he should immediately give a press conference at which he throws the bearskin on the front row of the press corps, completely enveloping Helen Thomas, declaring, "I'm not going anywhere."
This will send important messages to Democrats and well as to our enemies overseas, who are no doubt high-fiving as we speak.
...and to think that this is the kind of thing that landed him a column gig at the LA Times.
A day after Britney Spears asked for a divorce, Kevin Federline filed court papers seeking sole custody of the couple's two children.
The former backup dancer and aspiring rapper is also seeking spousal support. He says the couple's community assets are "uncertain," though Spears said in her divorce papers there were none to speak of.
"Kevin is prepared to go the distance in order to do what he feels is necessary to protect and safeguard the children and will not be intimidated or dissuaded from pursuit of those goals," Michael Sands, spokesman for Federline's attorney, Mark Vincent Kaplan, said Wednesday.
Excerpt from Federline's court papers:
Never been to Denver, but I rock them nuggets One earring cost more than your budget And I ain't here to brag I'm just here to pop tags My Ferrari cost more than your little S-Class Look man, I'm in a whole 'nother tax bracket It don't matter what you blow Boy, you can't match it 40 grand'll take the whole crew to Miami Then we pop Cristal like we won Grammys I take care of my own, that's my family Magazine's talk 'cause they don't understand me
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, architect of an unpopular war in Iraq, intends to resign after six stormy years at the Pentagon, Republican officials said Wednesday.
Officials said Robert Gates, former head of the CIA under the first President Bush, would replace Rumsfeld. NBC News’ Tim Russert confirmed Rumsfeld’s resignation and the replacement pick.
Now I want...a shrubbery. One that looks nice. And not too expensive.
Looks like they stayed home, did a bunch of meth, and had gay gay gay sex with hookers while everyone else was out voting:
In a triple setback for conservatives, South Dakotans rejected a law that would have banned virtually all abortions, Arizona became the first state to defeat an amendment to ban gay marriage and Missouri approved a measure backing stem cell research.
Wait till they find out about the new Governor of Florida...
It would appear that in the wake of a Democratic landslide in the House, the White House is looking to make nice with Pelosi and her counterparts after tussling with them on a variety of issues for six years.
"[Pelosi] talked about energy independence, and we want to work on comprehensive immigration reform, some things we can get some action on," Snow said. "It will be interesting politically, a new opportunity to get things done. We're going to get a lot done. On energy, education -- those are clearly things we can work on."
The president wants to work with the new House leaders, said Snow, and was encouraged by several Democrats' calls "to get rid of partisanship."
"Bush wants to go back to the Texas model. He's always reached out. He's been trying over the last couple of years with limited success," Snow said.
If by "limited success", you mean "Joe Lieberman agrees with everything we do". Tell you what: bring us the head of Donald Rumsfeld as an offering, and we'll talk...
I was kind of surprised this morning to see that Heather Wilson has survived...so far. There are still a lot of close races in Pennsylvania too, but at least Lil Ricky finally moved above 40%. Good for him, since he was in the high thirties in the polls for forever. At this rate, he could have caught up with Casey by---. Oh hell, he was never going to catch Casey. I'm just teasing the wingnuts.
Let the finger pointing begin... I wish these tits were brains
Hugh Hewitt pretends that he didn't dismiss the "Democratic wave" and gets down to the important stuff. Self-reflection? No. Questioning his own judgement? No. Seeking help? Nope.
I have to assume that the Dems will get the Senate as well as the House, though Conrad Burns may be able to pull off an upset, in which case I hope the GOP in the Senate reject the silly rules they agreed to the last time the body was 50/50. They got no cooperation from Dems over the past two years, and if by good luck and the Veep's vote they have the majority, they have got to begin to use it.
The long and short of this bad but not horrific night was that majorities must act like majorities. The public cares little for the "traditions" of the Senate or the way the appropriations process used to work. It demands results. Handed a large majority, the GOP frittered it away. The chief fritterer was Senator McCain and his Gang of 14 and Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, supplemented by a last minute throw down that prevented the NSA bill from progressing or the key judicial nominations from receiving a vote. His accomplice in that master stroke was Senator Graham. Together they cost their friend Mike DeWine his seat in the Senate, and all their Republican colleagues their chairmanships. Senator McCain should rethink his presidential run. Amid the ruins of the GOP's majority there is a clear culprit.
A second loser was Bill Frist. To be the Majority Leader of a majority that did not lead is lethal to his presidential ambitions. Like Senator McCain, it would be easier on everyone if he just exited the stage.
President Bush will not flag in the pursuit of the war, and Senator Santorum is now available for a seat on the SCOTUS should one become available. GOP senators will have the chance to select leadership equal to the new world of politics which, as the past two years have demonstrated, does not reward timi----....
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back it up there, lil Sparky.
Rewind:
...and Senator Santorum is now available for a seat on the SCOTUS should one become available.
Wow. Just... wow.
He must have been well into his fourth Zima by the time he wrote that...
