If ya Loved Alternative in the 80s

... back when it meant something exciting, then you should be bumming at this news. One of the main architect of 80s alternative, New Wave, and innovative music lost one of its pioneers in the passing of Ian Copeland. Many of you remember IRS Records as the early (and I would argue best) home of The Police, R.E.M., Squeeze, Concrete Blonde, The Fleshtones, and many others who did not have great door busting musical success, but made great music anyhoo.

And this is not to mention the influence on American and British music that Ian and his brother Miles had through FBI (Frontier Booking) which brought various artists and bands all around the US and UK to play for fans. Often packaging the so-called "big" bands with smaller deserving groups who needed to reach audiences because we all know how open radio was in those days (um, I guess that is a sore I should stay away from picking today).

Clearly Ian's work was an important development in many music circles and helped relaunch the excitement of new and innovative music and the DIY of punk in several out of the way places that were ignored by other recording and booking companies. Though far from a saint, Ian's efforts were rewarded with a mushrooming musical legacy.

Rest in Peace, Ian and thanks for the music.

Too Angry to Post

Yes, dear friends, enlightened enemies, and the rest of you in Hegemonian Blogoverse, I am too damn mad to post a screed against Bobo Brooks. In David Brooks' recent editorial that I saw in today's newspaper -- he defends the Duke boys who are accused of rape by stating that drunken, criminal behavior is a normal occurance at Duke.

Now I am not a fan or a hater of Duke but this argument seems to me to be a little, um weak and offensive to say the least. He defends accuations of criminal behavior by alleging that drunken crimes occur at Duke. With friends like these... maybe if you want to argue that a "witch hunt" is going on, this is not the way to write about it. But hey, that's just me. I write for this little ol Blog, not the supposed paper of record.

Bobo then goes on to just about prove the prosecution's case in this strange and anger inducing piece of crap (wait, just got a memo that crap is suing me for the comparison). And none of this is even addressing the issue of how the ol' mainstream media boys have attacked this woman and ignored rape shield laws and more.

I am simply too angry to discuss it further. This is what passes for editorial writing? Maybe it is time for my dirt nap?

We're just about to turn that Corner...

Yeah, right.

Okay, can we establish a few basic rules regarding the english language(ok, ok... the spoken thang we do here in da States). If someone is going to suggest that something is about to occur, say a decrease of activity, then we should be able to figure out that if it is going say, up... that they are wrong, maybe misguided, or lying, possibly even delusional.

For example, it is with great interest that I see that the insurgency activity in lil' ol Iraq is not only showing no signs of lessening, decreasing, going down, just the opposite is happneing -- it is increasing.

So, when I read that reinforcements arrive in Iraq as that bastion of rational thought, the Pentagon releases a report which shows that the Iraqi insurgency is at two-year high, I have to wonder about language, intelligence, and how much empirical, evidence there directly in front of you, can be ignored.

I am certian, just absolutely freakin' positive, that someone somewhere in the broken van of BushCo is about to say that: "We're just about to turn a corner on the insurgency and..." Yeah, right. Turn the corner into a hail fire of RPGs, bullets, and stones perhaps. And our troops deserve better than this ill planned, ill fated misadventure. They really do.

Heck, we all do.

In the not too distant future

But not next Sunday A.D.

What have I accomplished so far today?

Posted something funny?

No


Claimed the Mona Lisa was painted by Thomas Kincaid?

No


Accused someone of being drunk?

No


Invaded a country?

No, unless you count Scarborough Country. And that was just a border skirmish as I went to bed after it started.



Had someone reveal someone's secret identity on my blog?

No, well, unless you count being suddenly more attracted to Batwoman than I had been.


Hummed the "John Basedow Theme Song" from the 'Fitness Made Simple' infomercial?

Sadly yes, but in my defense, he is a "Fitness Celebrity" (with bad posture and an incredibly big "Easter Island" worthy head)

He decided to be the Ignorer

Seven months since Haditha and this lame excuse is the best they could come up with:

President Bush learned of reports that U.S. Marines killed two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians only after reporters began asking questions, the White House said Tuesday.

Asked when Bush was first briefed about the events in Haditha, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, White House press secretary Tony Snow replied Tuesday: "When a Time reporter first made the call."

