Dana feels really really really bad about this. Just awful
Dana Perino hasn't got time for the Helen Thomas or the pain:
Q Why should we depend on him?
MS. PERINO: Because he is the commander on the ground, Helen. He's the one who is making sure that the situation is moving —
Q You mean how many more people we kill?
MS. PERINO: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements. This is a — it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.
Q Do you know how many we have since the start of this war?
MS. PERINO: How many — we are going after the enemy, Helen. To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.
Q Oh, regret. It doesn't bring back a life.
MS. PERINO: Helen, we are in a war zone, and our military works extremely hard to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for liberty and freedom and democracy, and that is exactly what they are doing.
The little yappy type dogs that make up the righty-kennel start howling in unison and that can only mean that Howie Kurtz perks up his ears:
Conservative bloggers, some of whom deride CNN as the "Clinton News Network," ripped the network yesterday. At InstaPundit, Glenn Reynolds wrote: "Once again, CNN demonstrates an inexplicable failure to background-check pro-Hillary questioners." Scott Johnson of PowerLine wrote that "CNN has shown itself unable or unwilling to act as an honest broker."
James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, said: "If lone bloggers can vet these people in less than half an hour, surely CNN's crack journalistic team should have been able to do so between the time they selected the pool of questions and the airing of the debate?"
Bohrman said he had no problem using questioners who have voiced support for other candidates as long as they are not donors or formally affiliated with any campaign. "We bent over backwards to be fair," he said. "We're not perfect. But we tried extremely hard."
The concerted effort to draw attention from the candidates actual answers, which revealed that the pretty much all of the Republican candidates are pandering death-obsessed wackaloons, seems to have worked. Kurtz wisely stays away from the putative adults at Red State who issued a fatwa (signed by both the "Directors" and the contributors. You can tell which ones are the "Directors" because they're the ones wearing the Burger King crowns with BK crossed out and RS4EVAH added) demanding a "do over". Unfortunately the RSers are unaware that the candiates signed an agreement with CNN at a sleepover the night before that explicitly stated at the end "..tap tap, no erasies." and then they all pinky swore to be BFF's. Tough bit of luck, that. Of course, Red State complaining about journalistic standards while Ben "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning he realized that all happy families are alike and that all children, except one, grow up..." Domenech wears a Director's crown heavy on his head is a story in itself.
We're on our way out to go see Aimee Mann's 2nd Annual Christmas Show at the Belly Up, and because I think that Ms. Mann is probably the best female songwriter working these days (and this isn't to say that Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Tori Amos, and others aren't working these days. Just not at the same level) I thought this week I would just list my top ten favorite Aimee Mann songs because it's my blog and if I want to devote it to, say, My Top Ten Favorite Ways That I Would Like To See James Blunt Die list (#1 - In a head-on collision with a car driven by Scott Stapp...who would also die. Only more slowly.), well, I could do that too because that's how freedom rolls.
Anyway, in no particular order other than the first one:
Invisible Ink 4th Of July Mr. Harris Wise Up You're With Stupid Now That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart This Is How It Goes Save Me Red Vines How Am I Different
Some videos, most not made by her. Yes, I've run the one from House before.
As shown by the post below, Citizen Journalism must die. Because, after all, what are the YouTube debates other than a chance for the average American to ask the questions (that Joe Klein doesn't have time for) , in order to get answers (that Joe Klein wouldn't understand). Unfortunately we run the risk of someone possibly asking a candidate a question that might put him (or her) on the spot and force him (or her) to have to think on their (or her) feet. Surely this is not a talent that we want in the Future Leader of the Free World (or That Uppity Lesbian Bitch). Therefore we should go back to our old pre-internets ways and let the professionals ask the questions.
Okay. Maybe that's a bad example. But you get the idea.
I've only had about three and a half hours of sleep in the past thirty six (don't ask) so I'm not up to teh blogging tonight, but here's a capsule review of the Great YouTube Debate tonight that is amusing in itself, more so considering the source:
So, a good night for for the lowest denominator, a bad night for the GOP. America got to see a vaguely threatening parade of gun fetishists, flat worlders, Mars Explorers, Confederate flag lovers and zombie-eyed-Bible-wavers as well as various one issue activists hammering their pet causes. My cheers went to a listless Fred Thompson who easily qualified himself to be president in my book by looking all night like he would cheerfully trade his left arm for an early exit off the stage to a waiting Scotch and good Cuban cigar. The media will probably award a win to Mike Huckabee, the easy listening music candidate at home in any crowd, fluent in simpleton speak and the one man on the stage tonight who led the audience to roaring cheers by boasting that he had a special qualification to be president that none of the second-raters on the stage could match: A degree in Bible Studies from Ouachita Baptist University of Arkadelphia, Arkansas.
..and now for something completely different and to help you sleep;
At an availability with reporters here, Romney answered questions about today's report suggesting that he would not appoint Muslims to his Cabinet. "No, that's not what I said. His question was, Did I need to have a Muslim in my Cabinet in order to confront radical jihad, or would it be important to have a Muslim in my Cabinet?' And I said no, I don't think you need a Muslim in the Cabinet to take on radical jihad any more than we needed a Japanese American to understand the threat that was coming from Japan or something of that nature."