Suddenly nobody is talking about John Kerry anymore... 400 pounds of dumbass
The California election scene was fairly boring this cycle with uninspiring candidates abounding. It's hard to believe that a state full of the most image conscious people in the country could have so many dull unappealing politicians. Maybe it's because all of the witty, intelligent, good-looking people are too busy in Hollywood...or blogging. One of those.
And so we turn our lonely eyes to the rest of the country that, truth be told, we would just as soon fly over if you don't mind, thank you very much...
Obviously I am thrilled that America's Stupidest Congressman* JD Hayworth is going to have to go back to broadcasting high school football games since we already have a National Mexican Hater in place. Maybe he can work in the minors; standing on sidewalks and screaming at Taco Bells. Also in Arizona, gubernatorial not-even-close Len Munsil isn't going to be needing any new business cards and should now have lots more time to "do it" with his wife, more proof that you should never let your career aspirations get in the way of your hobby.
I'm very surprised that Jim Ryun (Kansas-02) was kicked to the curb (regardless of his shady real estate deal), but not so surprised that all the women-beaters (Fine - MN , Sherwood - PA, Sweeney - NY) found out that Smack My Bitch Up doesn't work well as a campaign slogan. I don't know what the hell John Hostettler (IN-08) did to only receive 39 % of the vote, but it had to be along the lines of grunting while strangling puppies during the debates and then throwing their limp floppy bodies at his opponent. What works for Dick Cheney doesn't necessarily play in Peoria.
Musgrave (CO-04) looks like she's going to survive and will have a kindred Godsmacked spirit in Michele Bachman (MN-06) to caucus with (in tongues, we assume), so we can expect lots of faith-based gay hatin' from the fringes this Congress. Also in Minnesota, Keith Ellison (MN-05) won and here's hoping that he calls John Hinderaker every morning at about 3AM and shouts "Allah Akbar" and then starts giggling like a madman. Good fun...
As I mentioned earlier today, a few Congressmen under clouds survived (Lewis CA-41, Renzi AZ-01), but I wouldn't be writing anyone's name down in ink on your Congressional scorecard just yet. And we still haven't seen the end of the Foley scandal, particularly with the Democrats holding the big stick.
And this just in...McCaskill wins in MO. Now Rush Limbaugh has the shakes...
Jesus. What a slaughter. Bush to attempt to put a positive spin on it tomorrow. That's it for now. Gotta make plans to start harvesting stem cells from Mary Katherine Ham's future babies so I can clone me some Muslims...
*The Stupidest Congressman tiara and sash are now passed to Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia-3
May he not strangle himself trying to put them on...
Lest you think I’m whistling Dixie, we’re already seeing the results of the Republican efforts. Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that early voting and absentee ballot results suggest Republicans are indeed voting in greater numbers than in 2004. (Sorry, no link, but you can trust me, right?)
None of the foregoing means the polls are worthless. It just means that to get an accurate gauge on things, you have to add a significant layer of Republican support to the reported numbers.
So what’s it all mean? In the tied races, the Republican will win. In the close races, the Republican will win. It adds up to Republicans running the table in the Senate. That’s right – running the table. Montana, Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, New Jersey, Rhode Island (whoopee), and Maryland will all send or re-send Republicans to the Senate. But wait, there’s more! Michigan will send Sheriff Michael Bouchard to the Senate. And in Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum is in striking distance.
In the House, the same holds true. Republican Joe Negron will take Foley’s seat. New Mexico’s Heather Wilson will return to Congress. So, too, will Connecticut’s Chris Shays. We’ll lose a handful of seats for the individual failures of certain Congressmen (hello, Curt Weldon), but we will retain control of the House.
Okay, I’m officially out on the limb. But I’m comfortable here. The paradigm has shifted. People like Stu Rothenberg are like old generals re-fighting the last war; they’re re-analyzing the last election without realizing that certain key facts on the ground have changed.
This will all be much more obvious on Wednesday in retrospect than it is today.
It would be unbearably cruel to add anything to this.
For those keeping score at home Yet more evidence that nobody pays attention to Wolf anymore...
Oh, this is much more important than the elections.
I was looking at the list of bloggers hanging out at CNN (and really, isn't this the worst reality show ever? People! With laptops! You can see that at Starbucks although you do run the risk of hearing James Blunt on the muzak so why risk it?)...anyway, I was looking at the list of right wing bloggers in attendance and I realized that I've probably insulted at least ninety percent of them.
This is why the vivacious and social mrs tbogg says she can't take me anywhere. That and I refuse to wear pants...
Hey, it worked for John Roberts and Strip Search Sammy
I don't want to harp too much on Santorum/Casey because, let's face it: outside of the Katherine Harris Juggernaut (Juggernaut™ a trademark of First Draft LLC) which was a sinking ship even before it left the dock, everyone knew that Santorum was going down like Ted Haggard at a rave. Jesus, this has been the conventional wisdom for, like, a year. Rick Santorum is just not a likeable man. He's a smug sanctimonius inflexible prig with anger issues and it comes through every time he opens his mouth. Joe Lieberman is the same thing, but at least he hides it under his Droopy Dog goofiness.