Time magazine was first to report, in March, that the U.S. military was investigating a dozen Marines for possible war crimes in the November incident. The killings, which included women and children, came after a bomb rocked a military convoy on Nov. 19, killing a Marine.

This is bad enough, but there is likely a reason why Bush didn't hear about Haditha until the press started poking into the story:

There is rising concern amongst senior officials that President Bush does not grasp the increasingly grim reality of the security situation in Iraq because he refuses to listen to that type of information. Our sources say that attempts to brief Bush on various grim realities have been personally rebuffed by the President, who actually says that he does not want to hear "bad news."

Rather, Bush makes clear that all he wants are progress reports, where they exist, and those facts which seem to support his declared mission in Iraq...building democracy. "That's all he wants to hear about," we have been told. So "in" are the latest totals on school openings, and "out" are reports from senior US military commanders (and those intelligence experts still on the job) that they see an insurgency becoming increasingly effective, and their projection that "it will just get worse."

Our sources are firm in that they conclude this "good news only" directive comes from Bush himself; that is, it is not a trap or cocoon thrown around the President by National Security Advisor Rice, Vice President Cheney, and DOD Secretary Rumsfeld. In any event, whether self-imposed, or due to manipulation by irresponsible subordinates, the information/intelligence vacuum at the highest levels of the White House increasingly frightens those officials interested in objective assessment, and not just selling a political message.

President Happy Talk is making James Buchanan look better all the time. Bush will be calling up Army Group Steiner anytime now.

A Mere Historical Document

Bush determined to show 'United 93' at White House.

Oy!

At the suggestion of reader "Worst.President.Ever" (who is he talking about?) here is a five minute video of Bush sitting on his ass on 9/11. Wonder if he'll show this too?

Just another day in Paradise

The story says it all:

Forty-two dumped bodies have been found in different parts of Baghdad over the last 24 hours -- many of them shot, bound and showing signs of torture, police sources said on Wednesday.

Most of them were found in eastern Baghdad, the sources added. Twelve were in one place in the Baladiyat district and eight in the nearby Sadr City area of the capital.

The discovery of dumped bodies is common in Iraq, especially since the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in the city of Samarra which touched off a wave of sectarian killings and revenge attacks sparking fears of a full-blown civil war.

If you can hold out for 10 seconds or so, you will notice

Chris Matthews engaging in mating calls for his true love, George W. Bush.

Here you are K-Lo and Michelle Malkin

Your "Dick Cheney Real Doll" is about to hit the market.


(AP Photo/Chris Gardner)

With real lip & tongue smirk-on-snarl action, pulsating heart, and true-to-life flaccidity.

"That's alright..."

"This isn't the first time I've had a blind date throw up in her mouth a little."

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

No Talent Assclown Update

The end times are here, and somehow I'm going to blame Bush.

The prism

Michael "1-2-3-4 What are we waitin' for" Ledeen yesterday at Moron Junction:

MSM Today [Michael Ledeen]

Anybody else notice that the Washington Post today has not a single tribute to a fallen warrior?...

Apparently, Ledeen was too busy masturbating about killlin' him some Iranians to note that Gary Trudeau once again repeated his tribute to the fallen in Iraq. But then again, how could a liberal be sorted out for any kind of praise, after all he oppposes the war.

And opposition of war was what the Corner's mouth-breathers always detect, unless it comes from the NY Post, Sun, or FoxNews. Only those who demand more death, are allowed to honor those who die. As defined by them.

Many of you may remember that in the Spring of 2004, Nightline did a show devoted to a reading of the names of "the fallen" of Iraq. The very thing that Ledeen went after the Post about, and how did the Cornholers respond?

Well, there's this one from Michael Graham:

That's Ted Koppel's comment on the upcoming "Nightline" show that will be nothing but a roll call of Americans killed by hostile fire in Iraq. For Ted Koppel, an avid Bush-hater and opponent of the war, the only part of the war he sees is the cost. What about the benefits? Too bad Nightline won't be reading the names of the people who AREN'T dead today because Saddam is gone and Al Qaeda is on the run.

Wow, that sounded trite more than two years ago -- sounds like some sort of tragi-comic flashback today...you know like electing another Bush to be President.