Romney continued, "It's something I rejected, number one. And number two, point out that haven't given a lot of thought to the people I would have in my Cabinet....
Stop right there. Does anyone believe that Mitt, who has been running for President for almost two years, hasn't given a "lot of thought" to who would be in his cabinet? Mitt could probably tell you which tie he's going to be wearing next Monday. He's not exactly Mr. Shoot From The Hip.
Given these known unknowns, all of them critical to understanding the conversation, it is simply impossible to form any rational conclusion about what Mitt Romney said. Any "conclusion" drawn is in reality merely projection, based upon the concluder's own feelings in the matter.
So let's all stop trying to read the Romney tea leaves; there is no "there" there.
The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.
Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.
At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.
Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.
Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In an interview, the 49-year-old former labor-law litigator from Lawrence, Kan., confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer.
[...]
Mr. Bloch had his computer's hard disk completely cleansed using a "seven-level" wipe: a thorough scrubbing that conforms to Defense Department data-security standards. The process makes it nearly impossible for forensics experts to restore the data later. He also directed Geeks on Call to erase laptop computers that had been used by his two top political deputies, who had recently left the agency.
Geeks on Call visited Mr. Bloch's government office in a nondescript office building on M Street in Washington twice, on Dec. 18 and Dec. 21, 2006, according to a receipt reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The total charge was $1,149, paid with an agency credit card, the receipt shows. The receipt says a seven-level wipe was performed but doesn't mention any computer virus.
Jeff Phelps, who runs Washington's Geeks on Call franchise, declined to talk about specific clients, but said calls placed directly by government officials are unusual. He also said erasing a drive is an unusual virus treatment. "We don't do a seven-level wipe for a virus," he said.
Let's be generous and assume downloaded pictures of administration officials and goats in flagrante delicto.
As Ken Shepherd of this site has pointed out before, if the military falls short of its recruiting goals the MSM trumpet it and frame it as a result of an unpopular war. So how will the media spin this? How will they react to the news that all military components meet and/or exceed their recruiting goals?
The first month of fiscal 2008 was a success for all active and reserve military components.
In a meeting with Pentagon reporters today, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said all components met or exceeded their recruiting goals for October.
On the active-duty side, the Army made 101 percent of its goal of 4,500, with 4,564 recruits. The Navy made 100 percent of its goal of 2,788 recruits. The Marine Corps made 102 percent of its goal of 2,720, with 2,788 enlisting. The Air Force made 100 percent of its goal of 2,656.
Two weeks ago, the Pentagon announced the "good news" that the army had met its recruiting goal for October, the first month in a five-year plan to add 65,000 new soldiers to the ranks by 2012.
But Pentagon statistics show the army met that goal by accepting a higher percentage of enlistees with criminal records, drug or alcohol problems, or health conditions that would have ordinarily disqualified them from service.
In each fiscal year since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, statistics show, the army has accepted a growing percentage of recruits who do not meet its own minimum fitness standards. The October statistics show that at least 1 of every 5 recruits required a waiver to join the service, leading military analysts to conclude that the army is lowering standards more than it has in decades.
"The across-the-board lowering of the standards is buying problems in the future," said John Hutson, a retired rear admiral, dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire, and a former judge advocate general of the navy. "You are going to have more people getting in trouble, more people washing out" before finishing their tour of duty.
How many times a day do the guys at Newsbusters smack themselves in the forehead and go "D'oh!"?
Father forgive us for what we must do You forgive us we'll forgive you We'll forgive each other till we both turn blue Then we'll whistle and go fishing in heaven. - John Prine
Except for the occasional post, I don't really walk the Joke Line beat. God knows he has enough people sniggering at his complete inability to do more than indulge in Cocktail Weenie Reporting where he breathlessly and credulously takes notes over drinks, mashes them up with the conventional wisdom and hits 'send'. Let's face it: if want journalism go see Seymour Hersh. If you want to know about the crab puffs, talk to Klein.
Having said that, I find this particularly hilarious:
I’ve spent all morning on the phone trying to figure out who the editor at Time Magazine was on Joe Klein’s FISA column (the one Klein has now written about five times, fully admitting he never read the original bill). I finally confirmed that the editor was Priscilla Painton, and called her and identified myself. I asked her what the editing process was, and how a piece with so many errors made it into print.
“That assumes that there are errors,” she said. And hung up on me.
I don't know if Priscilla is embarrassed because she has been assigned Klein or because she's the one who is going to have to explain to someone that fact-checking isn't part of her job description. And it's a pity because she always had such high ideals before:
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: "Time" Magazine has just unveiled its person of the year.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
O'BRIEN: And the drumroll has already happened.
WHITFIELD: That's right. And this year, it's not one, but as Miles alluded to earlier, it's more than one. It's three. Three people get the honor and they're all women.