Over at The Corner (which is a friggin' goldmine of unintentional sniggers this evening) Rick Brookheiser has this to say:
Disappointed Fans of Rick Santorum [Rick Brookhiser] ....can take comfort from the fact that Bob Casey, Jr. won by a very old political gambit. "Let him say not one single word about his principles, or his creed—let him say nothing—promise nothing. Let no Committee, no convention—no town meeting ever extract from him a single word, about what he thinks now, or what he will do hereafter. Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden as if he were a mad poet in Bedlam." Nicholas Biddle on William Henry Harrison.
Which is essentially how George Bush's two Supreme Court nominees got on the bench. As loathsome a person as Fat Tony Scalia is, at least he has the courage of his warped convictions to say what he thinks. Roberts and Alito lack that kind of sack.
Maybe if Rick Santorum had followed Nelson Biddle's advice he wouldn't have to tell the kids that there's not going to be any 12 Apostle Action Figures™ under the Christmas tree this year unless Mommy Santorum can whip up another malpractice suit and Lawyer Daddy Santorum decides to take the case.
Senator Santorum [Kathryn Jean Lopez] has graciously conceded. Reminding people of that Gathering Storm we have to face without or without him in the Senate. Says he's proud he didn't run on pork, but the stakes of this war we're in. Posted at 10:17 PM
Just talked to Todd Harris, spokesman for the Joe Negron campaign, trying to win the old Mark Foley seat in the 16th District of Florida. No reports of people having trouble with the concept of voting for Foley in order to vote for Negron, Harris says. He attributes that to heavy media coverage and discussion about the ballot in recent weeks. "At this stage, you would have had to been living under a rock or coming down from a four-week bender to not know how the ballot works in this district," Harris tells me.
I think that "coming down from a four-week bender" crack was a cheap shot at Rush Limbaugh...
Welcome to the Third World It's not like it's a big surprise that today is election day:
Election Day began with technical glitches reported around the county early Tuesday, with frustrated voters unable to use computerized voting machines and forced to use paper ballots instead.
But a county spokesman said there have been no reports of widespread problems with the computerized voting machines.
Among those reporting problems shortly after polls opened were voters in Birdland, City Heights, South Park, Del Cerro, La Mesa, El Cajon, Crest, Vista and National City.
James Secrest said he almost gave up and went home Tuesday because the machines at Palmer Way Elementary School in National City were not working when he went to vote around 8 a.m.
Secrest, 70, said the workers at the poll didn't know how to work the machines.
“They gave us a pencil and paper,” he said. “It was very unorganized. I've been going there for 30 years and this is the worst I've seen it.”
[...]
Voting machines also weren't working when Jim Gogek went to vote at the Little Flower Haven convent on La Mesa Boulevard around 7:30 a.m.
He said voters were given absentee ballots and people sat on the floor filling them out, though there weren't enough pens for the voters who were waiting.
“I don't have much faith in these people's computer literacy skills. A lot of people who were voting were pretty disgusted,” Gogek said.
The county is using 10,200 Diebold touch-screen machines in 1,650 precincts. Officials have called the machines user-friendly and said they expected them to make voting less confusing. The machines, first used in March 2004, have been retrofitted to include paper records of ballots cast.
We can put cheese in a can, 20,000 songs on a device the size of a pack of cigarettes, and we can fake a moon landing on a soundstage, but we can't make a voting machine work.
I guess we should be happy that Diebold doesn't make airplanes...
Things that are almost as important as the election
Like the fact that K-Fed's fifteen minutes are almost up:
K-Fed’s New York City gig at Webster Hall wasn’t cancelled as some predicted — but it reportedly took some big-time begging on his part.
“They were going to cancel this concert, but he begged them to keep it on,” a Webster Hall bartender told Star. “He had to fight with them to keep this concert.” Only 300 people showed up at the club that holds 1,500.
K-Fed was scheduled to go on at 7 pm, but the crowd was so sparse that the aspiring rapper waited for three hours in hopes that more fans would appear.
“He was holding things up because there weren’t enough fans,” the bartender told the tab. “It was a bad idea — he shouldn’t have neglected the fans who were there.”
Federline’s performance has been described as “mercifully short.” Britney Spears’s hubby only rapped for about half an hour and, reports one eyewitness, “seemed really confused about how to act on stage. He would pace from one side of the stage to the other, just saying things like, ‘Hey’ thirty times in a row or ‘New York, thank you for coming — buy my CD.’ ”
If you want to get away from all election/all the time, spend a few minutes with Mr. Britney Spears and his wife at Fugly.
Stuff that may or may not happen Anything can happen. Except Katherine Harris winning. That's not gonna happen.
