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Friday, October 31, 2003
Your thought for the weekend
Dare to slack
posted by tbogg at 4:45 PM
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One more thing that we can thank Bill Clinton for...
U.S. pregnancy, birth and abortion rates decline in 1990s
Atlanta-AP _ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says pregnancy, birth and abortion rates dropped from 1990 to 1999.
Two words: blow jobs.
Oh, sure, there's still blow jobs going on today, but the only ones of note involve George W Bush and Howard Fineman.
posted by tbogg at 3:35 PM
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The Whoppers...they are mine, I say. Mine.
Well it's Halloween at the tbogg house again. It probably is at your house too, depending on where you live relative to the International dateline, but whatever. In past years my daughter would do her trick and/or treating in her friend's neighborhood, but since it looks like this now, well, that ain't gonna happen. I on the other hand would stay at home with Satchmo the Wonder Basset (and before him, Cooder the Previous Wonder Basset who is now Cooder the No Longer Living Basset) and hand out candy to the little nippers who came to our doorstep.
Except they never came.
We have lived at our current home for over seven years and have been visited by three, count'em, three trick or treaters in all that time. Our neighborhood is mostly made up of retired couples, college students, and yuppie singles. Outside of my daughter, you could throw a fun-sized Butterfinger three blocks before you'd hit a kid.
But hope springs eternal. We have Whoppers, and Skittles, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (oh my).
Just in case any of the little collectivist welfare-state beggars show up demanding to share in the fruits of my labor.
Have a Happy Rand-ian Halloween.....
posted by tbogg at 1:27 PM
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Trouble at the Republican corral
Those stupid Republican Senators. Acting like they're all elected to do the people's business and stuff:
Congress is about to hand President Bush a big victory by approving the money he wants for Iraq, but privately many lawmakers are fuming.
Their ire is caused not so much by events overseas as by the high-handed way they believe the administration has treated the legislative branch at home.
The House approved the Iraq package on a vote of 298 to 121 early today, and the Senate was expected to follow on Monday to send Bush the legislation providing $87.5 billion for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. But beneath the apparent victory for the administration lie deep tensions even among members of Bush's party who have felt shut out and taken for granted.
"I don't think there is any one of us that hasn't been frustrated," said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and one of the most powerful members of Congress, who complained that he had been stood up by a senior administration official the day he was to begin writing the final version of the Iraq funding bill.
"They have treated us like a nuisance and appendage," said Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
In an effort to smooth things over, President I'm The Boss of You is sending them each a little gift.
Wear them proudly, boys.
posted by tbogg at 11:37 AM
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Luskin speaks...Upton's thin pursed lips don't move
Setting the record straight:
Dear Internet Readers,
Recent comments on various web sites and 'blogs' call into question my dogged pursuit of economist Paul Krugman, suggesting that I am somehow stalking the evil New York Times columnist.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
It is entirely possible for a person to post to their 'blog' about an evil, bearded economist who has received all the accolades that person has ever wanted in their lives, stealing the glory from that person and their precise financial theories, forcing them to sit in a darkened room, mulling the fact that this so-called economist is going on television and publishing a best-selling book, getting all the attention that should be mine, mine!! The bastard! The conniving, attention-grabbing sonovabitch!! He'll never get away with it!!!
Oh. Where was I?
posted by tbogg at 11:13 AM
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You too can join the Vichy Democrats...just pick up your white flag over there...
I'm just all a-feared. I mean if we have lost semi-obscure Roger Simon (author of not-really-best-selling books about a washed-up sixties radical...insert your own joke ...here), semi-obscurer Michael Totten, and obscure-unto-non-existant Cara Remal, well, Jeebus!, we might just as well pack it in, force our wives to have more children, bust up the unions, trash the environment, invade more countries, privatize the government by turning it over to Halliburton, watch Fox news, and buy lots more guns and volumes 3 through 9 of the Left Behind series.
I mean, dude, it is so over. Or as Michael says:
Democrats: You had better snap out of denial and get your act together fast. You are in so much trouble and you have no idea.
Speaking of being in trouble and having no ideas, I see things are going swimmingly over in Iraq:
U.S. troops clashed with about 350 rioters on Friday in a suburb of Baghdad, including some holding Saddam Hussein’s picture aloft and calling the Americans “terrorists.” Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed in a bombing in the hostile “Sunni triangle” area west of Baghdad, a U.S. military spokeswoman said.
[snip]
A U.S. officer at the scene, 1st Lt. Joseph Harrison, said someone tossed a grenade at American soldiers in the marketplace, wounding two Americans. About the same time, mortars fell on an Iraqi police station near the market.
U.S. forces responded with force. Col. Lee Quintas, with the 3rd Brigade, First Armored Division, said the mop-up operation in Abu Ghraib was the largest mounted in the area in four months, with airborne, tank and several infantry divisions called in for support.
After a three-hour interlude, when hundreds of Iraqis emerged from nearby mosques after Friday prayers, gunfire erupted again as U.S. armored vehicles moved into the area. Ten explosions and machine-gun fire were heard, and U.S. helicopters hovered overhead.
Among those arrested, the Americans said, were two Iraqis carrying a mortar firing tube.
The bodies of two Iraqi men — identified by friends and family as Mohammed Auweid, 45, and Hamid Abdullah, 41 — were carried from the area.
“God damn America!” shouted friend Ali Hussein, who said the men were simply passers-by. He said the Americans fired indiscriminately without warning when Iraqis began throwing stones at them.
“U.S. soldiers are the real terrorists, not us!” he said.
A photographer on the scene saw other civilian casualties being evacuated as well.
Vichy Democrats to the rescue!!!! Vive la non resistance!
Whoops. Got that vacation planned and then the rumpus room needs panelling and I was thinking about taking that class down at The Learning Annex......
(Added): I see Kevin is letting this be discussed over at Calpundit. He's much more civil about this over there. I don't do civil discourse, although, when I do want to be civil I can sound a lot like Kevin, who is a lot taller than me as well as more civil. Got that?
posted by tbogg at 10:50 AM
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You're not supposed to see this...
We all know that every picture tells a story. This is the story the Bush Administration doesn't want told.
Since the end of the Vietnam War, presidents have worried that their military actions would lose support once the public glimpsed the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.
To this problem, the Bush administration has found a simple solution: It has ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.
In March, on the eve of the Iraq war, a directive arrived from the Pentagon at U.S. military bases. "There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein [Germany] airbase or Dover [Del.] base, to include interim stops," the Defense Department said, referring to the major ports for the returning remains.
Here is a little reminder that everytime an American President wraps himself in the flag, some other American is also going to get wrapped in the flag, and not in the figurative sense.
(Thanks to the ReachM High Cowboy Network for the image)
posted by tbogg at 10:02 AM
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Listening in at the Chuck E Cheese Algonquin table....
Go here.
Read
Laugh
posted by tbogg at 9:13 AM
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Hoped they budgeted for a laugh track
According to No More Mr Nice Blog:
Dennis Miller, the sardonic comedian who delivered a fake newscast on "Saturday Night Live" and told jokes in the "Monday Night Football" booth, will host a prime-time political talk show on CNBC.
The network said Thursday it had inked Miller to a multiyear deal for the political chat show, set to begin in January.
Looks like the vast wasteland just got vaster and, um, waste-ier....
posted by tbogg at 8:08 AM
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Thursday, October 30, 2003
Now we know why he's a chickenhawk
I guess a man like Paul Wolfowitz just isn't made of the same kind of stuff as those who put their lives on the line defending freedom. Faced with an angry co-ed... he piddles like a pup:
US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz fended off hecklers at Georgetown University during a speech Thursday.
"We hate your policies!" shouted one young woman, standing ten meters (yards) from Wolfowitz who went pale and clenched his jaw.
"Killing innocents is not the solution but rather the problem," she said.
"I have to (infer) you'd be happier if Saddam Hussein was still in power," he replied dryly before recalling the regime's cruelties.
A lot of innocents were sacrificed and "the alternative would have been far more brutal, there is no question in my mind."
Two other students among the dozen that had lined up to speak to the man held up as the Bush administration mastermind of the Iraq war also attacked US policy there.
A visibly shaken Wolfowitz caught his breath to tell one of them, "You and I should both calm down."
He later said that the Iraq war was "not an ideological, but a moral issue."
"There is not much question in my mind about the morality of having gotten rid of this regime."