O'BRIEN: Dark horse candidates. These are the people who took personal and professional risks to blow the whistle in their various realms. Cynthia Cooper, Sherron Watkins and Coleen Rowley were catapulted into the national spotlight after reporting what went wrong at WorldCom, Enron and the FBI, respectively.
WHITFIELD: And now they're being honored for doing the right thing.
O'BRIEN: Good choices, guys. I like it.
WHITFIELD: Yes, that's certainly making a statement.
O'BRIEN: Yes.
WHITFIELD: As is the pose on the cover. So joining us to talk more about this year's People of the Year for "Time" magazine, from New York we have Priscilla Painton, executive editor of "Time" magazine.
Good to see you, Priscilla.
PRISCILLA PAINTON, EXEC. EDITOR, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Good to see you.
WHITFIELD: All right, was this an easy choice for your committee to make or was there quite a field of candidates?
PAINTON: Oh, I think there was quite a field of candidates. I mean, of course, you have to consider of the United States and we did. And we especially talked about the importance of his partnership with the vice president. You have to consider, you know, the generic category of the terrorists, you know, which had a huge effect on the news this year. But what we saw in these three women was ordinary people from the heartland doing an extraordinary thing, which is telling the truth, and telling the truth because they believed that telling the truth would improve change and redeem the institutions they love so much.
Apparently the FBI, WorldCom, and Enron still have a shot at redemption.
The Missionary PositionPresident Mitt Romney finds suitable positions for the wogs
It seems that our man Mitt! thinks it's okay for Muslims to be a part of his administration... just as long as they don't mind sitting in the back of the MittMobile:
I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."
Well my goodness this does seem to open up a big ol' can of religious bigotry worms. Why it seems like only yesterday....
In the course of reporting on the Mormon faith for PBS in the mid-1990s, I heard many denunciations of the theology of Mormons from non-Mormons, but never the idea that their religious beliefs rendered them second-class Americans who ought not be trusted with high office. I have heard thousands of complaints from conservatives about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his politics, but none of them attack the man because he is Mormon. And in the year of research and interviews that went into my forthcoming book on Mitt Romney, when someone got close to the line that Weisberg so bluntly decided to cross, they stopped, hesitated, and evidence the reluctance to declaim the sort of denunciation of a faith that was long the domain of nativists and racists. But now that Romney appears the most conservative Republican in serious contention for the White House, it is open season on Mormons.
In mid-November I addressed a session of the Evangelical Theological Society, an organization of more than 4,000 evangelical scholars. I used the time to warn the theologians that the secular press would soon be approaching them to harvest anti-Mormon quotes for use in profiles of Mitt Romney, and to recognize that to the extent they cooperated in the project to chase Mormons from the public square, and to legitimize the sort of private religious test the public counterpart to which is specifically forbidden by the Constitution, they would be building their own pyre.
Weisberg’s attack on Romney is exactly the sort of attack on other Christians and believers in the miraculous that the secular left would love to make routine. To mainstream Protestants and Mass-attending Catholics, the virtual mob against Romney because of his LDS faith may seem like someone else’s problem, but it is really another step down the road toward the naked public square. Legitimizing bigotry by refusing to condemn it invites not only its repetition, but its spread to new targets.
Do tell...
Now, to be fair, Mitt did say that Muslims could work at the lower levels of his administration (the proverbial camel with its nose in the tent), so while Romney gets important advice regarding the Middle East from his Foreign Policy and Trade Director Steven Schrage:
Mr. Schrage previously served as Counsel to the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate for Foreign Relations Committee and as senior foreign policy and trade counsel for the late Senator Paul Coverdell. Most recently, Mr. Schrage served in several positions with Bush-Cheney 2000, working with the campaign's policy team in Austin, and as a policy advisor for the transition. Before joining the Bush campaign, Mr. Schrage was working on his doctorate at Harvard University, where during his time in the MBA program he was awarded a full doctoral fellowship to study international business and economic policy. Mr. Schrage is a graduate of Duke University and of the University of Michigan Law School, where his studies focused on international trade law, and has experience working on international negotiating teams at the State Department Legal Adviser's office. Mr. Schrage will be responsible for coordinating and overseeing all policy materials and briefings for the USTR and for interactions with other government agencies.
Current Ambassador to the UN and former Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad can still find work in the Romney administration.
For those keeping track at home, Sam the scoliotic female from the execrable Day By Day cartoon strip gave birth to twins and she's been breastfeeding them...for three days running.
Dr. Melissa, Chiropractic Psychologist explains it all to youThe Bad Idea Bears: "Let's get drunk on patriotism and invade Iraq! Yay!"
When we last checked in with Dr. Melissa, she was explaining the dangers that still awaited us because Bill Clinton was once (okay, probably more than once) on the receiving end of a blow job and, given how fastidious Dr. Melissa is about teh hygiene one can only imagine her sense of horror and insatiable desire for Altoids.