I try not to get too excited about elections because, like having sex with celebrities, it never really turns out to be as good as you expect it to be (I mean Salma Hayek was good...but I've had better). Each election is not the end all and be all of life, or as Duane Thomas once said about the Super Bowl, "If the Super Bowl is the ultimate game, then how come they're going to play it again next year?". With this election the Democrats will probably take over the House and make a dent in the Senate, but not so much that it will stop George Bush from doing what he damn well pleases because we're at "war", and he has people who will go to bat for him saying that the Constitution is not a suicide pact while in the background we'll see Uncurious George juggling flaming torches in a room rapidly filling with gas.
Here are some things that will happen:
No matter how many seats the Democrats take in the House it won't be enough to keep the Republican echo chamber from pointing out that it most certainly is not a mandate, while all the time whining about the loss of control of the commitees.
Joe Lieberman is going to win and it will somehow translate as support for the war and civility and common sense...and nobody in the media will point out what a sleazy campaign he ran.
There will be at least one upset that the polls didn't predict and that will be held up as evidence that all polls are always wrong...except when they side with your candidate.
There will be reports ofbrown people voting which will cause Michelle Malkin to go off the rails. Okay. Farther off the rails.
Several Republican congressmen with ethical clouds hanging over them will be re-elected only to have to step down later when indictments are handed down.
Matt Drudge will hype something completely trivial unless Madonna does something to distract him which makes him take his eye off of the ball.
Within a week, embargoed news about the war will be released and people will find out things in Iraq are even worse then we suspect.
Michael Steele will lose..but that won't stop Republicans from touting him to run with McCain in 2008 because they believe that they are just one Negro away from perpetual electoral domination.
Harold Ford will lose because he is a lousy candidate who is transparently phony.
If either Marilyn Musgrave or JD Hayworth loses I will be one happy boy.
You will see one politician elected who does not represent your district or state and you will wonder what the hell is wrong with the people of that district or state. That politician will probably be Tom Tancredo.
You should probably TIVO Katherine Harris' concession speech so you can play it later at parties.
Pelosi fever! Catch it!
The most banal no-content election blogging will come from Mary Katharine Ham who, while under the delusion that she is teh hot, will provide the kind of political insights one might expect from the assistant night manager down at Wet Seal.
Your best source for a sense of what is happening will still be at Kos and MyDD. The best post-mortem will come from Digby. As usual.
Dick Cheney will be spending election day hunting with his daughter who will not get shot in the face because she is quicker on her feet than a 78-year old man. Besides , it's not lesbian season in South Dakota ...yet.
Blogger will go down throughout the day.
I will be around, Blogger permiting.
And remember, as Yogi Berra once said: It's ain't over for Rick Santorum until the K-Lo posts.
It’s been an interesting election season, I’ll grant that. Our would-be gubernator, Mike Hatch, called a reporter a “Republican whore,” and it yielded a piece in the paper about how “stress” and “scrutiny” lead candidates to make mistake in the final days. Any who knows Mr. Hatch knows the comment had nothing to do with stress or scrutiny, but rather with the fellow’s personality; he is a mean, small man. But if he wins, Garrison Keillor will write a column about how the ancient true Minnesota virtues of Decency have been reasserted, because Mr. Hatch will quite possibly raise the gas tax, and nothing confirms our essential decency like the ever-steady rise of state levies sloshed off to indistinct purposes.
Quite frankly, I have to agree with Jimbo about the lack of civility in Minnesota. Oh how we long for the good old days when the decent, humble and mostly white people of Minnesota knew how to keep a civil tongue in the public square and not act like those potty-mouths from Fargo:
Finally: the Guardian ran letters welcoming Bush to Britain. Everyone piled on stupid old Harry Pinter, but I didn’t see anyone note this contribution from blogosphere star Salam Pax:
I hate to wake you up from that dream you are having, the one in which you are a superhero bringing democracy and freedom to underdeveloped, oppressed countries. But you really need to check things out in one of the countries you have recently bombed to freedom. Georgie, I am kind of worried that things are going a bit bad in Iraq and you don't seem to care that much. You might want it to appear as if things are going well and sign Iraq off as a job well done, but I am afraid this is not the case.
Listen, habibi, it is not over yet. Let me explain this in simple terms. You have spilled a glass full of tomato juice on an already dirty carpet and now you have to clean up the whole room. Not all of the mess is your fault but you volunteered to clean it up. I bet if someone had explained it to you like that you would have been less hasty going on our Rambo-in-Baghdad trip.
To tell you the truth, I am glad that someone is doing the cleaning up, and thank you for getting rid of that scary guy with the hideous moustache that we had for president. But I have to say that the advertisements you were dropping from your B52s before the bombs fell promised a much more efficient and speedy service.
Hey, Salam? Fuck you. I know you’re the famous giggly blogger who gave us all a riveting view of the inner circle before the war, and thus know more about the situation than I do. Granted. But there’s a picture on the front page of my local paper today: third Minnesotan killed in Iraq. He died doing what you never had the stones to do: pick up a rifle and face the Ba’athists. You owe him.