Yup. Sign him up for the Lilek's brigade of the 107th Fighting Keyboarders....
posted by tbogg at 6:41 PM
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Dingell Demands "Fair and Balanced" Portrayal of 40th President
Washington, D.C. – Congressman John D. Dingell (D-MI) today joined the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Members of Congress and conservative pundits in demanding that CBS ensure that its upcoming two part mini-series "The Reagans" is an accurate portrayal of the Reagan legacy. In a letter to CBS President Leslie Moonves, Dingell wrote, "I trust that CBS will not be a party to a distorted presentation of American history."
Rep. Dingell, who served in the Congress during both of President Reagan’s terms in office, offered this advice to Mr. Moonves:
"As someone who served with President Reagan, and in the interest of historical accuracy, please allow me to share with you some of my recollections of the Reagan years that I hope will make it into the final cut of the mini-series: $640 Pentagon toilets seats; ketchup as a vegetable; union busting; firing striking air traffic controllers; Iran-Contra; selling arms to terrorist nations; trading arms for hostages; retreating from terrorists in Beirut; lying to Congress; financing an illegal war in Nicaragua; visiting Bitburg cemetery; a cozy relationship with Saddam Hussein; shredding documents; Ed Meese; Fawn Hall; Oliver North; James Watt; apartheid apologia; the savings and loan scandal; voodoo economics; record budget deficits; double digit unemployment; farm bankruptcies; trade deficits; astrologers in the White House; Star Wars; and influence peddling."
Rep. Dingell concluded, "I hope you find these facts useful in accurately depicting President Reagan’s time in office."
Link
(Thanks Susan...)
posted by tbogg at 6:28 PM
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I'm not a liberal, but I pretend I used to be one on the Internet
I guess I can't blame a guy for whoring himself out in order to find a job in the Bush economy. Which is why it's not too suprising to see "writer" Michael Totten doing his dancing monkey routine hoping for a few more Instapundit nods and maybe a treasured regulars spot on TechCentralStation where the Rand-ians go for their objective reality handjobs. Here's Michael today:
The Left Veers Right
Roger L. Simon captures my disillusionment with the left in two sentences.
I remember the day, and it wasn't so long ago, that liberals like me were attacking our government for supporting dictators. Now these new "liberals," or whatever they want to call themselves, attack our government for taking down dictators.
Yep. I suppose they could plead “isolationism” as an excuse for the inconsistency. But the left has never been isolationist. Never. That’s the position of the old right. The tragedy of the liberals is that a whole swath has run off the farm to join Pat Buchanan in Palookaville. And I used to say that if Buchanan were elected president I’d have to move to Canada.
You see, in "disillusioned" Michael's binary world there is only "isolationism" or "taking down dictators". Anyone who didn't support the war, supported Saddam. And if you protested the war, then you're probably a Stalinist dupe. Even if you opposed the war for good reasons, well, you just best just put your beliefs in escrow and join up (or, as in Michael's case, send others off to fight while you wave your little red-white-and-blue pompoms before taking that much needed vacation).
During a time when soldiers are dying in Iraq daily as a part of Bush's Folly, it must be really nice to be able to spend your days staring at your navel and trying to decide if you're a middle-progressive or a former-liberal-kinda-Libertarian or maybe disillusioned-progressive-Randian-God-I-need-work-conservative-quasi-liberal.
Particularly when it keeps you from thinking: Jesus. I am one big puss.
posted by tbogg at 2:25 PM
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I smell another lawsuit....
Busybusybusy
He's really good at those....
posted by tbogg at 10:58 AM
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News you can use....
It's a Crappy world out there...
posted by tbogg at 9:38 AM
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Raiding the Treasury....
Offered without comment....
Companies awarded $8 billion in contracts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan have been major campaign donors to President Bush, and their executives have had important political and military connections, according to a study released Thursday
[snip]
Major contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan were awarded by the Bush administration without competitive bids, because agencies said competition would have taken too much time to meet urgent needs in both countries.
“No single agency supervised the contracting process for the government,” the center’s executive director, Charles Lewis, said. “This situation alone shows how susceptible the contracting system is to waste, fraud and cronyism.”
The top contract recipient was the Halliburton subsidiary KBR, with more than $2.3 billion awarded to support the U.S. military and restore Iraq’s oil industry.
Halliburton was headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before he resigned to run with Bush in 2000.
Halliburton’s top executive, Dave Lesar, said Wednesday he was offended by criticism of the company’s Iraq work but believed it was “less about Halliburton and more about external political issues.”
“As a company uniquely qualified to take on this difficult assignment, we will continue to bring all of our global resources to bear at this critical time in the Middle East. We have served the military for over 50 years and have no intention of backing down at this point,” he said.
posted by tbogg at 9:30 AM
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Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Le-enough already.....
I don't really follow the NBA because, well, until they start calling traveling, it ain't basketball. But I know enough about it to be kind of dangerous. With that in mind, read this from Anthony Gargano at MSNBC. It's about LeBron, and it's not. Sample:
Funny, the castigation of the system by the It Was Better Back In The Day crowd usually prompts a shrug with me. I hear the line — “It’s all that’s wrong with sport” — tossed around as often as a bad Ricky Davis shot. Alas, they have a point here. I don’t want my MTV with my sports, and the MTV mantra of sell before substance, prostitute before proficiency, BMW before 17 and Crystal before 8 a.m., has poisoned society, let alone sport.
Seriously, pop culture has no class, anymore. It’s loud and obnoxious and stupid and selfish and crippled by ADD. It’s just a lot of noise. It’s Joe Millionaire and Britney Spears and Jackass and Leon and Hummers and Anna Nicole Smith and 15-second celebrities. It’s just a turnoff. And it’s permeated sport, particularly the NBA, where the show tramples over the game.
Even if you hate the NBA (actually, especially if you hate the NBA) you need to read the whole thing.
posted by tbogg at 10:24 PM
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Syrup of Ipe-lileks
We read it and twenty minutes later we twow up...
We have discovered the charms of the Hokey Pokey. Gnat likes to stand on her bed, sing along, and thrust out the various appendages as the song commands. I am still unclear as to which portion of this dance constitutes the Hokey Pokey.
Put your right foot in. This is done by putting your right foot out. It’s “in” only inasmuch as you are imagining some space before you, the occupation of which comprises a necessarily element of this ritual.
You put your right foot out. This is done by withdrawing your foot - e.g., pulling it in.
You put your right foot in and you shake it all about. Noted.
You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. Now, hold on, mister. Is the turning one’s self around the Hokey Pokey? No. The turning around is clearly separate, otherwise we’d sing You do the Hokey Pokey by turning yourself around or You do the Hokey Pokey which, to be specific, consists of rotating your body either clockwise or counterclockwise or something like that. But no. The actual mechanics of the Hokey Pokey (or, as we call it here, the Unconvincingly Amateurish Lancing) are never described. Worse yet, that’s what it’s all about.
Every parent has wondered these things. Every damn one. That’s what makes us different from children. We agonize over the meanings of this doggerel. Kids just do the frickin’ Hokey Pokey.
We anxiously await more heartwarming stories about Jim's other not-quite-as-cute kids: Tick and Chigger.....
posted by tbogg at 9:27 PM
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Wednesday night naturalism lesson...
Tonight we take up the Common or Least Weasel:
The common and least weasel of Eurasia (Mustela nivalis) and the least weasel of Russia and North America (M. rixosa) are closely related but somewhat different in appearance and breeding biology, and there is still no agreement on the relationship between them. At the moment, M. rixosa is generally regarded as a subspecies of M. nivalis.
The common/least weasel is a specialist predator of small rodents, and also takes small birds and lizards whenever opportunity offers. It probably evolved in the far north during the glacial ages, and became well adapted to hunting voles and lemmings under snow. It is active any time of the day or night, but rarely seen. It is among the more common and widespread of the native carnivores of Britain and much of Europe, but is less common in North America. The absence of voles in New Zealand is a disadvantage to weasels, and is probably the reason that they are much less common there, and are of less concern to conservation, than are stoats.
Check back next week when we take up the Greater Northeastern Skank
posted by tbogg at 9:15 PM
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Someone want to help Andy out with this one?...I didn't think so.
Jeebus. It's like explaining a knock-knock joke.
THE FRENCH AND AMERICAN CASUALTIES: Some in Paris are ecstatically happy at the thought of dead Americans.
Andrew Sullivan. Irony-impaired or just plain stupid?