Today, she explains that the world is going to hell in a wastebasket because Hollyweirdos are licking doorknobs or something like that:
It might also be a good time to discuss how disease and stupid ideas are spread because they happen the same way. A way to raise brand awareness is called "viral marketing". Good ideas can spread especially on the web where word-of-mouth is everything. Viral marketing assumes that "influencers" will pass along the idea. And they do, in a limited way (we bloggers like to think in a big way). But what causes more extensive spreading? Big groups of people who don't use personal hygiene:
[...]
So people, say the Hollywood elite, never wash their ideological hands. They swarm in like-minded groups and whatever disease that's going around--9/11 was inside job, soldiers are rapists, global warming will kill us all, etc.--gets spread to everyone. That's how three stupid anti-war movies can come out and make nary a penny. A mental-disease spread.
It is also how a big groups of people can cling to ridiculous ideas. The public has been stressed for some time now. They are disillusioned by the press and the government, and their trust in our leaders like the President, is hammered away at non-stop. The press gives the government almost super-natural power and the populace believes it. This fragile ecosystem is ripe for exploitation. All sorts of ideas fall in when rational thought is pushed out.
Thus, a poll revealing the majority of the U.S. believes a 9/11 conspiracy. It's insane. It's unfathomable, but I know far too many people who believe these theories. They look normal yet they carry a pernicious disease and spread it, mostly because they don't have the critical thinking foundation necessary to navigate this post-modern world.
Yes, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad world that believes that there are people in our government who might have had some inkling that there was a possibility of an attack in the US, and yet, her theory has a slight flaw in it.
Hollywood is against the war.
Hollywood makes disparaging movies about the war.
But before the movies came out people had already turned against the war.
Nobody goes to see the aforementioned movies to learn that the war that they don't like is bad.
Therefore the public is infecting Hollywood and rational thought is pushed out
I mentioned this last year and I'll repeat it again:
Every year after the Black Friday shopping blitz, the media turns to retail analysts who are generally pleased and optimistic because of an increase in same store sales over the previous year. What they never seem to factor in is the amount of product that was sold at low margin, cost, or below cost. Unless someone like Wal-Mart forces a manufacturer to sell them a product at deep discount (and they do force manufacturers to do a lot of things that are not profitable in order to keep the business) to use as a promotional item which in turn drives sales, they're not really making any money. They're just bumping their cash flow and running in place.
Add to that the increased costs of doing business and the value of the crappy dollar (with so many products that are imported pushing up the cost of goods) and they may very well be running at a loss. What the retailers and the retail analyst experts who haunt the airwaves after Black Friday are actually selling is the happy horseshit that all is well and you should spend spend spend just like the Joneses are supposedly spending spending spending.
One more thing: the prevalence of gift cards skews the reporting of sales when a retailer takes in x amount of dollars for the card, but then it is generally used in the days after Christmas on product that has been slashed for post-Christmas sales as retailers attempt to get in as much cash as possible while decreasing inventory levels (unless it's wine or cheese, it's not getting any more valuable with age) before the January doldrums. Again: no margin, no profit.
As a consumer, there are lots of good deals to be had, but they're only good deals if you are buying within your means. Just don't buy the hype that everything is rainbows and ponies reindeer. This is not going to be a good retail season.
Live from the hinterlands, it's Entertainment Tonight with Hollywood Don Surber:
You had better odds of being struck by lightning than seeing this bomb.
The New York Post reported this morning that Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” is Hollywood’s latest BDS antiwar film to bomb at the box office. In fact, it was the H-bomb of this genre as it turned off more people than “Rendition,” “Lions for Lambs” or “In the Valley of Elah.”
Reported the Post, “it took in just $25,628 in its opening weekend in 15 theaters, which means roughly 3,000 people saw it in the entire country.”
3,000 people? In a nation of 300,000,000? That means 1-out-of-100,000 Americans saw this film.
99.999% didn’t.
Over your lifetime, your odds of dying after being struck by lightning are 1-in-83,930.
Okay.
Now I'm no expert in backwoods mathematical logicification but I'm having a real problem figuring out the somewhat strained connection between the number of people choosing to go to a movie (expressed as a percentage) and the odds of an involuntary random occurrence.
But never mind that because he gets a link from the Ole Perfesser who thinks it's a kneeslapper.
IS REDACTED Hollywood's biggest bomb ever? It makes Heaven's Gate look like a hit.
Well it's no Zyzzyx Road, but a box office bomb is usually defined a film that fails to recoup its production and marketing costs by a substantial margin. For example Evan Almighty with a budget of $175 million lost approximately $89 million (because people hate God) and Windtalkers ($115 budget) lost approximately $76 million (because people hate American soldiers/native American soldiers/Nicholas Cage/ all of the above) and The Alamo ($92 million) lost $80 million (because Americans hate Mexicans who beat Americans). Since Redacted came in at slightly under $5 million budget-wise...uh, no, it's not going to be the biggest bomb ever, no matter how much the yokels want to hee-haw it up and attempt to read the cultural tea leaves.