Let me explain this in simple terms, habibi. You would have spent the rest of your life under Ba’athist rule. You might have gotten some nice architectural commissions to do a house for someone whose aroma was temporarily acceptable to the Tikriti mob. You might have worked your international connections, made it back to Vienna, lived a comfy exile’s life. What’s certain is that none of your pals would ever have gotten rid of that “scary guy without the hideous moustache” (as if his greatest sin was somehow a fashion faux pas) and the Saddam regime would have prospered into the next generation precisely because of people like you....
This is the kind of thing that can happen when good people get stressed every time Target runs out of those 3-packs of Bounty towels with the Fall leaf borders...
I have a "Evil" on line one. Shall I leave him on hold? The VP...in the parlor...with a shotgun
I hear that robo-calls are all the rage these days but here at Casa Tbogg we don't have to worry about them since we don't have a land-line in the house, using our cell phones instead (and let me add that I hate talking on the phone and cringe every time it rings). My mom, on the other hand, has been getting calls; three in fact just yesterday from Dick Cheney. I was going to advise her to GET OUT because HE'S IN THE HOUSE... but she said she just hangs up on him, so everything is cool.
Always one to make a mountain out of a molehill, Michele Malkin ranges all the way up to Boise in search of something, anything, that proves that the Democrats just hate hate hate the military:
Now there's this despicable act in Boise, Idaho reportedly committed by the sons of a state Democrat legislator:
Police arrested 24-year old Michael Burkett of Boise early Sunday morning after officers with Capitol Mall Security reported spotting him vandalizing two flag polls on the grounds of the Idaho Statehouse.
The flags are memorials to soldiers who lost their lives in the war on terror.
"It's certainly upsetting, not just to officers but for any citizen of this county who knows somebody who lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan," Lt. Ron Winegar said of the ongoing investigation.
Burkett was charged with resisting arrest and Malicious Injury to Property. He and his 22-year-old brother, Tom Burkett, also charged with the vandalism, are the sons of state Sen. Michael Burkett (D) of Idaho's 19th district.
Clayton Cramer:
Look, if Burkett's sons were arrested doing some non-political act of vandalism, I could chalk it up to youthful stupidity. (There's a lot of that.) If this were a political act of vandalism taken against Republican campaign signs, I wouldn't be happy, but you know, people get carried away at the end of a campaign. But knocking over flags memorializing our fallen soldiers? This is moonbattery of the highest order--completely ineffective at changing policy, but rich in symbolism...you have to wonder how much of this irrational hatred of the United States was learned at the dinner table.
Yeah. Why can't they be like our kids, perfect in every way. What's the matter with kids today?
The White House did not hide its irritation Monday at Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist for ducking President Bush at a campaign rally in the Republican friendly Panhandle.
Crist said he considered the Pensacola area so firmly in his camp that it made more sense to campaign elsewhere in the state as the race to replace outgoing Gov. Jeb Bush tightened.
On a tarmac in Texas where the president boarded Air Force One for the trip east, Bush political strategist Karl Rove mockingly questioned what kind of alternate rally Crist could put together that would rival the expected 10,000-person crowd that Bush was expected to draw at the Pensacola Civic Center.
The White House already had distributed schedules saying Crist would introduce Bush at the rally.
The good news is that brother Jeb! will fill in for Crist along with the one candidate in Florida whose election prospects can't be hurt by being seen with the president:
Jeb Bush will attend the Pensacola event in Crist's place. Rep. Katherine Harris, who is mounting a lukewarm challenge to Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, will also be with the president.
"Lukewarm" That's one way of describing her candidacy. "Rigor mortis" and "advanced stage of decomposition" also leap to mind as this video shows.
Part of the trend shown in the Pew and ABC/Post polls may simply be "natural tightening" -- as Republicans and Republicans-who-call-themselves-independents come home to their party. But what needs to be kept in mind is that at this late stage the remaining independent undecided or soft leaners generally constitute the least informed, least involved and, in many cases, least intelligent segment of the electorate. Or, to be perfectly blunt about it: Many of them are completely fucking clueless, which means they tend to be the most easily manipulated by the kind of limbic, cesspool politics the Rovian machine now specializes in.
I think all reasonable people can agree with that...
Caucus of Corruption by Matt Margolis and Mark Noonan is the first book to specifically discuss the hypocrisy and corruption of today's Democratic Party. The book not only exposes the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party's ongoing plan to regain power by portraying the Republicans as corrupt, it also details the rampant corruption deep in the Democrat's ranks.
Caucus of Corruption provides readers with concrete evidence of the hypocrisy within the Democratic Party and tells the story of a Democratic Party that plans to employ a phony ethics war to regain power.
In Caucus of Corruption, you will learn about
* Nancy Pelosi’s penchant for cronyism, * Harry Reid’s connections to Jack Abramoff, * Rahm Emanuel’s love for dirty money. * Chuck Schumer’s clashes with campaign finance laws.
and much, much, more!
* Who in the Democratic Party is connected to embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff? * How many have run afoul of campaign finance laws? * Who are taking free trips, accepting bribes and lobbyist cash?