Or "the Derb" obviously angry that Koppel wasn't discussing the nobility of Hillary Duff in a wet T-Shirt or something:

Ted's Tilt [John Derbyshire]
On the eve of the war-dead-exploiting "Nightline," is it unthinkable to consider Ted Koppel as biased to the left?

But wait, that's not all...there's another Graham:

Ted Koppel as Tom Cruise [Tim Graham]
Is there anyone in America who believes that Ted Koppel is going to dedicate an entire "Nightline" on Friday to reading the names of our war dead as an objective, even patriotic exercise? Let's hope not. It is precisely timed (not only to goose the Nielsen numbers for sweeps) but as Koppel's little "Mission Accomplished" anniversary middle-finger salute to the President.

Somehow Michael Ledeen never stepped forward to defend the broadcast.

I bet he can hardly wait for the faces of the fallen from the Iran invasion show.

Please do the least you can

To stop the insipidity.

I don't really mean that last part, but NTodd would understand, it is part of the schtick.

I think they are in their last throes, if you will...and I'm guessing you will

Ah, yes. Earlier this month we celebrated the third anniversary of "Mission Accomplished", today is the First Anniversary of Chuckles Cheney's infamous line about the Iraqi insurgency:

KING: To be removed. It's not going to be -- it's not going to be a 10-year event?

D. CHENEY: No. I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time. But I think the level of activity that we see today, from a military standpoint, I think will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

Number of American's killed since this statement: 799, Iraqi civilians casualties, unknown, but well into the thousands.

Fez tip to Steve J.

When we finally reach the point of disaster in Global Warming

Can we confiscate the flippers and oxygen tanks of your average FoxNews analyst?

Wah, Ricky, I burned the pot-roast...waaaaaaaaaaaaah!

On the other hand Santorum's anatomy has been accurately diagnosed.

And Another

Vietnam, waged over seven years in the jungles, and though I may be incorrect, I am unaware of one major network crew that was seriously injured. Now in Iraq, during the post-"Mission Accomplished" fiasco, we have a second catastrophic attack within a few months.

Bob Woodruff and his crew in January, and now CBS's Kimberly Dozier is critically wounded while two of her crew are killed while imbedded. Hard to spread the good news "outside the green zone". That's why it's left to those with the "true sight" unobscured of facts, the TV Punditry.

I'm sure we can look forward to more right-wing cracks about CBS anyway.

NYT Is The New People Magazine

Elisabeth Bumiller is angling to take a step-up from her spot normally on the front page of the NYT. She'll likely get those long profiles (3 minute reads) in People magazine. Get this:

WASHINGTON — Bush III? Or has the dynasty run its course?

Those are the questions some Republicans are asking themselves as political talk bubbles up yet again about President Bush's brother Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida and his interest in the White House. The chief driver of the mini-buzz is the current occupant of the White House, who has said twice this month that his younger brother would make "a great president."

No one, the president included, is suggesting that the younger Bush will run in 2008, and Governor Bush, whose second term is up in January, has adamantly ruled it out.

But Republican Party leaders continue to talk seriously about a continuation of the dynasty, a Bush III administration, with Jeb as a candidate in 2012 or 2016, when the memory of the current president's dismal poll ratings will be less of a factor. That, at least, is what happened the last time around: President George Bush's unpopularity at the end of his term in 1992 did not hurt his eldest son when he ran for president eight years later.

"Look, I think he'd be a great president," the current President Bush said in response to a question about Jeb's intentions at a restaurant industry trade show in Chicago last week. "But he said he's not going to run in 2008, and I think you've got to take him for his word. He's been in public life now for eight years, and I think he wants a breather."

Less than two weeks before, the president was more expansive in an interview with a group of Florida newspaper reporters. According to The St. Petersburg Times, Mr. Bush said that he had "pushed" his brother "fairly hard about what he intends to do" and that his political future "is very bright, if he chooses to have a political future."

The president also said, "I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not."

***

In the meantime, the current president keeps talking up his younger, larger brother — up to a point. When a member of the audience in Chicago last week told the president that "we love your brother" and that "he's been very good to the restaurant industry," Mr. Bush, not missing a beat, responded to laughter that "he has been eating a lot, I noticed."