I report. You deride.
posted by tbogg at 4:24 PM
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PI to Nethercutt: Bite Me....
Poor George Nethercutt. Looks like he's got that context problem that seems to crop up whenever not very smart people try to speak off the cuff.
It started with this:
Rep. George Nethercutt said yesterday that Iraq's reconstruction is going better than is portrayed by the news media, citing his recent four-day trip to the country.
"The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable," Nethercutt, R-Wash., told an audience of 65 at a noon meeting at the University of Washington's Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs.
"It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day."
He added that he did not want any more soldiers to be killed.
But, you see, that little part about "more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day" is hurting his faltering Senatorial campaign:
U.S. Senate candidate George Nethercutt has bought newspaper advertisements to lambaste the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for a news story he called "the equivalent of a negative political commercial against me."
In ads appearing today in the P-I and The Seattle Times, the Republican congressman from Spokane accused the P-I of publishing a story that "deliberately distorted" remarks he made about Iraq in a speech at the University of Washington Oct. 13.
The P-I reported Oct. 14 that Nethercutt said Iraq's reconstruction was going better than news media portrayed it and that he added, "The story of what we've done in the postwar period is remarkable. ... It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day."
The story, paraphrasing Nethercutt's next words, said the congressman "added that he did not want any more soldiers to be killed."
Nethercutt criticized the P-I for not quoting his remarks fully. He said his full remarks that the paper partly quoted and partly paraphrased were these: "So the story is better than we might be led to believe in the news. I'm just indicting the news people, but it's, it's a bigger and better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day which, which heaven forbid is awful."
The PI responded today:
Consider Rep. George Nethercutt's media condemnation over six words. He wants to be quoted in full, instead of a reporter's paraphrase that said: "He added that he did not want any more soldiers to be killed."
Let's concede that Nethercutt believes the death of U.S. soldiers is, heaven forbid, awful.
But that does not change the notion that Nethercutt wants the news media to concentrate on painting Iraq in wonderful pastels. We're making progress, don't you know? (Please ignore today's headlines.)
Sorry, George. You want it both ways. You want citizens to know that you care about their sons and daughters who are overseas in harm's way -- but the story you want told is not about the dangers and chaos troops face. No. You want the news to report the steady progress in Iraq as reported by the Bush administration.
Consider, again, the quote in question -- fleshed out a bit more.
"The story of what we have done in the postwar period ... is remarkable," Nethercutt said, because the coalition has been rebuilding power plants, police stations, schools and other infrastructure, as well as taking early steps toward self-governance. "So the story is better than we might be led to believe in the news. I'm indicting the news people. It's a bigger and better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day, which, which, heaven forbid, is awful."
A bigger and better story? Thank you, George, for clarifying your callow, shallow position.
I guess an endorsement from the PI is out of the question, now, isn't it?
(Added): Boy. They don't like Nethercutt at all.
posted by tbogg at 4:05 PM
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A Frolic of His Own
Donald Luskin is getting all litigious and stuff.
Hope he goes after this guy too.
I'm not one to judge whether Donald Luskin is a stalker or not, although some guy named Donald Luskin says he is, but I do know a thin-skinned prick when I see one.
posted by tbogg at 3:28 PM
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This guy is really good
Tom Toles hits another homerun
posted by tbogg at 3:08 PM
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Quoth the Democrats...
Kos has the good quotes on Mission Accomplished boy. Hey... Liberman can be sarcastic! I still won't vote for him though....
posted by tbogg at 10:18 AM
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On the other hand, if the Freepers collect 'em all, that's just less money they'll have for ammunition...
Conservatives are supposed to be a sober lot concerned with tax cuts, illegal immigrants, national security, and making sure that people of the dusky hue stay in their place, so it should not come as any surprise that they need to unwind sometimes. What with the pressure of ensuring freedom in countries that sit upon massive stocks of potential petroleum products, well, sometimes a pasty white guy needs more than a stiff drink and a female lobbyist to boink to let the pressures of the world run down the drain like so much toxic run-off from a campaign contributor. That's why they have dolls.
There is, of course, the George Bush action figure that allows them to recreate those halcyon days when Whistle Ass was defending Texas from the godless gooks by avoiding service and spending his time huffing Krylon while practicing his rudimentary Spanish skills on underaged Mexican hookers.
Then there is the Donald Rumsfeld doll with its 28 "Rummyisms" all of which are rhetorical questions that Lil Rummy answers himself.
The Ann Coulter action figure which are just recycled Ilsa, Nazi She-Wolf dolls that have had the charm removed. Sure she's not as slutty looking as a Bratz doll, but you should see her go-go-go after you buy her a Happy Meal.
And now, showing that no bar is ever too low, you can hold little unattended-USO shows with the Dennis Miller doll that really is anatomically correct. Just pull the string and the Miller doll makes an obscure cultural reference followed by the sound of crickets chirping and then silence...It's like you're really at an open mike night with Dennis! Flop sweat sold separately....
Unfortunately the Dick Cheney doll has been held off the market for the time being due to the fact that it needs new batteries everyday....
posted by tbogg at 10:07 AM
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Why we are staying inside
It's not too pretty out there.
Here's a collection of images from San Diego
posted by tbogg at 6:54 AM
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George Bush is a miserable failure
There. Now I've said it and you should too.
(Thanks to Kim for getting me on board)
posted by tbogg at 12:04 AM
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Tuesday, October 28, 2003
"...this dour, dyspeptic, sanctimonious persona"
Camille Paglia is back at Salon and she's just as vital and important to our great national discourse as she was two years ago, which is to say that she's not.
I'm sure her description of Howard Dean (used above) was lifted verbatim from her "mirror, mirror, on the wall" session that starts her day off every morning. Fortunately we are spared her usual reference to her partner Heather, intended to remind us that she is still loved and desirable. But then who needs to be desirable to others when you've got a big fat love affair with yourself to tend to:
Blog reading for me is like going down to the cellar amid shelves and shelves of musty books that you're condemned to turn the pages of. Bad prose, endless reams of bad prose! There's a lack of discipline, a feeling that anything that crosses one's mind is important or interesting to others. People say that the best part about writing a blog is that there's no editing -- it's free speech without institutional control. Well, sure, but writing isn't masturbation -- you've got to self-edit.
Now and then one sees the claim that Kausfiles was the first blog. I beg to differ: I happen to feel that my Salon column was the first true blog. My columns had punch and on-rushing velocity. They weren't this dreary meta-commentary, where there's a blizzard of fussy, detached sections nattering on obscurely about other bloggers or media moguls and Washington bureaucrats. I took hits at media excesses, but I directly commented on major issues and personalities in politics and pop culture.
Okay. Maybe that wasn't writing as masturbation, but I think it at least qualifies as a dry hump...
posted by tbogg at 11:54 PM
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Jonah's mom is a bitch
shes a big fat bitch
shes the biggest bitch in the whole wide world
shes a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch
shes a bitch to all the boys and girls
Yeah. We're talking about Lucianne. The antidote for Viagra. While there are some people who want to know why the Administration was asleep at the wheel come 9/11, Lucianne thinks it's just not that important. And that Thomas Kean guy who was appointed by President Whistle Ass to look into the matter? Well he's getting a little too big for his britches what with all his demands for that "super-secret" information that Dick Cheney has hidden in Lynne's lingerie drawer just under her merkin collection:
Governor Who? No one has paid any attention to former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean for so long he's O.D.-ing on his current star turn. Appointed to head a commission to study 9/11, he's gone all grand and put himself above the White House in his demands for super-secret information. In a statement to the New York Times yesterday he stated, "any document that has to do with this investigation cannot be beyond our reach . . . I will not stand for it." Kean and John Kerry should do lunch. They are both so...French.
You see, the widows and widowers and children without parents don't need to know why their government failed them two years ago, because Kean is so..."French". You can bet that Lucianne would be singing a different tune if Jonah had been in the towers on 9/11 and there wasn't enough of her boy left to fill an ashtray...
Meanwhile, John Podhoretz defends the cover-up with a unique twist: What we may discover might divide us and we would lose faith in those who led us into an idiotic war:
THE horrors in Baghdad over the past few days have reminded us of the inhuman nature of our militant Islamic foes - and how their mission now as ever is to dishearten and divide us so that we will eventually run away from Iraq and the Middle East and give them free rein.