The Embryonic Man"Hi. My name is Steve. I'd shake your hand except I'm not planning on developing any rudimentary limbs until next month. So.... How about them Mets?"
Box Turtle Ben has given us much joy through the years; much of it unintentional, the rest copied from other people. This week he comes up with something truly Domenechesque:
The issue at hand was taxpayer funding of said research – and just as the GOP does not believe in taxpayer funding for the destruction of unborn people, we should not embrace taxpayer funding for the destruction of embryonic people.
I remember a time when they called them the "unborn" or "embryos" or "Kathryn Jean Lopez Jr." but I don't believe that I have ever heard them referred to as "embryonic people", which is vaguely creepy like Tribe Zygote or maybe the pre-Children of the Corn.
There is something off-putting about John Edwards that Mark Steyn can't seem to put his finger on:
Over on the Democratic side, meanwhile, they've got a woman, a black, a Hispanic, a preening metrosexual with an angled nape – and they all think exactly the same. They remind me of "The Johnny Mathis Christmas Album," which Columbia used to re-release every year in a different sleeve: same old songs, new cover. When your ideas are identical, there's not a lot to argue about except biography. Last week, asked about his experience in foreign relations, Barack Obama noted that his father was Kenyan, and he'd been at grade school in Indonesia. "Probably the strongest experience I have in foreign relations," he said, "is the fact I spent four years overseas when I was a child in Southeast Asia." When it comes to foreign relations, he has more of them on his Christmas card list than Hillary or Haircut Boy.
John Edwards
Mark Steyn
John Edwards has very nice hair. Mark Steyn has...well, let's just admit that most of us have hair like Mark Steyn.
The Pope is considering a dramatic overhaul of the Vatican in order to force a return to traditional sacred music.
After reintroducing the Latin Tridentine Mass, the Pope wants to widen the use of Gregorian chant and baroque sacred music.
In an address to the bishops and priests of St Peter's Basilica, he said that there needed to be "continuity with tradition" in their prayers and music.
Damn. And I had just started enjoying Vespers again...
Want a project for the holidays? Check this out: Arianna Huffington is calling on her minions to design posters that capture their BDS spirit. It’s “A HuffPost Project: Posterizing the Modern GOP.” She hooked up with one Rich Silverstein, the guy who created the “Got Milk?” ad campaign, and came up with three posters “that simply but graphically capture the lunacy of the modern GOP.”
Personally I would have gone with this
But that's just me.
Back to Michelle:
So, now it’s your turn. “Posterize the Modern Democrat Party.” Send in your entries, feel free to improve upon the HuffPuffers’ bland design, and I’ll post the best ones.
The winner will get a signed copy of “Unhinged.”
Personally I'm glad to see that Michelle is outsourcing the photoshopping (and I hope she'll be asking for proof of citizenship from the eventual winner, not that Unhinged has been translated into spanish or anything) because, much like her research skills and her leaping ability, her photoshopping skillz need work:
Thursday Basset Blogging - No Harnesses/Commando Style
It was bath day which means uncontrolled rolling on the carpet and idiotic running up and down the stairs while barking by Beckham: Until he exhausts himself after about two minutes Satchmo finds it all rather boring Actually Satchmo finds everything boring unless it involves food or going outside to poop. When I am old I shall be like him.
Thanksgiving or the nearest thing to it.Some people just aren't cut out for the holidays
I guess this would be the obligatory Thanksgiving holiday post. Here goes...
This is the first one of those "family-get-together" type holidays where we actually have a member of the immediate family coming home to celebrate... well, whatever it is that we celebrate at Thanksgiving. The lovely and talented Casey arrived home from Hawaii this evening and we had the opportunity to take part in the airport crush that, in previous years, we used to watch on TV and revel in our good fortune that we weren't one of those poor saps. Not so this year.
We're glad to have her home, if only for three days, and we've already caught up on the little changes: her bedroom that is now designated the "spare bedroom", her new tattoo (which she got a few weeks ago when the lovely and also-now-tattooed mrs tbogg was visiting her. More on that some other time. I promise.), her industrial (since the nose piercing, all new additions are limited to the general ear area), and, oh yes, the moped that we will be shopping for when we do this coming home again thing at Christmas. Yes. they do grow up so fast. Argh.
Since we have no wingnutty relatives, I have no advice for those who need a snappy comeback should politics erupt over dinner. Maybe a smirk and a simple "Yeah. That's going well" will get you through until pie-time when peace once again settles uneasily across the land. About the pie and the turkey and the stuffing and those other things; we're having none of it this year, having chosen to gather the family around a timpano, and so we will give thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for our noodley bounty. We're just more Sacco & Vanzetti than Plymouth Rock, what can I say. Afterwards.. crème brûlée because it is French. We may even call it Freedom Brûlée.
As far as giving thanks, I personally want to thank each and every one of you (except for John Moltz who makes fun of our tacky sconces) for stopping by and letting me entertain you...or whatever it is that I do that floats your boat. Additionally I truly believe that each and every one of us should take time today to drop down on our knees and thank whatever imaginary deity we may or may not believe in that we had the good sense this year to not dress up as a spastic Catholic schoolgirl, videotape ourselves pretending to be a cheerleader, and then post it on the internets.