Doing America's journalists proud Bumiller. Dare to dream that good job is just around the corner. And great job highlighting chimpy's need to put everyone in their place.

How could Haditha Happen, we're Americans

I consider myself a patriot. Not an overt cretinous flag-waving mouth-breather that "loves America" because they are an American, having given it no real thought. I love America despite its many flaws, and they are legion.

As the details of the murder of two dozen or so people, including women and children comes to light, more shit will hit the fan again in Iraq. But more than that, we have to be disabused of this notion that we are somehow pure of heart and action when it comes to war. People will act like Haditha is some anomalie. It is not. If you line up the history of nation's and their atrocities many are on top of the list, I won't say who, but it is spelled Germany. But each country has them and the list for the United States is long; from the hanging of the Saint Patrick's Battalion at the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, to Ft. Pillow, to Andersonville, to Wounded Knee and all its precedents -- all the way to My Lai. We are no more immune from savagery than anyone else.

It would be nice to remember that, before we go off into yet another war.

But collectively, we won't.

Another Memorial

To the Hubris of the Bush Regime. There are going to be many more of them in Iraq -- and God knows where else.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A slew of car and roadside bombs killed more than 30 people in Iraq on Monday, a day after a tribal chief who challenged Iraq's most feared terrorist and sent fighters to help U.S. troops battle al-Qaida in western Iraq was gunned down.

The explosions began just after dawn with a roadside bomb that killed 10 Iraqis who worked for an organization of Iranian dissidents living in Iraq. The blast targeted a public bus near Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad in Diyala province, an area notorious for such attacks. Twelve people were wounded, police said.

All the dead were Iraqi employees heading to the main camp of the Mujahedeen Khalq, which opposes Iran's regime, the group said.

The Nightmare

An article that Instahack and Jonah Goldberg (Gore teen years slime in 3..2..1) will not read or link to:

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name...

...Today, the Americans are just one more militia lost in the anarchy. They, too, are killing Iraqis.

Last fall I visited the home of a Sunni man called Sabah in the western Baghdad suburb of Radwaniya, where the Sunni resistance had long had a presence, and where a U.S. soldier had recently been killed. On Friday night a few days before I came, his family told me, American soldiers surrounded the home where Sabah lived with his brothers, Walid and Hussein, and their families and broke down the door. The women and children were herded outside, walking past Sabah, whose nose was broken, and Walid, who had the barrel of a soldier's machine gun in his mouth. The soldiers beat the men with rifle butts, while the Shiite Iraqi translator accompanying the troops exhorted the Americans to execute the Sunnis.

As the terrified family waited outside, they heard three shots from inside. It then sounded to them as though there was a scuffle inside, with the soldiers shouting at each other. Thirty minutes later the translator emerged with a picture of Sabah. "Who is Sabah's wife?" he asked. "Your husband was killed by the Americans, and he deserved to die," he told her. At that he tore the picture before her face.

Walid was then taken away, and inside the house the family found Sabah dead. His bloody shirt showed three bullet holes that went through his chest; two of the bullets had come out of his back and lodged in the wall behind him. Three U.S.-made bullet casings were on the floor. Sofas and beds had been overturned and torn apart; tables, closets, vases of plastic flowers, all were broken and tossed around. Even the cars had been destroyed. Photographs of Sabah had been torn up and his ID card confiscated. One photograph remained on his wife's bureau: Sabah standing proudly in front of his Mercedes.

I later asked Hussein if they wanted revenge. "We are Muslim, praise God," he said, "and we do not want revenge. He was innocent and he was killed, so he is a martyr."

Go read the rest, I hope Fred Hiatt will.

Iraq is completely fucked. I Bush was capable of truth, let along incapable of that as well as incompetence, we might at least keep more Americans from getting killed -- as it stands now, it doesn't appear we are much more than another group in Iraq getting killed and being killed.

But hey at least we have that big fucking embassy we built, and those nice airports.

Iran will have to appreciate those when they take 'em over in a few years.

Oops,

"That's going to linger in the cushions a while."

(Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

As Jesus said to Mary Magdalene on their wedding night...

BEHOLD THE SECOND COMING!*

Jolie and Pitt Welcome a Baby Girl

Okay, now we can get back to not caring again.




*As found in the 'Dan Brown Big Book of Jeebus Jokes.'