The multiple attacks are certainly disheartening. And the rancorous divisions inside the United States about the war in Iraq and the War on Terror are only growing.
The race for the Democratic nomination is now entirely dedicated to the proposition that a) the war on Iraq was a mistake and b) that the major domestic effort in the war on terror - the USA Patriot Act - is a dangerous and horrible piece of legislation.
The mainstream media have taken the gloves off, investing enormous resources and newsprint space in service of the contention that the administration went to war with Iraq for no good reason.
And now the independent commission chosen by the president to investigate the inability of the U.S. government to prevent the 9/11 attacks is showing signs of becoming a runaway train. Unnamed officials declare themselves "frustrated" by the White House's refusal to turn over certain internal documents and are threatening to subpoena them.
[snip]
Why would the White House withhold such information when it can be so easily accused of a coverup? Because if the White House accedes to the notion that any and every piece of paper the president sees can theoretically be accessed by anybody at any time, that is the end of any capacity for the government to keep secrets.
That's the principle of the thing. Here's the hard reality behind the need for executive privilege: There are 10 members of the commission, and a staff. Perhaps Kean can be sure that the details of this ultimate classified information will not leak. But given his own clear hunger to grandstand, Kean offers scant comfort that he will have any disciplinary power over his fellow members and his staffers.
Kean wants these documents. To get them, he has decided to wage public war against the administration. "There are a lot of theories about 9/11, and as long as there is any document out there that bears on any of those theories, we're going to leave questions unanswered," Kean told the Times. "And we cannot leave questions unanswered."
In the name of clearing up conspiracy theories, Kean has now made it inevitable that the conspiracy theorists will never accept the commission's findings. With the preening self-righteousness that characterizes his blessedly anachronistic brand of liberal Republicanism, Thomas Kean has now only added to the ugly divisiveness of the present moment.
Shorter John Podhoretz?: Accountability = Anti-Americanism among a people who can't handle the truth.
Secrecy is good. Don't remember 9/11. Go back to sleep....
posted by tbogg at 11:09 PM
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I brought my baseball bat...so where's the beehive?
I think I liked Trent Lott better when he was just a harmless garden-variety country club racist. According to Billmon:
Asked whether he favored any policy changes in Iraq, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) responded: “We need to have a different mix of troops, is the key. We may need to move some troops around”...
In a sign of frustration, he offered an unorthodox military solution: “If we have to, we just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You’re dealing with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people, and we need to be very aggressive in taking them out.”
This must be part of Operation Make Boykin Look Sane.
It's working...
posted by tbogg at 10:44 PM
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Playin' with dollz...
The Concerned Women of America are taking a few days off from handing over control of other women's second & third trimesters to Penis-Americans™ in order to take up an even greater threat to Godly Christian Womanhood®: Bratz.
Somebody needs to take the chip off of some Lefty’s shoulder and hurl it down the aisle at Toys R Us and do a little damage. While we’ve all been distracted by big-ticket culture war skirmishes, like the recent Madonna-Britney kissing spectacle, toy manufacturers have been suavely working on another seduction of our pre-teen girls.
The weapon is the heir to the Barbie kingdom, a new doll line called “Bratz,” modelled on hooker chic. Nobody seems to have listened when Whoopi Goldberg warned, “White parents have no clue that their kids are being indoctrinated into ghetto values and culture.”
Apparently not, indeed. The delivery method for the “Bratz” line is even more direct, and dangerous, than MTV: it’s parents. The New York Times is reporting that the makers of Bratz dolls, MGA Entertainment, has racked up $1 billion in sales since the dolls’ introduction in 2001, and that their market research indicates that mothers of pre-teens are the prime customers.
Nice gift.
With their glazed expressions, pumped lips and trampy clothes, these dolls are light years away from the American Girl dolls that too many little girls now consider “babyish.”
In these days of anorexia anxiety, some are celebrating the dolls’ “more realistic” body proportions. And true enough, these dolls don’t seem to have Barbie’s surgically enhanced chest. But is it any better to replace one advertisement for cosmetic surgery with another one? These Bratz dolls all obviously make regular trips to the plastic surgeon for collagen lip injections. And their makeup, on dolls targeted at 8 to 14-year-olds, would make a Broadway performer playing to the back of the hall feel underdone.
Hmmmm. Let's look at a Bratz doll Dana. As you can see....she's a ho.
Compare her with American Girl, Molly.
That's a tough call. On the one hand, Bratz Dana looks a little too ethnic, a little too stylish, a little too exotic. American Girl Molly, on the other hand, is quite, well, white, very sensible, and exotic too, but only if you live in Utah.
But let's get back to Ms. Crouse's point:
This is worth thinking about and emphasizing as Halloween approaches and legions of wannabe “bratz” hit the streets. Our three young granddaughters, ages 3, 6 and 10, are excited about the upcoming opportunity to dress up. They have been invited to a party this weekend to celebrate All Saint’s Day, for which they are encouraged to dress up as a saint. Hannah Ruth and Sarah Shaw, have obvious choices. The third, little Helena Gilbert, declared that she would dress as Mary, after observing sadly that everyone except her, including her brother John, has a name from a Biblical character.
Our daughter then told her that, actually, in addition to her Aunt Helen, for whom she was named, there is a saint named Helena. The historian Eusebius tells us that Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, was a devout woman, committed to advancing the cause of Christ’s church. A very wealthy woman, Helena worked avidly in aiding the poor and destitute, and built several magnificent churches. She was granted the title “augusta” by her son the emperor, and coins inscribed nobilissima femina were minted in her honor, so Helena was certainly able to afford a “passion for fashion” herself. But apparently her sights were set elsewhere. Eusebius adds that Helena was “continually worshipping in church, humbly dressed among the women praying there.”
When our Helena, who is a devoted doll owner I might add, heard of her illustrious namesake, she sighed contentedly.
“This,” she said, “is the happiest day of my life.”
But only till the day she gets her first one of these...
posted by tbogg at 10:29 PM
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Must be some kind of America hater....
America's most dangerous liberal pundit:
The public relations campaign isn't working.
That's because there comes a point where you can't spin reality.
In the past 48 hours, suicide blasts have killed dozens of people in Iraq, and Paul Wolfowitz has escaped injury in an attack on his hotel. American troops are simply not in control of a significant chunk of the country.
Six months ago, Iraq seemed a large feather in the commander-in-chief's cap. Now when the Democrats get together to debate, they seem far more impassioned about Iraq and the $87 billion than their bread-and-butter issues of jobs and the economy.
Are some things getting better in Iraq? Sure. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's "long hard slog" memo may be as good a summary as we're going to get out of this administration. It's pretty scary to think that we can't even protect the Baghdad hotel where most American officials were based.
All this might not have quite the same resonance if the president had gone to war with more widespread support from Americans, not to mention from around the world. And if he hadn't sold the war as a showdown over WMDs that still haven't materialized. This has fostered a sense that we waged a war of our choosing without adequately planning for the consequences, or with a lousy plan whose weaknesses are now on display each day.
The war over the postwar, in short, is now as heated as the war over the war itself. And we are stuck, for now, because abandoning Iraq simply is not an option.
How can this Saddam-loving, blame-America-first, fifth columnist get away with such treason?
posted by tbogg at 8:13 PM
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I'm sorry. How many in your party...?
Here we see the embarrassed maitre'd realizing that he seated the bin Zayed Al Nahayan party by the fireplace when they had specifically asked for a booth....
posted by tbogg at 7:38 PM
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Wu you talkin' to...?
Steve over at No More Mr Nice Blog points out that Condoleeza " It's Not Raining Men" Rice has a new nickname:
"The Unsticker." Not quite as catchy as, say, Ghostface Killah, but, well, maybe if she spells it "Tha Unstikka"....
If he had done his homework he would have known that Condi (as all the homes down at the NSC call her) already has a Wu Name: World-Class Programmah, yo.
posted by tbogg at 7:29 PM
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Well you wish upon a star that turns into a plane
And I guess that's right on par
Who's left to blame?
The Republican Party is getting all star-struck...even when the " star" is just a burnt-out not-quite-a-flash in the pan.
IS CALIFORNIA READY for Dennis Miller as its next United States senator? Laugh if you like, but some Republican strategists (including a few who just sent a certain movie star to Sacramento) see Miller, the sardonic comedian whose late-night talk show lasted just a little longer than Wesley Clark's Iowa campaign, as wholly capable of defeating incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer next year.