I mean, it's okay to do the dressing up and filming it part, but posting it for the whole world to see?
It's been over two years since George W. Bush got a heapin' helpin' of wingnut lovin':
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.
I asked the president if he found comfort in the possibility that, assuming democracy ultimately flourishes in the Middle East, history will vindicate him.
No, he said. Bush finds comfort in knowing that he didn't betray principle for popularity, that "I didn't sacrifice my soul for politics."
I think that the three of them really need to get a room.
Fox Force Five Goes To IraqI'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
Our next CEO President is the man with a plan when it comes to fixing the Mess in Potamia:
GOV. MITT ROMNEY: Well, I’m not an expert in nation-building, and I don’t think our military is either. I do recognize that we have a responsibility for this nation, and for the world for that matter, to be successful in Iraq, and what that means to me is permanently assuring that Iraq will never be a state sponsor of terror.
[...]
At the same time, I do believe in something which I described as a “special partnership force.” Let me describe what I have in mind. In nations like the Philippines, where Abu Sayyaf was increasingly successful in established a beachhead there, we put in place army special forces personnel, which worked together at the invitation of the Philippine government and military to help rid the country of Abu Sayyaf. And we not only advised on military matters, but we put in place water projects, we built bridges and so forth. We strengthened the local community such that they rejected the extreme, and ultimately Abu Sayyaf is down to a couple hundred members today.
So I have proposed that we would, in fact, create an entity, which I would call a “special partnership force,” which comprises both the expertise of our CIA operatives, as well as our special forces personnel, which could be called upon by a nation to help them reject the extreme and the violent within their midst. Now, I don’t consider that nation-building, but I do consider that smart military tactics to help a nation rid itself of al Qaeda or the like.
I realize that Mitt was gallivanting around in Paris during the Vietnam war so he may not remember that we previously employed a "special partnership force" ( and, dear Jeebus, does that brand name need a bit more focus group work) called the United States Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), Vietnam, and it seems it didn't quite pan out they way the we had hoped. C'est la guerre.
Of course guys like Mitt, who never fought in Vietnam, are always on the lookout for another chance for another generation to get the do-over they never had, because it really hurts when the vicarious thrill of victory is just beyond the reach of their well manicured hands.
Isn't it curious how the left constantly wailed about Scott McClennan(sic) allegedly lying during his press conferences, but now that he is saying something that smells like trash talk about Bush, he is suddenly a truth teller.
...and if you thought Curt couldn't be any dumber. Just wait ....3 ....2 ....1 :
UPDATE
Jeff Gannon with some interesting facts:...
Yes. Yes, I'm sure Jeff has some interesting facts.
The nature of sexual attractiveness in women is objective, immutable and incontrovertible because it is directly related to the constant and unchanging physiology of men and women. What men find attractive in women is fixed because the physiology of humanity has been relatively unchanged. In this way, the ideal form of femininity is also unchangeable and without regard for cultural context or time period. What men find attractive in women - the form of a true lady - is objectively identifiable, just as it was in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In short, femininity is sexy, and sexy is timeless and universal.
What's not sexy is feminism (not to be confused with femininity), which is directly responsible for the disappearance of our beloved dresses and the adoption of pants by the "new woman." Like all fashions, pants are symbolic of something - in this case masculinity - through their allowance of physical activity. Dresses, the antithesis of pants, symbolize femininity through grace and elegance. Men find elegance in women to be attractive, and dresses are a physical manifestation of femininity. The wearing of pants by women represents the masculinization of the fairer sex, which is not at all attractive.
Uh, Ryan? Shut up. Just, shut up.
I'll let Autumn get in the last word:
What? No obligatory reference of Deuteronomy 22:5? I'm disappointed. ;) Unbeliveable that someone would hold this viewpoint in this day and age, but more than that -- I'm amazed he expressed this thought in such a public forum.
(Added) If you go read the comments in the Daily Texan, our little Ryan shows up and makes a Dan Collins out of himself. Good fun. Good fun.
The E-Meter, The Cross, and The Plates of Nephi And then one day our Palms and Blackberries were hacked..
Gary L. Jarmin, who is a High Super Grand Fallopian Poobah in the Unification (Moonie) Cult Church gives a stern talking-to to evangelicals who don't like freakish made up pseudo-Christianish cults... like the Mormons:
Question: as regards Mitt Romney's presidential candidacy, what do some conservative evangelicals and the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, have in common? The answer is simple: religious intolerance.
Sure, this not a fair comparison since devout Christians who may have doctrinal disagreements with Mormonism are not going to start flying planes into Mr. Romney's campaign headquarters. While they certainly would not go to such extremes as the radical Islamists, polls show that many have, nonetheless, chosen to discriminate against Mr. Romney solely based upon his religious belief.
[...]