It’s all in Caucus of Corruption!
And if you're going to talk about Abramoff and free trips and bribes and lobbyist cash, who better to get for your first book endorsement than... Tom DeLay.
I'm excited to report that Caucus of Corruption has received its first endorsement! Our first endorsement comes from Rep. Tom DeLay, a great man and politician who found himself the number one target of Democrats in their phony ethics war.
We are pleased to present to you a portion of DeLay's endorsement.
"...Margolis and Noonan have cut through the smoke and mirrors to reveal what the liberals are really hiding - their complete lack of leadership and refusal to stand up for the values-based agenda most Americans are demanding. This book is a must read for all Americans looking for the unreported motivations behind the Left's political scene."
The true story has always been there, and we're pleased that we're able to tell it. Matt and I wish to thank Tom DeLay not only for his endorsement, but also for his service to our nation.
Matt and Mark have yet to hear from "Duke" Cunningham and Bob Ney's hairpiece...
Recriminations are best served after the guests have gone
Special Ed complains because the neocon cut-n-runners who shot their big mouths off to Vanity Fair were promised that their confessions would be withheld until after the election.
And somehow, this:
Richard Perle: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I'm getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war. I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nobody said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I had no responsibility for that."
...was taken out of context.
Presumably Perle added, "No. I'm kidding. I'm a big kidder. I joke. C'mon... pull my finger."
I guess keeping the lie alive about Iraq could have waited a few more days.
Meanwhile Dick Cheney doesn't appear to like being questioned by a smurf.
The people of Iraq deserve a fully functioning democracy with a legal system that is the envy of the world, but not until after the take Saddam out in the alley and shoot him in the back of the head.
Meanwhile Paul Mirengoff catches those insidious bastards at The Washington Post providing ad-space on the editorial page to Ben Cardin:
You can tell that Michael Steele has a shot in Maryland because the Washington Post has produced an election eve editorial attacking him. The Post claims that Steele, not long-time Congressman Ben Cardin, is "the real candidate of the Washington establishment."
How dare the Washington Post endorse a candidate right before the election! When exactly did newspapers start doing stuff like this?
Just days from the midterm elections, the final round of MSNBC/McClatchy polls shows a tightening race to the finish in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate. Democrats are leading in several races that could result in party pickups, but Republicans have narrowed the gap in other close races, according to Mason-Dixon polls in 12 states.
...only to smack him across the nose with a rolled-up polling report:
In Pennsylvania, incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Santorum is still well behind his Democratic challenger Bob Casey, with Casey currently ahead by 13 percentage points, 52 percent to 39 percent, with 7 percent undecided. In an MSNBC/McClatchy poll conducted two weeks ago, Casey was up by 12 percentage points.
Ricky hasn't been this crestfallen since his wife told him that he couldn't have that doggie in the window...
Pup Tent Confessions Austin Bay debates going back in time and fragging John Kerry
Usually when we get these self-confirming apocryphal stories they happen in taxi cabs with drivers who are all too willing to indulge their passengers worldview if it will get them a bigger tip, but storyteller Austin Bay whips up a whopper over scotch in canteen cups ("there is no more pleasureable a vessel for imbibing booze") with all the seen-it-all war weariness that he can muster:
I’ll add a personal story. In 1999 I briefly served as deputy commander of a Hurricane Mitch recovery operation headquartered in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. An earthquake (6.6 magnitude) struck the region and damaged our barracks area as well as several of the dikes our engineers had erected along the Motagua River. We had to evacuate our barracks, in the midst of heavy rains spawned by a tropical depression. The day after the quake I flew to the US air base at Soto Cano, Honduras, to meet with our regional commander. After I met with the brigadier general in command I: (1) washed and dried two sets of BDUs and (2) bought a bottle of Chivas at the PX. The next morning I caught a plane flight back to Guatemala, and transfered to a helicopter to fly back to our base.
That night I took the still-boxed Chivas to one of the troops –a tired, exhausted fellow who had earned a gift so precious. He shook his head when I passed him the scotch. I told him, “You’ve earned it.” He looked at his watch, observed we were ten minutes from midnight, and said “You and I are now off duty.” I sipped a thumbs worth of scotch in my canteen cup (there is no more pleasureable a vessel for imbibing booze).
We chatted for about twenty minutes, about my trip to Soto Cano, about the task force’s new job (earthquake relief), about the lousy weather, about how tired we were. The discussion of weariness led the conversation to our advanced age and years of service, which in part explained the conversation’s next turn. My friend asked, with a glint in his eye: ”You remember what John Kerry said about those of us who served in Vietnam?”
I nodded.
“I was in Vietnam in 1971,” my buddy continued. “I didn’t commit any war crimes and I didn’t see any. Kerry said we were committing war crimes everywhere all the time.”
Remember, readers, this is 1999. We’re in a creaky barrack, wearing t-shirts, BDU trousers, and boots. Earthquake aftershocks occasionally boom –and the booms sound and feel like heavy artillery. And he mentions John Kerry.