Yes, that's the same Dennis Miller who does commentary Friday nights on Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes"--and also has a recurring role on Fox's "Boston Public." The same Dennis Miller who was unceremoniously drop-kicked from ABC's Monday Night Football. The same comedian and author whose "Dennis Miller Live" ran for nine years on HBO, following a turn on "Saturday Night Live" as the Weekend Update anchor.
It's also the same Dennis Miller who emerged earlier this year as the loudest pro-Bush/pro-war voice in Hollywood--and, during recall, was one of Arnold's biggest boosters in the entertainment community. So supportive of the Governator was Miller that he took part in post-debate spin following the infamous Arnold-Arianna insultfest.
"There's a lot of us who'd like to see him campaign," Rob Stutzman, the governor-elect's communications director, told the Los Angeles Times in late September. "Dennis Miller is at the cutting edge of biting political commentary."
Did someone say the "cutting edge of biting political commentary"? Here's some of that " cutting edge". Careful, it's mighty sharp:
Hey, get this...I want to talk about space travel.
was drawn to the topic by this week’s story of China sending up their first astronaut. I was shocked that it took the Chinese this long. How could a nation that prides itself on being on the cutting edge of quelling independent thought have taken this long to launch a man into space?
It made me think about our Space Program and how awe-struck we all were at the beginning and why we should now discontinue it for a while. Sure, it really mattered at one time when we had to put the Soviet Union in its place. But the USSR has since disintegrated like (Boris) Yeltsin's liver and the hard truth is that the Space Program is now just a bunch of guys from the A.V. team wearing a Kon-Tiki raft of Bic pens in their shirt pockets and renaming Martian rocks Snagglepuss.
"Kon-Tiki raft of Bic pens..." Heh heh heh. Cutting...witty in that South Park Republican kind of way that I don't get because you know us " square" liberals...
posted by tbogg at 7:14 PM
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My Big Fat Mission Accomplished Lie
George W Bush lied today.
I know...It is sooooo unlike him.
Kos has the details.
posted by tbogg at 3:33 PM
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Darkness at noon
We've been asked to leave our offices. Apparently there's a new fire in the Encinitas area, and they have now closed part of Interstate 5. The sky outside my window has gone from a dim yellow to orange (Mild Cheddar-looking with a possibility of turning Colby), so I guess I'll be posting from home today.
You know, this never happened when Clinton was President......
posted by tbogg at 1:14 PM
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I will try not to breathe
We're okay. ...but San Diego is sure messed up.
I'm at work and we're a few miles from the Scripps Ranch fire and the smoke is still pretty bad. We're allowing any employee who wants to go home that option, and some of the people who want to stay are sitting at their desks wearing masks. Visibility from my office window (corner office...I rock) is about a half mile, with the air a dirty grey-brown.
We have confirmed that my daughter's best friend and her family lost their house. Their whole street is gone except for one house. Oh, and since it has become a big discussion over at Atrios, their roof was composite, not shake. The fire was unimpressed.
I'll be back later today.
Meanwhile (because the world is still turning) read this about crime in the Bush era, and this about gay rights and this because we need something to laugh at today.
posted by tbogg at 10:35 AM
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Sunday, October 26, 2003
Live...from hell
We're a few miles from the devastation in San Diego. We are fortunate to live right on the coast, so we're not directly affected, since the problems are more toward the eastern suburbs. Unfortunately we have many friends who live in the Scripps Ranch area which has taken the brunt of the disaster. Based on news reports, we believe that a few of these dear friends may have lost their homes, possibly including the family of my daughter's best friend. We just don't know now. Additionally, due to freeway closures, I can't get to my parents who are within a few miles of one of the new outbreaks, but they are safe for now.
Virtually all schools have been canceled for tomorrow and employers are being asked to keep their employees at home. As bad as it looks on TV...it's worse. I'm miles away from the fires and enough ash has fallen throughout the day that it has started to form drifts. Satchmo the Wonder Basset and I walked three blocks to pick up a paper this morning and we both came home coughing. It's that bad.
Again, we're fine and safe, and we appreciate your concern, but there are so many people who need help. Check with you local Red Cross.
Blogging may be a little light for a few days as I have other concerns regarding friends and family.
Jon at San Diego Solilioquies has more. I've met Jon's brother, and Jon's niece is a friend of my daughter's from school. I hope Jon is wrong about their home.
Here's some more from Matt Hoy. Nothing from Steven den Beste yet. I assume that he's working on a treatise on the origins of fire.
posted by tbogg at 7:55 PM
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Friday, October 24, 2003
Your thought for the weekend
Motivation
Thanks. I'll be here all next week.....
posted by tbogg at 2:56 PM
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Glad to help you out, Andy. Can I introduce you to Google?
Poor Sully. A crusader in search of a crusade:
NYT WEIRDNESS: Two oddities leaped out at me this morning, reading the (much improved) New York Times. The first was the Machiavellian assertion that Donald Rumsfeld leaked his own memo. here's the editorial:
Mr. Rumsfeld is a canny player who knows exactly what he is doing when he drafts internal memos and makes them public.
This would be big news. So what evidence does the NYT have for it? The original leak was to USA Today. Does the NYT know something about USA Today's source? Or is this just made up?
From the original USA Today article:
Three members of Congress who met with Rumsfeld Wednesday morning said the defense secretary gave them copies of the memo and discussed it with them.
"He's asking the tough questions we all need to be asking," said Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas.
You see...it wasn't a leak....oh, never mind. Here, Andy:
Bush said an attack from Iraq was IMMINENT.
Go, fetch, play with that in the yard for a few days...
posted by tbogg at 12:54 PM
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Dewey beats Truman! We want Boykin's head on a stick...whoopsie... strike that.
Since all the editors over at National Review are hip deep in Rich Lowry's Legacy at the moment, they couldn't manage to get the right editorial up on Christian Crusader Boykin:
CORRECTION ON BOYKIN [NR Editors]
National Review, in the issue out today, runs an editorial paragraph that it did not mean to run. We had a debate among the editors--as we debate many things--about Gen. William Boykin, who recently made some highly provocative remarks about the war on terror. Some editors felt that he should be fired forthwith; others demurred. A draft editorial paragraph was prepared, stating the position that Boykin should be fired; at just about the last minute, we decided to withhold judgment--to see how the investigation into the general’s behavior proceeded, and to reach a conclusion then.
Because of a production error, that paragraph--the one calling for Boykin’s head--went to the printer. And thus appears in the magazine. We removed it from our html edition, but about the “hard copy edition,” we could do nothing.
We will weigh in again--finally and definitively--on General Boykin, when we, along with everyone else, know all that we should know.
What they meant to say was:
It's Clintons fault.....
posted by tbogg at 12:32 PM
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Nope. Your reason isn't this shell. Nope. Not that one either. Wanna try again?
Billmon points out that some of our soldiers didn't believe the administration when they said; Yours is not to reason why, yours is but to do or die.
posted by tbogg at 12:24 PM
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Our Lord is standing by to take your calls....
You know God. He gets all busy on the weekend what with all the football players he has to help score the big touchdown while leading their team on to Godly victory over the other team that just wasn't praying hard enough. Anyway, because he's all booked up this weekend (Notre Dame is playing, aren't they?) it's imporatnt that you get your prayers in early to beat the weekend crush. According to the Presidential Prayer Team, worthy prayer recipients this week are:
Attorney General
John Ashcroft
Secretary of Labor
Elaine Chao
White House Chief of Staff
Andrew Card
Director Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
Bradley A. Buckles
Remember, when praying for John Ashcroft, you don't have to mention him by name. Your Son will suffice...
posted by tbogg at 10:48 AM
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They're funny because they're true...
Telnaes...as usual.
and
Ben Sargent
posted by tbogg at 10:36 AM
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How's that career death-spiral going...? Good. Good. Glad to hear it.
It's good to see that the right's favorite yuckster (okay, he's not their favorite. I mean, c'mon, who can compete with Mallard Fillmore?) Dennis Miller has landed a gig (as he would assuredly would call it in that 70's hipster patois he seems trapped in) on Fox's Boston Public.
Next on Boston Public:
Chapter Seventy-One
Convicted of securities fraud, an investment banker (Dennis Miller) avoids incarceration by teaching math at Winslow High School; a woman (Sherilyn Fenn) crashes into Guber's vehicle.
Tonight at 8:00 p.m.
As soon as I saw "fraud" I said to myself: There they go again. Typecasting.