Nonetheless, some Christians in the anti-Romney camp are quite explicit that it is his Mormon faith that is the disqualifier. But it is also ironic that it was these evangelicals' forebears who, having suffered religious persecution in Europe and certain colonies, insisted that the Constitution include the clause that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States” (Article VI, sec. 3).
Interestingly, it is these same people who scream the loudest, and justifiably so, when evangelical leaders or candidates for elective office are pilloried by anti-Christian bigots in Hollywood, the media or the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, they have utterly failed to recognize that due to their own anti-Mormon bias, they are just as guilty of the sin of intolerance as those who persecute them — it's called hypocrisy.
Since Gary doesn't take a holy dump unless the Reverend Moon says "Pinch", we have to assume that the Unification Church sees much potential in this man, Mitt Romney. I mean, Mormons like lots of weddings and Moonies love mass weddings... so, well, you do the math. And given that Mitt has exhibited certain Scientological hankerings, is it possible that under the gentle but ""emotion-free crisis management" of Mitt the First we might see a mighty convergence of socially awkward soulless Caucasian drones (not to be confused with Libertarians who at least like to smoke dope) into one massive SuperCult?
Is it irresponsible to speculate? What the fuck. Why not?
Then there will come the days when, if they're not politely knocking on your front door or trying to "audit" you on a street corner, they'll just kidnap you at night and brainwash you. Preclears will be rounded up, put into camps and forced to wear magical underwear until a suitable mass marriage can be arranged. Afterward, "I Ate A Thetan" t-shirts will be distributed and there will be cake.
Can they be stopped? Sure. But only as long as they don't hook up with the Amway-ians.
Dana Perino gets caught up in Scotty McClellan's Groundhog Day:
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.
“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself.”
Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.
The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan's job to field – and often duck – those types of questions.
Now that he's spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. “The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information,” she said.
Four months from now:
White House press secretary Gordon Johnroe said it wasn't clear what former press secretary Dana Perino meant in a previous press conference when discussing Scott McClellan. “The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information,” he said.
One months later:
White House press secretary Tony Fratto said it wasn't clear what Gordon Johnroe was going on about when talking about some woman named Perrino, and that he had no idea who Scott McClellan was. “The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information,” he said.
Six days later:
White House press secretary Joe Lieberman was clearly agitated today when he accused the nations press of playing "some kind of partisan media 'gotcha' game with the Bush Administration"when it was clearly in the nations best interest to "move on" and get behind the recent invasions of Iran, Syria, and Yemen, all of whom , according to the former Senator and current Republican Vice Presidential nominee, "harbor ginormous stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and, did I mention that they hate our freedoms?" He later added, “The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information” to the few remaining journalists who hadn't already left the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in order to start drinking heavily until they forgot their deep personal shame .
Embattled former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was a few minutes into his speech Monday night when the first two protesters took the stage, their heads covered and hands tied behind their backs like Abu Ghraib prisoners.
One of the young men stood silently beside Gonzales, who looked down at his notes and waited for two police officers to lead him away. Then came a young man in a military fatigue jacket, who stood directly in front of Gonzales with a sign declaring: "Habeus corpus."
As another officer led that protester offstage, Gonzales told the audience: "Our young men fight overseas to preserve these kinds of freedom of speech."
I would almost forgive him if he had said that with a knowing smirk as they hauled the students away.
Watching this preview I'm trying to anticipate exactly how the conservative culture warriors are going to react to it. Outside of the obvious (Ace declaring "It's true. It happened to me!!1!!!") I'm guessing that it will somehow be tied to Hillary Clinton.
I mean, isn't his how she killed Vince Foster after their lesbian love affair?
Jesus says you're not trying hard enoughIt was later when Jesus remembered that his safeword was "pudding".
DECATUR, Ga. - The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother's wife and fathered a child by her.
Quite honestly if it doesn't involve being discovered suspended from the ceiling while wearing two wetsuits with a dildo hanging out of your ass, Americans would just as soon go back to watching Raymond reruns...
Memo to ABC, NYTimes: Terri Schiavo was not “brain dead”
Via LifeNews, Terri Schiavo’s family members try to hold the MSM accountable for continued lies and distortions about their loved one:
Terri Schiavo’s family is upset with the media for again erroneously depicting the disabled woman as “brain dead” when she was able to interact with them before her former husband took her life. This time, the Schindler family says ABC News and the New York Times wrongly reported on her condition.
At first I thought that Michelle had taken up the Schiavo Cold Case because the Schindler family was getting all up in the MSM's grill, and nothing gives Michelle engorged ladywood quite like attacking the MSM, or at least the MSM that refuses to employ her which is, like, well, almost all of it. But further reading into her comments, where her readers dared to tell her to "Get over it" led to a treasure trove of sleuthing:
Get your facts straight. She was brain-damaged, not brain-dead. “Conclusive?” The autopsy left open many questions.
Late last night, I took the time to read the 39-page autopsy report of Terri Schiavo–something which, it is clear to me, most of the callous gloaters on the other side of this debate have not bothered to do. And will never do. These are people who can only talk about the sanctity of life if it’s enclosed in ghost quotes and pronounced with a sneer.