“I despise the man,” my friend said. “He lied and benefited politically from his lies….He lied about me.”
I simply listened — that’s what you do in a moment like this. I remember noticing I still had scotch in my cup. He had barely touched his drink. He took a long sip, put his cup down. Plop. Period. End of moment.
The man had served honorably in Vietnam. He had served nobly (another word those of the noblisse oblige set have trouble with). Twenty-eight years later this admirable American soldier was still pulling duty, this time on a humanitarian mission in another jungle. For some hard cases it may seem odd that in a midnight moment of reflection John Kerry’s ugly Winter Soldier spiel would intrude. But Kerry’s trash talk had tarnished the man’s honor — and that sense of deep insult and betrayal had lit a long, slow fuze(sic) of righteous anger.
Uh-huh. Yeah. They talked about John Kerry. His name came up. Just like that
Then this manly man's man told Austin:
"By Grabthar's Hammer I hope that John Kerry will never be president, particularly if this great country of ours is attacked by Islamojihadists, possibly using airplanes in a coordinated attack a mere two years hence...give or take. No, by God, I want to be led by someone who kept the gooks out of South Texas during those last dark days of the Vietnam war when our hands were tied by the media and we were...this ...close to winning."
Then he stared into his empty cup and I thought I saw a tear start to form, but no, he looked up at me with eyes like a tiger, a wounded but proud tiger, a tiger who had seen too much and fought so bravely. And then he raised one leg and let loose with a high piercing trumpet blast of MRE-induced gas. To my ears it sounded like reveille; a call to arms. Suddenly I felt my own eyes start to tear up.
I'll be the first to admit that my gaydar isn't quite what you would call world-class, so I have some sympathy for Ted Haggard's parishioners for not recognizing the tell-tale signs (the coy sideways glance, "Jesus is fabulous", the Sunday after-services Douglas Sirk Film Festivals). It's hard enough listening to the voice of God in your head while at the same time concentrating on what is happening right in front of your face...or in a cheap Denver motel room, as the case may be. Therefore, I have a confession to make:
I didn't sense teh gay in Doogie Howser M.D. I detected nary a homo-vibe when I saw him in Rent at the La Jolla Playhouse (then again, I may have been unable to pick it up with high frequency Wilson Cruz providing rattle and hum). But, gay? No way. I mean, check out this scene:
Acting? Brilliant! Tom Cruise couldn't have done it better.
Mike Gallagher is right, the Republicans have it all over us:
Like it or not, political parties are defined by their most prominent members. We Republicans have had our share of headaches and embarrassments. Neither party is without its gaffes.
But at the end of the day, I’ll put the prominent Republican leaders up against the Democrats of 2006 any time. And we’ll all be able to agree that there is a world of difference between the two.
Just consider the people who help to make up the heart and soul of the Democratic Party: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Michael Moore, Keith Olbermann, Alcee Hastings, Marion Berry, Rosie O’Donnell, Barbara Boxer, and Barbra Streisand.
Compare that list to some of the more notable Republicans: George W. Bush, Denny Hastert, Bill Frist, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, Rudy Guiliani, George Allen, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Dick Cheney, John Cornyn, and just about every country music singer in America.
C’mon, it’s not even a close call.
Oddly left off of the list: Tom DeLay, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, Bob Ney, Donald Rumsfeld, Claude Allen, Mark Foley, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Don Sherwood, Katherine Harris, and Scooter Libby. But then having George W. Bush on your team is burden enough...
This was a week of down-n-dirty politicking and hypocrisy-mocking, so we could use a little rinse and cleansing. This is Rakim from Dead Can Dance and because it will come up, the instrument that Lisa Gerrard is playing is a yangqin, which is a Chinese hammered dulcimer. There is a wondeful DCD boxset (1981-1998) which contains three CD's and the concert DVD Toward the Within which is the source of the following clip:
ANOTHER EVANGELIST SEX SCANDAL: I don't think I'd ever even heard of this Haggard guy, but you'd think the picture would be enough to tip people off about the gay part. . . .
Wow. Then he oughta check out that guy on the Supreme Court
The third-tier talk show host strapped on his kevlar helmet and bravely reported from the front lines of the terror war while interviewing Michael Ware, a Time Baghdad correspondent:
MW: Let's look at it this way. I mean, you're sitting back in a comfortable radio studio, far from the realities of this war.
HH: Actually, Michael, let me interrupt you.
MW: If anyone has a right...
HH: Michael, one second.
MW: If anyone has a right to complain, that's what...
HH: I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.
I am in awe of Mr. Hewitt's bravery. And just a few days ago, we hear, Hugh actually got on a PATH train that went RIGHT THROUGH Ground Zero. Somehow, some way, he survived.