Unfortunately for Miller he's only good for three episodes of BP and then it's back to being the opening act at Chamber of Commerce Pancake Breakfasts mainly because he didn't manage to land that role on CBS's Two and A Half Men. Sadly, the role of the half a man was already filled. I hear he's kinda bitter about that....
posted by tbogg at 9:58 AM
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A daily dose of crap....
From World O' Crap:
MARK STEYN JOINS NRODT
If you subscribe to NR Digital (or NRODT--Digital is included) you could be reading Mark Steyn's first "Happy Warrior" column for NRODT RIGHT NOW.
NRO, which fired Ann Coulter after her "invade their countries" column, probably would have hired her back, since they know how popular she is among perverts who want to see her naked. But after she called Jonah Goldberg a "girly-man," it made things too awkward.
So, they hired Ann Coulter-impersonator Mark Steyn (yes, this IS just like Victor/Victoria), who also calls for invading countries and killing leaders, but who has expressed only the highest regard for Jonah's manliness.
I soooo wish I had written that...
posted by tbogg at 9:42 AM
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It's probably some kind of media bias thing...
I've often wondered (well, not often, but I did think about it once or twice) about the complaints about Paul Krugman. One of the main thrusts of their argument is that, as an economist, he has no standing or qualifications to write on political matters. As Kevin Drum might say, I'll leave that determination to others. But I find it interesting that the same class of people who condemn Krugman for straying off the economics plantation so wholeheartedly clasp Thomas Sowell to their collective scrawny bosoms.
I have a theory about this:
I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the punditocracy. The talking heads has been very desirous that a black economist do well. There is a little hope invested in Sowell, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of the Republican Party that he didn't deserve. The Religious Right carried this team.
Thanks for listening. If you need me, I'll be in rehab.....
posted by tbogg at 9:36 AM
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Gilead Illustrated...the Swimsuit Edition
It only makes sense during a time when the Administration is using George Orwells 1984 as a blueprint, that the people who believe that the human body is the devil's Dave & Busters would also seek literary inspiration from some of the books that they haven't burned...yet. Taking a tip from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale, comes next summer's fashions for the woman whose body is a sacred temple that all eyes must be averted from, and who only want to shave from the ankles down...
Are you ready for WholesomeWear?
Check out these sultry little vamps.
Yup. Deck out your little eternal virgin in one of these numbers and you can guarantee her a lifetime of social awkwardness, Saturday nights with a Josh Groban CD and and a Diana Galbaldon novel, and a roomful of cats named after all the children she never had....
(Thanks to Chris...again)
posted by tbogg at 9:08 AM
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Thursday, October 23, 2003
Everyone's a critic....
He does not like how He is being portrayed:
Jesus actor struck by lightning
Actor Jim Caviezel has been struck by lightning while playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's controversial film The Passion Of Christ.
The lightning bolt hit Caviezel and the film's assistant director Jan Michelini while they were filming in a remote location a few hours from Rome.
It was the second time Michelini had been hit by lightning during the shoot.
Jesus is still pissed that Vin Diesel didn't get the part, but, hey, that's what happens when you give up creative control....
(Thanks to emma)
posted by tbogg at 11:15 PM
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Facts, statistics, and other Cheney lies.
Looks like Dick Cheney (pasty guy? bad heart? talks out the side of his mouth?... that guy) doesn't play well with others work. Zogby is not amused:
“There was a poll done, just random in the last week, first one I’ve seen carefully done; admittedly, it’s a difficult area to poll in. Zogby International did it with American Enterprise magazine. But that’s got very positive news in it in terms of the numbers it shows with respect to the attitudes to what Americans have done.
“One of the questions it asked is: ‘If you could have any model for the kind of government you’d like to have’ — and they were given five choices — ‘which would it be?’ The US wins hands down. If you want to ask them do they want an Islamic government established, by 2:1 margins they say no, including the Shiite population. If you ask how long they want Americans to stay, over 60 percent of the people polled said they want the US to stay for at least another year. So admittedly there are problems, especially in that area where Saddam Hussein was from, where people have benefited most from his regime and who’ve got the most to lose if we’re successful in our enterprise, and continuing attacks from terror. But to suggest somehow that that’s representative of the country at large or the Iraqi people are opposed to what we’ve done in Iraq or are actively and aggressively trying to undermine it, I just think that’s not true.”
In fact, Zogby International (ZI) in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) did publish their interpretation of the findings. But the AEI’s “spin” and the vice president’s use of their “spin” created a faulty impression of the poll’s results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people.
For example, while Cheney noted that when asked what kind of government they would like, Iraqis chose “the US... hands down,” in fact, the results of the poll are actually quite different. Twenty-three percent of Iraqis say that they would like to model their new government after the US; 17.5 percent would like their model to be Saudi Arabia; 12 percent say Syria, 7 percent say Egypt and 37 percent say “none of the above.” That’s hardly “winning hands down.”
It is so unlike De-Fib Dick to mess these things up.....
(Thanks to tbogg stringer Chris)
posted by tbogg at 11:07 PM
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Cuba, si. Bush, no
The Daily Kos has a great post on Bush and his Cuban Crime of Fascism...
Maybe one day we can all visit Cuba and try and make up for decades of American bullheadness and stupidity.
posted by tbogg at 10:44 PM
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Burn down the mission
The Jeebo-fascists are getting uppity:
Religious conservatives say that with an arsenal of prayer vigils, Christian radio broadcasts and thousands of e-mail messages to Florida lawmakers, they played a pivotal role in the legislative battle this week over whether to feed a brain-damaged woman who has been kept alive artificially for 13 years.
Now some conservatives are hoping to use similar tactics to help them challenge court rulings they opposed in other states.
Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, said he and other conservatives intended to use what they consider a stunning victory here to pressure lawmakers elsewhere to chip away at court rulings allowing abortion and banning organized prayer in schools and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools, among other issues.
"Finally, a governor and legislature had the courage to stand up to judicial despots because of an overwhelming call by the public," Mr. Terry said.
And after the State of Florida inserted itself into the lives of the Schiavo's, Terry had this to say:
"This was a huge victory for one innocent woman," Mr. Terry said, "and it was a small victory for the return to self-government."
Thousands of irony meters throughout the State of Florida immediately burst into flames...
posted by tbogg at 10:38 PM
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I took the I 95 down to Pensacola
All I found was a bunch of holyrollers
They don't know nothing 'bout saving me
It seems that we're losing control of our lives. You've got unqualified men telling women and their doctors what medical procedures they will allow, and you got busybody "do-gooders" and opportunistic politicians inserting themselves into the private lives of married couples. The same groups that decry the "nanny state" want to set up base-camp in our pants and in our doctors offices. The same man that doesn't want the government to know how many guns he has in his closet wants to know what is going on behind your bedroom door.
Given the choice, I'll take an adulterous Democrat over a theocrat any day, thank you very much. At least you know who they're trying to screw.
posted by tbogg at 12:35 PM
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Timeline management
From the shampoo aisle of Target, James Lileks writes:
The Rummymemo flap is depressing on a number of levels. Oh, in one respect, it’s heartening; you could take it to mean “okay, we’ve conquered Afghanistan and Iraq; is there anything else we should be doing?” - a sentiment which would have seemed quite reassuring to some after 9/11. (And horrifying to others, who hoped that having been knocked flat by a sucker punch, we would crawl back to our corner, spit into the bucket, and request permission from the French and German judges to declare the bout a draw.) It’s not an “admission of failure, ” as Daschle put it - hell, the administration could put Osama’s head on a stick in the Rose Garden, and Daschle would call it an admission of failure that they hadn’t located the torso. I will never trust these people with national security again. Never, never, never. We’re in the fight of our lives, and all they can do is carp and bitch and piss and moan, because - as was the case with many conservatives in the Bosnian conflict - it’s not their war.
(My emphasis)
Ahem. September 11, 2001. Officers on duty: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet.
Proof, once again, that having a big forehead doesn't neccesarily mean having a big brain.
...and what's with this "We’re in the fight of our lives..." crap? The only thing it looks like Lileks is fighting is dustbunnies about the homestead and recalcitrant electronics. I hope he's not expecting a medal...
posted by tbogg at 9:18 AM
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No physician expert on late abortion has ever testified in person before a congressional committee.