Peering Into The Souls Of Men

His x-ray vision doesn't get past the boobies of the women-folk.

Catching-up on my reading took me today to George Packer in the Talk of the Town--you know, the New Yorker. I like to think I stay current on things--most especially the moronic utterances of chimpy, but here's one I missed:

But what if they do? This is not a President who places his faith in the wisdom of men. When thirteen former Secretaries of State and Defense were summoned to the White House in January, Bush gave them all of ten minutes to air their views. Last week, in California, he described his policymaking process in unmistakably clear terms. “I base a lot of my foreign-policy decisions on some things that I think are true,” he said. “One, I believe there’s an Almighty. And, secondly, I believe one of the great gifts of the Almighty is the desire in everybody’s soul, regardless of what you look like or where you live, to be free.” It seems that unless God himself gains entry to the West Wing and informs the President that the Iraqis’ desire to be free is not the issue, a grandiose theology will continue to doom America and Iraq to a bloody stalemate.

Policymaking?

Worth a second mortgage

To give to the 700 Club...

Well at least we've got our priorities straight

First Congress allows wiretaps and data mining against all of us, but gets their nose out of joint regarding the execution of a search warrant...

And now Abu Al, Mueller, the Green Hornet, Apache Chief, and the Black Vulcan all threaten to resign from the Super Friends Legion of Doom over it.

Allowing torture, no problem.

Wiretapping, it's aiiiight.

Internet snooping, "Wow, Xena's nipple was exposed when she sang the National Anthem!"

But over this, THIS, they threaten to resign.

"Dissing" is now more important than your Constitutional Rights.

BEHOLD ladies...

That's the "O" face.

(Karim Sahib/Pool/Reuters)


Something similar from Watertiger a few days ago, but hey it's Saturday and I'm tired.

And the rise of the people power forced Marcos to fly to Hawaii...

Oh fuck it, wrong guy.

(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

More Tweety Classics

Tonight,

"Would it help if Bush looked like Hugh Grant?"

Um, no.

You know George Galloway

I like you and all, you've got a great accent and stuff. However, I think it's time we see other people. At first the freaky stuff was kind of cool, but it's getting a bit thick now.

William Schallert should ground them both, permanently!

I've done some musical satire in my day, but this one from Watertiger is about as good as it gets.

And his "Towncar" would suck!

Tweety called Dear Leader's faux mistake listing last evening as "a little bit of Lincoln". It was fun watching a series of analysts, including fellow MSNBC blastocyst Joe Scarborough, come forward and say in so many words that Matthews was insane.

There are three particular failings of Chris Matthews that stand out from all the other failings:

1. He apparently needs to talk in order to breathe.

2. He is obsessed with gossip, especially sex gossip about the Clintons (hardly alone, the mighty "Cleni" are the prom King and Queen of D.C. apparently)

3. He has a mancrush on Bush that rivals the Powerline boys after they've been forced to wear anti-masturbation mittens for a week.

It was out in full-force last night, but he had to endure forty-five minutes of people telling him the object of his obsession had a hairy mole and emitted an unpleasant odor.

Bush as Lincoln, I've always pictured Bush as more a Jefferson Davis kind of guy, without the intellect or the horrid neck beard. Like Davis, Bush is prickly, vain and stubborn.

Now if Lincoln was possessed of Bush's skill, we cold have sped up the conquest of the Confederacy by about 115 years. If Bush was Lincoln he would have sailed off across the Atlantic by the Summer of '61.

However, if Lincoln had Bush's eloquence we'd have this:


The Lincoln-Douglas Debates




March 4, 1861




January 1, 1863




November 19, 1863




March 4, 1865

Your Mind on Drugs

Uppers & Downers

(AP/Susan Walsh)

Rip Van Noonan

Apparently this is the first war that we've ever honored soldiers -- the empty gesture of the car magnet is so much better than giving them adequate counseling as veterans, or god forbid maintaining their personal data. I'll make sure I alert Presidents Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Grant, Garfield, T. Roosevelt, and Eisenhower.

And then I'll call Ken Burns and Tom Brokaw -- I'll do that on Memorial Day.

A short summary of tonight's joint press conference with Chimpy & the Poodle

"9/11,
9/11,
9/11

Mr. Prime Minister?"