Pre-Friday Random Ten It's up in the morning and on the downs Little white clouds like gambolling lambs And I am breathless over you
Rise Up With Fists - Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye The Lady Caliph - Yo-Yo Ma Strange Desire - The Black Keys Hips Don't Lie - Shakira (shut up...she is the Goddess of Ass) Breathless - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds Frog and Toad - The Bad Plus See A Little Light - Bob Mould Love Is Blindness - Cassandra Wilson Devil May Care - Diana Krall (Live in Paris)
Bonus #11: Alison - Slowdive.
By the way, after only hearing fifteen seconds of it, my selection for what will probably be the worst song released this year has to go to Rod Stewart (who has been crapping out those Great American Songbook CD's about every five weeks) for his cover of the Eagles The Best of My Love. I would have given him a pass if he had covered the Emotions Best of My Love; that would have at least been interesting, but noooo, he covers the Eagles. Rod can take solace in the fact that Josh Fucking Groban has a CD coming out next week so hope springs eternal that it will contain something even more crapulent.
George Allen (who has even less chance than John Kerry of ever becoming president) is running out of money:
Democrats detect a pattern in Sen. George Allen's campaign advertising schedule which suggests to them the incumbent is running out of money and is relying on an infusion from nat'l Republicans to reach parity with challenger James Webb. In turn, Allen's campaign accuses Democrats and Webb's campaign of fabricating the charge to dispirit conservatives and to fool the media into concluding that Allen is headed for defeat.
An independent review found that Allen has outspent Webb by $500K over the past five days. But Republicans said the NRSC had purchased additional airtime in the state today because the Allen campaign could not afford to pay on its own for an ad buy of adequate size. A Republican official said the NRSC "did not expect to be buying time in Virginia this late."
According to figures provided by two Democratic sources, one who has access to the Webb campaign's internal traffic reports and another who monitors ad buys statewide, Webb's campaign has purchased three times as many television and radio ads in Washington, D.C. for the next -- and final -- five days of the campaign.
Chris LaCivita, Allen's senior strategist, vigorously disputed those numbers and called their distribution a plot by Webb's campaign to demoralize Republicans.
Not that Allen hasn't done everything in his power to demoralize Republicans when he started calling out colored people. If you're in Virginia this weekend and see a garage sale with lots of cowboy boots, high thread-count sheets, and nooses hanging from trees; bargain hard. It's a buyers market.
A gay man and admitted male escort claims he has had an ongoing sexual relationship with a well-known Evangelical pastor from Colorado Springs.
Mike Jones told '9 Wants to Know' Investigative Reporter Paula Woodward he has had a "sexual business" relationship with Pastor Ted Haggard for the past three years.
Haggard is the founder and senior leader of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The church has 14,000 members.
He is also president of the National Association of Evangelicals, an organization that represents millions of people.
Haggard is married with five children and an outspoken critic of gay marriage....
Jones started talking to 9 Wants to Know two months ago. He claims Haggard has been paying him for sex over the past three years, even though Haggard preaches that homosexuality is a sin.
Jones also claims Haggard used methamphetamine in his presence on several occasions....
Hmmmm. I seem to remember someone talking about Pastors, their lifestyles and hookers somewhere...
After watching Mark Halperin play "Thank you sir, may I have another?" with Hugh Hewitt (honestly, if it were any worse it would have been hosted on hothalperinbukkake.com), it comes as no surprise that the powers that quiver at CBS have decided to put all of that silly Dan Rathergate stuff behind them and let bygones be bygones: To the victors go the advertising dollars
Limp Blimp Pimps Chimp Later Rusty stole the boys crutches and traded them for drugs
I didn't listen to George Bush's interview with Rush Limbaugh today. I didn't even bother to go read the transcript. I mean, why bother? Outside of the off chance that Dim Son might garble a talking point, why bother? What is there to learn? Limbaugh lobs a few softball questions to George Bush ( the kind of questions that would make Jeff Gannon blush) and the mental defectives, chronically unemployable, and social maladroits who make up Rush's couch-bound audience make a note to vote "real hard" for George Bush next Tuesday.
Expect long lines at the polling booths. Slow children ahead.
We'd like to buy some more body armor but we blew our budget on casket flags
We take time out from discussing flubbed jokes to remind everyomne about the flubbed war:
The U.S. Air Force is asking the Pentagon's leadership for a staggering $50 billion in emergency funding for fiscal 2007 -- an amount equal to nearly half its annual budget, defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said on Tuesday.
The request is expected to draw criticism on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are increasingly worried about the huge sums being sought "off budget" to fund wars, escaping the more rigorous congressional oversight of regular budgets.
Another source familiar with the Air Force plans said the extra funds would help pay to transport growing numbers of U.S. soldiers being killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Thompson, who has close ties to U.S. military officials, said the big funding request was fueled by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. England told the services in a October 25 memo to include the "longer war on terror," not just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in their emergency requests.
"This amount of money is so much bigger than the Air Force would normally request ... it hints at a basic breakdown in the process for planning and funding war costs," said Thompson.
Hey look! Over there! John Kerry goofed up a knock-knock joke. Attack! Attack!