How decisions are made:
As the misleadingly titled "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban" makes its way to the president's desk, anti-abortion groups are celebrating their public relations victory. But beneath the hoopla, the bill's medical consequences remain murky. Exactly which procedures will be banned, and which doctors prosecuted? Will the anti-abortion lobby be happier with the alternative methods to which doctors will resort? If not, which methods and doctors will be targeted next? Will this ban have a chilling effect on related procedures? If so, will it prevent abortions—or births?
I ask these questions because I am a potential target of this legislation. Almost exactly 30 years ago, shortly after Roe v. Wade, I started performing abortions on a full-time basis in Boulder, Colo., at the state's first free-standing nonprofit abortion clinic, where I was the founding medical director. In my private practice, I perform many abortions as late as the 26th week of pregnancy, and some as late as the 34th week.
I don't know the answers to the questions I've posed above, and neither does Congress. No physician expert on late abortion has ever testified in person before a congressional committee. No peer-reviewed articles or case reports have ever been published describing anything such as "partial-birth" abortion, "Intact D&E;" (for "dilation and extraction"), or any of its synonyms. There have been no descriptions of its complication rates and no published studies comparing its complication rates with those of any other method of late abortion.
posted by tbogg at 9:05 AM
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The Daily Comics
The Boondocks
Doonesbury
Tom Toles
posted by tbogg at 8:31 AM
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Don't confuse me with facts...I got a book to sell here.
Rich Lowry, who is slightly less butch than Ann Coulter, takes a page from her book: make a stupid unsupportable assertion, get called on it, and then try and change the subject. Matthew Yglesias calls him on it, exposes him, and, oh hell, makes Lowry his bitch.
The question I sought to raise, however, was not whether America's pre-9-11 counterterrorism policy looks flawed in retrospect -- it obviously was -- but whether the editors of the National Review were urging that the Clinton administration do anything substantially different at the time. A search through the magazine's archives rather clearly reveals that they did not. Indeed, the fact that their self-described "main statement of editorial policy on the [Cole] matter" consists of a single paragraph -- the 11th -- of an 18-paragraph summary of the week's events shows that writing about terrorism was not exactly the magazine's priority back in 2000.
Mention of the Cole bombing was buried beneath such items as a defense of racial profiling, a condemnation of Dick Cheney's relatively moderate views on homosexuality, a lament on the weakness of Rick Lazio's New York Senate campaign and a plug for a pro-voucher ballot proposition in California. All of which, one can assume, the National Review thought to be of greater importance than the terrorist attack.
(Thanks to Dave)
posted by tbogg at 10:00 PM
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Shorter Rebecca Hagelin
I'm not above cheapening the life and death of my mother to justify Rush buying drugs illegally.
posted by tbogg at 9:46 PM
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Happy Happy Joy War
Reader Chris calls it the Ministry of Truth. I call it your tax dollars at work.
Somewhere, Charlotte Beers is getting a little verklempt.
I can't believe they forgot to include "Ask Ali Ismail Abbas ". (Warning: it's graphic)
posted by tbogg at 9:04 PM
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If those two crazy kids can't make it....
I get home tonight and go upstairs to put on the ballgame (go Marlins) but the TV is tuned to whatever network carries Entertainment Tonight, where I see a picture of Ripley's Believe It or Not couple, Liza and David.
The caption?
What went wrong?
I
swear
to
God.
posted by tbogg at 7:40 PM
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"But my tits are off limits, Sparky"
Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger used his first official visit to the state Capitol today to name a health care executive and former aide to Republican former Gov. Pete Wilson as his new chief of staff.
Patricia Clarey, 50, served as deputy to Wilson chief of staff Bob White in the mid-1990s after stints in Washington under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. She recently took a leave from her job as vice president of government affairs at Health Net, the state's third largest health maintenance organization, to serve in the Schwarzenegger campaign.
[snip]
``It is an honor to return to public service and work for Governor Schwarzenegger during such an important period in California's history,'' Clarey said in a prepared statement. ``I am committed to the governor's goal of strengthening California's economy and bringing jobs back to the state.''
Clareys first order of business is attracting more Hooters to the Golden State so that they become as ubiquitous as Starbucks. Can't have Arnie going more than a few blocks without a grope.....
posted by tbogg at 4:24 PM
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It's your own damn fault for having a vagina....
Here's Smirky Santorum daydreaming about female genitalia while Senator Kitty Kevorkian talks to the press about the Getcher Ass In the Bedroom and Pop Me Out Some Heirs Bill.
President Barb Woulda Aborted Me If She Had Only Known says he'll sign the bill as soon as Condi finds his favorite color crayon: Menses Red.
President Bush said he would sign newly passed legislation to end the "abhorrent practice" known by critics as partial birth abortion, giving abortion foes a victory that had eluded them for close to a decade.
Abortion rights advocates said they would immediately go to court to stop what they said was a dangerous incursion against the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
The Senate voted 64-34 Tuesday to ban a type of abortion, generally carried out in the second or third trimester, in which a fetus is partially delivered before being killed. The House approved the legislation this month, and Bush has urged Congress to get it to his desk.
"This is very important legislation that will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America," he said in a statement. "I look forward to signing it into law."
This would probably be a good time to ask Whistle Ass about the child he had aborted back in Texas during his crack days.
Meanwhile Santorum, Chabot, and Smith celebrate their dominion over women, particularly all the women that ever smirked, rolled their eyes, and asked them if that was a roll of Certs in their pocket or were they happy to see them.
Corvettes anyone?
posted by tbogg at 4:09 PM
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All worked up and no one to blame
The publication of the Rumsfeld memorandum caused all the warbloggers who are sooooo busy fighting Islamofacism from their rumpus rooms to get their camouflage jammies in a twist. Pitchforks in hand, American flags fluttering form their big brawny shoulders, they were all set to track the America/Bush-hating bastard down and give him whatfor....
Except that the leaker was Rummy:
UPDATE: I'm scanning everything that's being written about this "leak," and I'm still not seeing evidence that it was "leaked." (That evidence may be out there and I'm just missing it.) But what I see in the USA Today story is this: "Three members of Congress who met with Rumsfeld Wednesday morning said the defense secretary gave them copies of the memo and discussed it with them." This is not how you handle a confidential internal memorandum, is it, if you don't want it to see the light of day.
And when the Pentagon spokesman's reaction isn't outrage, but praise for his boss, you have to wonder. (I'm referring to this from USA Today: "Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita declined to comment specifically on the memo, but he said Rumsfeld's style is to "ask penetrating questions" to provoke candid discussion. 'He's trying to keep a sense of urgency alive.'")
I could certainly be wrong, but isn't it possible that we're all falling for a "leak" story here, when actually this dissemination was something that Rumsfeld may have desired?
D'oh!
In the meantime enjoy the fulminatin', chest thumpin', self righteous blather over at the He-Man Let Someone Else Do The Fightin' Circle Jerk.
I loves me this part:
LT Smash, recently returned from the Gulf and Iraq, writes:
These are precisely the kinds of topics that our military leaders need to be discussing. But given the strategic implications of these questions, this should be an internal discussion, not one that is splashed across the front page of the USA TODAY.
I join Glenn Reynolds in calling on the government to subpoena the reporters who wrote this story and compel them to give up their source.
This leaker isn’t a whistleblower who deserves protection. This was an act of treason.
And where are all the people who were screaming about the Plame leak?
Is Glenn going to hold Rummy down while Lt. Smash gives him treason noogies?
Heh. Indeed.....
Next step from the Fightin' Keyboarders: "It's the media spin."
posted by tbogg at 2:15 PM
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I guess it depends upon your definition of "alleged".....
Der Sullivanator:
"HERR GROPENFUHRER": Doonesbury becomes outraged about alleged sexual misbehavior.
Der Arnold:
Saying he has changed his ways, California recall candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger (search) apologized Thursday for offending any women who claim he had sexually harassed them.
"I have offended people, and to those people who I have offended I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize because that is not what I tried to do," Schwarzenegger said in a rally in San Diego.
Don't they get Fox in P-town?
posted by tbogg at 11:19 AM
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The secret is out....
Boondocks
and Ann Telnaes on Republicans
posted by tbogg at 9:33 AM
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More America-hating, Saddam-loving bad news from Iraq.....
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioned whether the United States was doing enough to win the war on terrorism, citing “mixed results” in the fight against al-Qaida in a pointed memo to top Pentagon officials last week.