You do not need a medical examiner’s license to see that the report raises many more questions than it answers, though from the (once again) misleading media coverage, we are led to believe that the matters of Terri’s life and murder are resolved. They are not.
Here’s a typical example from an article headlined, “No trauma before Schiavo collapse:”
An autopsy report on a brain-damaged woman at the centre of a long legal battle in the US has shown that she suffered no trauma before her collapse.
But on page 4 of the M.E.’s summary, what the report actually says with regard to possible strangulation is this:
Autopsy examination of her neck structures 15 years after her initial collapse did not detect any signs of remote trauma, but, with such a delay, the exam was unlikely to show any residual neck findings.”
Further on:
Michael Schiavo and his supporters and doctors have long maintained that Terri suffered from an eating disorder. In interviews with Larry King, in countless newspaper articles over the past 15 years, and during his successful malpractice trial against Terri’s primary care physician, Michael Schiavo stressed his wife’s bulimia-related low potassium level as the cause of her initial collapse. Schiavo won $1 million in damages on the grounds that Schiavo’s obstetrician had failed to diagnose bulimia.
[...]
The autopsy report spends three-and-a-half pages debunking Schiavo’s claim, as well as the related claim that she had a heart attack (or, more medically precise, myocardial infarction). But if mentioned at all, the news reports I have seen have downplayed and buried these astonishing revelations (revelations which bear directly on Schiavo’s credibility regarding his claim that Terri would have wanted to die).
In Michael Schiavo’s favor, the autopsy report also casts doubt on the Schindler family’s long-held view that a 1991 bone scan indicated traumatic injury. The report notes that Terri had severe osteoporosis and that the bone scan findings might have also reflected “the aftermath of remote intense CPR, infection, bone turnover, artifact or intense physical therapy. In summary, any rib fractures, leg fractures, skull fractures or spine fractures that occurred concurrent with Mrs. Schiavo’s original collapse would almost certainly ahve been diagnosed in February 1990 especially with the number of phsyical exams, radiographs, and other evaluations she received in the early evolution of her care…”
However, the report notes this caveat: “Without the orginal bone scan and radiographs from that period, no other conclusions can [be] reasonably made.”
Personally I hope each and every one of the Republican candidates reads this and demands that Schiavo case be reopened. America demands nothing less.
The embattled United States attorney in Minnesota announced today that she would be stepping down to go work at the Justice Department in Washington on legal policy issues.
The announcement by the prosecutor, Rachel K. Paulose, 34, came in the wake of reports of new staff turmoil in her office, with at least one senior lawyer resigning from his management post in Minneapolis on Friday in a protest over her leadership. Three other managers gave up their administrative jobs in a similar protest in April.
In an unusual public statement on a conservative blog last week, Ms. Paulose suggested that she was a victim of “McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society, a person or faith and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color).”
Rachel is leaving because she's:
A) A woman B) Non-white C) A Christian D) A member of the Federalist Society E) A conservative F) under investigation for creating a hit list of reporters, mishandling classified information, retaliating against anyone who crossed her, making racist remarks, demoralizing her department, and treating every day like it was her quinceañera
How nice that, after treating her office like Katrina treated New Orleans, she's getting the opportunity to show off her magic touch at the home office. I'm sure her going away party was just as fabulous as her swearing in party.
It's safe to come out of your hideyhole now. Fran Townsend, the Vanna White of Terrorism Color Codes, is calling it quits so things are all better now. As you may have noticed, we haven' been attacked during her four and a half-year tenure, if you don't count al Qaeda trying to set San Diego on fire last month.
That makes her the most successful member of this administration. Ever.
Cool drink of water Such a sweet suprise Taste so good Make a grown man cry Sweet cherry pie Well, Swingin' on the front porch Swingin' on the lawn Swingin' where we want Cause there ain't nobody home Swingin' to the left And swingin' to the right If I think about baseball I'll swing all night, yeah (yeah, yeah) Swingin' in the living room Swingin' in the kitc---
Oh. You're back.
Okay where were we? Oh yeah...
My first impression of the commercial/public service announcement/rare communication from God was that we are should treat women (at least the childbearing ones) with care because, even though they might be carrying precious cargo, many of them neglect to wear 'Baby on Board' (or possibly 'This End Up') t-shirts. Upon showing the video to the beauteous and knowledgeable mrs tbogg, she came to the same conclusion, and she should know because she's the proud owner of one of those uterus thingys. I'm assuming that the intent of the commercial is to encourage women to quit aborting their babies because, I don't know, one of them might be the next Savior and everyone pays when you're playing Jesus roulette.
So, did the ad miss its mark? Is the message garbled? And who at the advertising agency of Bartholomew, James, Andrew, Peter, Judas, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus & Simon didn't think through the connotations of equating a woman with a box? Did they run it past the College of Cardinals to see if it made white smoke?
I don't think so.
Next time they should spend the big bucks and get Peyton Manning.