"Thank you,
11/9
11/9
11/9"

I've said it before, I'll say it again

If George Washington ever comes back, he'll kick Chimpy's ass!

Three years

I didn't even know these people blogged. Who are they? Where did they come from? Why do I need to continually tell them it's a mandt hold, not a bad touch?

Whatever, wish "Happy Furry blah blah blah" a happy anniversay in as cynical a fashion as possible. I did. So be like me, you know you want to be.*





*May reflect need for psychological counseling.

"Heh heh heh

I've got a foreskin"

(AP Photo/Avi Ohayon-GPO)

"Godspeed, she's a biter"

Dich Cheney gives his regards to Lynne's preferred manmeat of the evening.

(AP Photo/Chris Park)

Headlines of the FUTURE, February 15, 2010

She doesn't act in it does she?

In completely unimportant news (hey, as ever it isn't about that singing show on Fox!), Sophia Coppola's new film Marie-Antoinette was booed at the Cannes file festival.

The movie is about the famed headless-queen of France. I think it is probably always a risk to have an American make a file about French Royalty (though maybe Jerry Lewis as "The Nutty Bourbon" would work). I suppose the thing the French probably most disliked was the Hollywood-ending the studio forced on Coppola. Cyborg Marie Antoinette's headless torso rises from the wooden plank, snaps her head back on and then mows down the crowed with her machine gun left arm and rocket-launcher right.

Those haughty French just don't appreciate us making their history better by giving them happier endings and more explosions.

Well thank goodness

Country Music has finally found themselves a replacement for the Dixie Chicks, Prussian Blue.

Took 'em long enough to figure that one out.

HA HA HA HA

Brad DeLong has been kind enough to link to this site a few times, it is about time we repay the favor. Taking up the Doughy Pantloads for "memorable statements" from National Review that the Magazing can memorialize in some fashion, Brad did the heavy work.

He has many, but a couple of my favorites:

[T]he bayonets have displaced the law in Little Rock.... General Walker is in Little Rock as the commander of an army of occupation... enforcing unconditional surrender...

Lincoln was the Caesar Lincoln claimed to be trying to prevent; and that the Caesarism we all need to fear is the contemporary [Civil Rights] movement, dedicated like Lincoln to egalitarian reforms sanctioned by mandates emanating from national majorities...

The axiom... was Universal Suffrage. Everyone in America is entitled to the vote.... That, of course, is demagogy.... The great majority of the Negroes of the South who do not vote do not care to vote, and would not know for what to vote if they could...

Martin Luther King will never rouse a rabble; in fact, I doubt very much if he could keep a rabble awake... past its bedtime...

I guess we better get something more recent, I went out and grabbed this lovely nugget:

"ATTN: SUPERDOME RESIDENTS – I think it's time to face facts. That place is going to be a Mad Max/thunderdome Waterworld/Lord of the Flies horror show within the next few hours. My advice is to prepare yourself now. Hoard weapons, grow gills and learn to communicate with serpents. While you're working on that, find the biggest guy you can and when he's not expecting it beat him senseless. Gather young fighters around you and tell the womenfolk you will feed and protect any female who agrees to participate without question in your plans to repopulate the earth with a race of gilled-supermen. It's never too soon to be prepared."

This last one, put up hours before Katrina hit is NO LONGER available at the Cornhole, gutless cowards that they are.

What's In Hastert's Freezer?

Attaturk reminds us of the hypocrisy endemic to our nation's capitol--Denny Hastert rushing to the aide of William Jefferson--the ugliest of all the stereotypes of political opportunists. Hmmmm, wonder what fat bastard has hiding in his freezer?



Get in my belly!

Since Congressional Freezers are no longer sacred

Denny Hastert panics and gets to work devouring the evidence within the Speaker's Office.



After Denny finshed btw, AFTER HE FINISHED, Pat Robertson came over and squat-thrusted Denny over his head -- just to show off!

Positive Reviews

Truth, since the Republicans took grip of all five and a half years ago, has taken a back seat to belief.

For example many expect us to believe the "higher belief" of Sterling Burnett. However, I have noticed a disturbing graphic. As carbon dioxide emissions have grown, so have Exxon's donations caused a growth in Mr. Burnett's goiter.