RUMSFELD SAID the U.S.-led coalitions would win in Afghanistan and Iraq, but not without “a long, hard slog.” He wrote that the United States “has made reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis” but has made “somewhat slower progress” tracking down top Taliban leaders who sheltered al-Qaida in Afghanistan.
The memo, dated Oct. 16 and first reported by USA Today on Wednesday, offered a much more stark assessment of the global war on terrorism than contained in Rumsfeld’s public statements.
"Slog"....quagmire.... no light at the end of the tunnel... Whatever....
Meanwhile:
The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, confirmed on Wednesday an increase in the number of attacks on American troops. His comments came hours after American troops came under new attacks in the center of Baghdad and in the tense Sunni Muslim area west of the capital.
SANCHEZ TOLD REPORTERS that the average of 20-25 attacks daily had increased over the last three weeks “to a peak of 35 attacks a day.” He did not elaborate.
No comment yet from President Bring 'em on....
(Added): Oh Jeebus...first spin of the day:
Perhaps it's time the Pentagon hang a few of those old World War II posters in the hallways--"Loose Lips Sink Ships." Someone within that august building needs to understand that the Secretary of Defense needs to ask hard questions of his subordinates, and that he should be able to do so beyond the glare of a hostile and not at all supportive media and political opposition. That lack of basic opsec has placed a confidential memo from SecDef Rumsfeld to his immediate subordinates, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, into the hands of people who wish them ill, and into the hands of our enemy. Now, because some anonymous leaker wanted to score a hit on his or her boss, there will probably be another mini-scandal about nothing, another anti-war feeding frenzy, and we'll take another dent in the effort to win the war.
Here's the Rumsfeld memo. The press seems to be spinning it, and the Dems are of course spinning it too, as a direct refutation of all the Bush administration's positive public statements on the progress of the war. It is no such thing. It's a strategic document, written to force its small circle of recipients to think about a finite set of circumstances within the larger context of the war, and to justify their positions on the US progress or lack thereof with respect to those circumstances. It is the kind of memo a leader writes to his subordinates when he wants them to maintain focus and think about broad ways to win the war in the long term.
You see, on the first hand the memo is bad because it is damaging to Rumsfeld and the war he is conducting, loose lips sinking the Bushco PR effort and all that. On the other hand it is a sign of his brilliance and amazing adaptability and his leadership, although apparently he's not a good enough leader to manage to keep his people in line and loyal.
Next step: an Aha! we've got them right where we want them moment where someone points out that this is a good sign that Rumsfeld is engaged and on the job and those wily Islamo-facists are on the run now, oh boy, and that the increase in attacks is a sign of their desperation and aren't we lucky to have a leader like Rummy leading....
Extra credit given for the first one to use either the expression "Rumsfeld is thinking outside the box" or "the Rumsfeld Doctrine".
By the way, swap out a few words in this comment:
It's a strategic document, written to force its small circle of recipients to think about a finite set of circumstances within the larger context of the war, and to justify their positions on the US progress or lack thereof with respect to those circumstances. It is the kind of memo a leader writes to his subordinates when he wants them to maintain focus and think about broad ways to win the war in the long term
...and it sounds like every bad memo from an outside business consultant ever written. Too bad, he couldn't find a place to use "paradigm"....
posted by tbogg at 8:23 AM
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Rick Santorum said it would come to this.....
Men...dogs....unnatural
posted by tbogg at 12:33 AM
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Onward Christian lunatic...
Josh Marshall has a few things on our country's Most Sacred Holy Warrior, Jesus-Bob Boykin.
posted by tbogg at 12:13 AM
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When you can't control your own family....control one that's not yours.
Let's see...one of Jeb!'s brothers raided a savings and loan, another one was an inside-trading AWOL crackhead. His daughter forges prescriptions and is a hillbilly heroin addict. One of his sons is a stalker whose girlfriend had to get a restraining order, and his youngest son indulges in statutory rape in mall parking lots. Did I mention that his wife is a smuggler?
So it only makes sense that Jeb! puts on his Father Knows Best sweater and borrows a pipe from brother W and intrudes into the lives of a Florida couple to share the secrets of his success.
Steve at No More Mr Nice Blog has the best wrap-up.
posted by tbogg at 12:09 AM
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Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Hey ladies....
Welcome back to second-class citizenhood.
After years of emotional debate, the Senate voted 64-34 Tuesday to send President Bush legislation to ban what critics call partial birth abortion, the most significant restriction since the landmark Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion three decades ago. Abortion rights groups promised to challenge the law in court as soon as Bush signed it.
[snip]
Bush had urged Congress to pass the ban, which Republicans had pursued since the GOP captured the House in 1995, and the president had said he would sign it into law.
But opponents said the first federal ban on abortion since the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was unconstitutional and, like similar state laws, would be struck down.
The president, said Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. “will become the first United States president to criminalize a safe medical procedure.” Doctors who violate the ban would be subject to prison terms of up to two years.
Oh. And if you need the procedure because your life is in danger...too bad. Say hello to Santorum's god when you see him. Then kick him in the nuts....
How they voted:
Akaka (D-HI), Nay
Alexander (R-TN), Yea
Allard (R-CO), Yea
Allen (R-VA), Yea
Baucus (D-MT), Nay
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Nay
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Breaux (D-LA), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Bunning (R-KY), Yea
Burns (R-MT), Yea
Byrd (D-WV), Yea
Campbell (R-CO), Yea
Cantwell (D-WA), Nay
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Chafee (R-RI), Nay
Chambliss (R-GA), Yea
Clinton (D-NY), Nay
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Coleman (R-MN), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Nay
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Yea
Corzine (D-NJ), Nay
Craig (R-ID), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Yea
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
Dayton (D-MN), Nay
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Nay
Dole (R-NC), Yea
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Yea
Durbin (D-IL), Nay
Edwards (D-NC), Not Voting
Ensign (R-NV), Yea
Enzi (R-WY), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
Fitzgerald (R-IL), Yea
Frist (R-TN), Yea
Graham (D-FL), Nay
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Nay
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hollings (D-SC), Yea
Hutchison (R-TX), Not Voting
Inhofe (R-OK), Yea
Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Jeffords (I-VT), Nay
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kennedy (D-MA), Nay
Kerry (D-MA), Nay
Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Kyl (R-AZ), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Nay
Lieberman (D-CT), Nay
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Miller (D-GA), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Nay
Nelson (D-FL), Nay
Nelson (D-NE), Yea
Nickles (R-OK), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Nay
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Santorum (R-PA), Yea
Sarbanes (D-MD), Nay
Schumer (D-NY), Nay
Sessions (R-AL), Yea
Shelby (R-AL), Yea
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Nay
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Sununu (R-NH), Yea
Talent (R-MO), Yea
Thomas (R-WY), Yea
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Wyden (D-OR), Nay
Congratulations to Republicans Collins & Snowe for standing up for women. Shame on Mary Landrieu & Blanche Lincoln. And even more shame on putative Democratic leaders like Daschle, Leahy, Reid, Byrd, and Biden.
I've bolded the names of the Democrats that voted for this assault on women's rights. Keep this in mind when contributing to the Democratic Party. Your best bet is to not contribute to the party or the DNC, but instead to put your money on the candidate that best represents your beliefs.
posted by tbogg at 3:05 PM
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Light blogging today
Duty calls. Work must be done.
Here is Shorter Tbogg:
Bush sucks
Coulter is insane
Rush is a stoner
Bush is a national embarrassment
Luskin is a stalker
Sullivan gets more ridiculous by the day
Bush lied
Condoleeza is incompetent
Ann Telnaes and Dahlia Lithwick are modern day goddesses
Ben is still a virgin
Every day that Laura Bush gets dressed and goes out in public, Vera Wang cries
The war was wrong
Bush went AWOL
I don't know if Greg Easterbrook is an anti-Semite, but I do know he doesn't know anything about film
Is Rummy destroying the US military? Yes, he is.
WalMart is the greatest source of evil on the planet. Even more so than Creed
Bush and Arnold both have strong backgrounds in illicit pharmaceutical usage
There is something creepy about Elizabeth Smart
If Jonah wasn't the fruit of Lucianne's loins, he'd be selling Amway for a living
The Washington Media are sheep
Dick Cheney is from Wyoming...and you know what they do to sheep there
I miss the peace and prosperity and blow-jobs of the Clinton years
...and everytime a Republican gets elected, God puts a baby bunny in a blender and hits frappe.
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