At this rate, Mr. Burnett's head will be over the "event horizon" and sucking in matter by next Summer. Forget global warming, Exxon-Mobil is creating a real black-hole instead of it's current intellectual black hole.

But, as ever, I digress. Gore's movie got a highly positive review from A.O. Scott:

[Gore] is, rather, the surprisingly engaging vehicle for some very disturbing information. His explanations of complex environmental phenomena — the jet stream has always been a particularly tough one for me to grasp — are clear, and while some of the visual aids are a little corny, most of the images are stark, illuminating and powerful.

I can't think of another movie in which the display of a graph elicited gasps of horror, but when the red lines showing the increasing rates of carbon-dioxide emissions and the corresponding rise in temperatures come on screen, the effect is jolting and chilling. Photographs of receding ice fields and glaciers — consequences of climate change that have already taken place — are as disturbing as speculative maps of submerged coastlines. The news of increased hurricane activity and warming oceans is all the more alarming for being delivered in Mr. Gore's matter-of-fact, scholarly tone.

He speaks of the need to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions as a "moral imperative," and most people who see this movie will do so out of a sense of duty, which seems to me entirely appropriate. Luckily, it happens to be a well-made documentary, edited crisply enough to keep it from feeling like 90 minutes of C-Span and shaped to give Mr. Gore's argument a real sense of drama. As unsettling as it can be, it is also intellectually exhilarating, and, like any good piece of pedagogy, whets the appetite for further study.

Well, that last sentence in particular is why the right-wing wouldn't want you to see it.

No, they'd rather have you stay home and watch Sterling Burnett's head expand at an alarming rate.

Cry Me a River

As an ordinary citizen, I've seen the Bush Administration and it's GOP allies essentially say that they have a RIGHT to track my internet activity, follow my emails, watch my IMs, and datamine my phone calls (at a minimum).

Yet, I'm supposed to believe that a properly executed search warrant on a congressional office is some scary fucking violation of THEIR Constitutional Rights?

I don't give a shit if William Jefferson is a Democrat. Sounds like the probable cause the authorities got to search his office was incredibly well-founded.

For Denny Hastert and the Republican leadership to come to Jefferson's defense on those "technicalities" when it hits close to home, but not even give lip service to "form" for the rest of us tells you just how much they don't care.

William Jefferson should resign PRONTO, he should have resigned already. If he's innocent, he can try to get his seat back in a few years.

But to see the GOP step up to the plate to whine about the Constitution applying to the whole lot of Congress (again, this was after the execution of a search warrant) and the rest of us not even deserving notice that our privacy is being violated by the Government is the true outrage.

Pondering?

Is this dithering fool thing an act?


Is it some sort of rouse?


He acts twitchy and bizarre all the time, and I don't like the way he looks at me.



And that constant head rubbing -- it's disturbing and embarassing.

Talk

As a rule I try not to overtly link to folks that haven't completed hair growth in "that special place" but still it is the message that counts. But Yglesias, filling in for Josh Marshall who is on break (bloggers get to take breaks?) has an excellent summation of where we stand on what seems to be a predestined war -- unless Democrats step up and do something about it.

Nevertheless, there's no mistaking the fact that just as Iran has been trying to at least set the stage for possibly ratcheting tensions with the United States down, there's been a fairly concerted effort in the American press to ratchet things up. The folks doing the ratcheting have, it's clear, some friends and some influence inside the administration.

People need to understand this and be clear with themselves. This is not a group of people primarily concerned with Iran's nuclear program -- anyone who thought that would be open to some negotiating. This is a group of people primarily concerned -- for whatever reason, no doubt the reasons are mixed and vary somewhat -- with continuing and intensifying US-Iranian conflict. It's not clear how influential this faction is or will be in the president's decision-making, but those of us on the outside are either with them or against them.

As recent posts from Ivo Daalder and Michael Levi indicate, there's no reason to think Democrats have anything to fear from standing up for engagement rather than war. The real political risk is that staying silent lets the other side shape people's understand of what's happening so deeply that it becomes harder to speak up later. The odds that this whole situation somehow won't come up in the midterms are low. Democrats are going to have to deal with it, and it's better to start sooner than later.

As long as people like Joe Lieberman and Marshall "Bullshit Moose" Wittmann are enabling, things will end up fucked all to hell.

There is ABSOLUTELY no reason for the Democrats to get out front and encourage unilateral talks between the two countries.

What's News...

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Fun with Video

Well Scout and then Watertiger posted up the video of Disco Jesus (which was genius) but at First Draft in comments I saw this and ... well, it will do.

Be honest for once in your life, without the codpiece, what's the deal?

(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

"And here's that dance move I learned from the Bush-Twins"

(AFP/DDP/Roland Magunia)

Ken Mehlman and the boys plot their comeback

Sincerely,

Atta J. Godwinturk

Apparently he stole Steve Martin's "Great Flydini" Act too!

(AFP/Getty Images/Mark Wilson)

Still listed in Josh Marshall's blogroll

You would think a guy who named his site after the result of Theodore Roosevelt's insurgent attack against the "establishment" would at least be able to see some irony in this limited circumstance.

But the Bullshit Moose is irony impaired.

By an overwhelming majority, Joe Lieberman is the officially endorsed candidate of the Connecticut Democratic Party. No matter how you spin it, if you are on the short end of 67 to 33 - you lose - unless if you live in the parallel universe of the netroots. It is there that Howard Dean is President of the United States. In that territory, Rodriguez defeated Cuellar back in Texas.

By some metaphysical piece of legerdemain the Bullshit Moose repeats what has become the accepted common wisdom of the last 25 plus years -- that "liberalism" has been uniformly rejected in all it's forms and to be a liberal means to be quiet and take in in the ass. Meanwhile DLC-types, and McCain sucking choad-boy Wittmann is to the right of them while taking their money.

I'm just a publicly educated proletarian from the midwest who runs a sucky suck blog. So forgive me if I am unimpressed by a guy who wants the Democratic Party to run an unending string of John W. Davis types for President.

The Lieberman insurgency is about the base of the Democratic Party being pissed at Joe Lieberman wanted to be a Republican. Maybe Lieberman will win the primary, maybe he won't. But Bullshit Moose will have little to nothing to do with it.

WHAT A PIECE OF EXCREMENT!!!

I am not a Hillary Clinton fan. There is a long, long list of Democrats I would support before her.

But nonetheless, the New York Times publishes one of the biggest pieces of bullshit ever to grace its pages without Jayson Blairs or Judith Miller's bylines. Holy freakin' shit.

I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE DETAILS OF THE CLINTON MARRIAGE

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT

I DON'T GIVE A DAMN

I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS

ETC.

As Atrios notes apparently thrice-married, or twice-married, Republicans are passe and no one can really expect a Republican to live the life they preach, or stick upon you. No, what really matters is dissecting a marriage that has lasted more than 30 years.

Attention New York Times, people who have been married for 30 years find a way to make their marriage work -- and that is their own fucking business. Good for them.

Now about the fact that the current President of the United States wants to turn the goddamned middle east into the world's nightlight -- could we talk about that please?

Congratulation's America

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We're running

Apparently Bush & Blair are going to declare "victory" and announce a withdrawal plan from Eye-Rack in about 45 minutes.

Because you can't say that they did not win, if we are not there to lose.

"I'm Rita Cosby, Tonight on

Barbaro's injury.

Will he still be able to go to stud?

And I'll take you on an exclusive look inside a Kentucky Stud Farm and after that report, maybe we will finally get back to talking about horses again.



That's tonight on Rita Cosby Live and Direct."

Many have seen this...

But it is simply about as brilliant as anything the Daily Show has done in my humble opinion...


THE ORIGIN OF THE DECIDER

Coming soon(?)

From the glossy pages of "The Weekly Standard", its newest print ad from a logical sponsor.



Makes sense.

So, ah...well....

Are you going to prom with anybody this year?


I was thinking of just hanging out with Gwen Ifill, doing each others hair.


Because we could go together. I hear the theme this year is "Iran, third time's the Charm" or maybe it's "Xanadu".


"Oh, I loooooooooove Xanadu...and I love bombin' Iran. I'll wear my new boots."


"Hey, do you and Condi want to double date at the Prom?"


"But no Democrats!"


"Of course not, I never chose to associate with those people."