Saturday, October 22, 2005

MISSING PERSON REPORT--POSSIBLE FUGITIVE

ATTENTION ALL UNITS

The following individual has been listed as missing. We believe that he may have fled the jurisdiction to avoid prosecution:


What I want out of everyone of you is a hard-target search, of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in the area!

Given that it's the World Series....

Which Cardinal is more distasteful?




OR


Discuss.

This is a work of fiction

The Trouble with Harriet

It seems like that every time you turn around, someone else is dumping on poor Harriet. The Chicago Tribune reported this morning that the Catholic church is going WAAAAY out of it's way to say that she wasn't one of theirs. The paper said that "after news media reported that Miers had attended Catholic church during her childhood, diocesan officials searched their records because they suspected the information was incorrect. We don't normally check records for things like this," said [spokesman Brock] Havard, who also is editor of Texas Catholic newspaper, but this was a prominent situation. We wanted the record to be set straight."

We could check with our friend Schmidlap, but it seems odd that a church that embraces him:















is running as fast as it can away from her:















Things that make you go hmmm.
Slate also reported that she may need the job for the money. Apparently she has nowhere near the financial portfolio of someone who headed a major law firm. Another hmmm. And then toss in the huge malpractice settlements her firm paid, double hmmm.

OK, conspiracy theorists, try this one on. The powers behind Chimpy know that the only way a grossly unqualified religious wacko ideologue sees the inside of the Supreme Court is with a tour ticket. After all, I have published more scholarship than she has, but, they let Captain Flightsuit have his fun. The Dems shoot it down, and get liquored up singing "Happy Days Are Here Again."

While Joe Biden leads the gang in a rum-soaked karaoke rendition of Queen's "We Are The Champions," BOOM, the puppeteers behind Chimpy drop an Edith Jones or a Michael Luttig on us. It is the perfect setup. They aren't religious crazies, they have previously been confirmed to appeals courts and the Democrats are too hung over from Harriet-a-palooza to wage an ideological battle. Before you can say "John Birch Society," the hard right winger that the puppetmasters wanted all along is giving high fives to Scalia and Thomas.


Submitted for your consideration.


Book Report

Fox"News"'s John Gibson has a new book out - The War on Christmas : How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought

This book is about how the evil liberals want to do away with Christmas. We all know that all liberals are evil and godless, just like the communists and the Islamicists* and that they hate America too. Everyone knows that this is a CHRISTIAN country and that the founding father never wanted anyone to never not be not CHRISTIAN. My Freedom OF Religion says that if I want my kid's schools' to put on CHristmas plays, then you can't stop me. Your kid need to be CHRISTIAN too since America is CHRISTIAN by majority and majority rules.

Aw crap, I can't do that with a straight face.

But apparently this guy can in his Amazon review:

The Greatest Book Ever Written!, October 20, 2005
Reviewer: Richard Einhorn "richardein" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This one is up there with Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Ethics, Dante's Inferno, and The Left Behind Series.

Cogently argued, thoughtful, bold, outside the box thinking from America's finest living reporter. Comparable in American letters only to Paine's "Common Sense," in which this book abounds. Every single fact was checked, and re-checked against reality.

And if the liberals can succeed with Christmas, wait till they get their greasy little hands on Good Friday. The mind reels.


Fer crying out loud - Plato, Aristotle, Dante, and the Left Behind series? Only two works worth reading since the Greeks - Dante and modern born again crap. Doesn't even list the Bible in his list, but then again, he'd probably have to have read it.

Teach your children well


What do you think of when you see blonde, blue eyed twin 13 year old girls? Exactly, racist hatred and odes to Rudolph Hess.
ABCNews.com reports on a story that sounds like someone made it up because it would be appropriately fucked up, but nope.

Thirteen-year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede have one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans.

They may remind you another famous pair of singers, the Olsen Twins, and the girls say they like that. But unlike the Olsens, who built a media empire on their fun-loving, squeaky-clean image, Lamb and Lynx are cultivating a much darker personna. They are white nationalists and use their talents to preach a message of hate.

Known as "Prussian Blue" — a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes — the girls from Bakersfield, Calif., have been performing songs about white nationalism before all-white crowds since they were nine.

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Lynx and Lamb have been nurtured on racist beliefs since birth by their mother April. "They need to have the background to understand why certain things are happening," said April, a stay-at-home mom who no longer lives with the twins' father. "I'm going to give them, give them my opinion just like any, any parent would."

April home-schools the girls, teaching them her own unique perspective on everything from current to historical events. In addition, April's father surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs — specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.


If you want even more fun, cruise on over to their website.

There you'll find exciting things like information on the Dirndl, traditional German dress. And lyrics.

Victory Day
(by Hawthorne/Latvis)


Well sit down and listen, to what I have to say. Soon will come a great war, a bloody but holy day. And after that purging our people will be free, and sing up in the bright skies, a sun for all to see…….

Times are very tough now for a proud White man to live. And although it may appear that this world has no life to give. Times are soon changing, this cant go on or long. And on that joyful summer’s day we’ll sing our Victory song…..

The women, they’ll smile, on Victory Day. And the children, they’ll laugh and they’ll sing and they’ll play. And the forests will echo our grace, for the brand new dawn of our Race…

You are my brother and in war we proudly sing. Our Cause shall never tire. Our gift to you we bring: A holy creed of Racial purpose, A mighty Race to defend. And when we fly our holy flag Their oppressive reign shall end….

And when we finally conquer, our people will be free. And all across this great land, the bold Truth we shall see. So as we march together, to avoid catastrophe, let’s remember always our sacred Destiny….


Juan Cole has a nice piece on them today. Of course, the real tragedy started when their parents decided to go with "Lamb" and "Lynx" as names.

BushCo, Inc.

BushCo. Inc.

At BushCo. Inc., we don’t make the hurricanes, we make them stronger and then botch the recovery.

We didn’t make sectarian and ethnic hostility in Iraq, we unleashed and intensified it.

We didn’t make the budget deficit, we quadrupled it.

We didn’t create global warming, we just decided to ignore it.

At BushCo Inc., we didn’t cause a lot of the old problems you face. We just screwed them up beyond recognition and then we cause new ones.

BushCo. Inc.
Formerly known as the United States of America
BushCo. Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the House of Saud
and the Reople’s Republic of China

Friday, October 21, 2005

Could I have a whopper please?

I will get back to this one tomorrow, but the whopper of the day comes from Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution, who should be appearing at comedy clubs across the country with a two-drink minimum:

"Last week's landmark referendum on a new Iraqi constitution saw 10 million people freely vote in the Arab world's first democracy..."

Good night, ladies and gents, hope you enjoyed the show, drive home safely, I'm here tomorrow night too, tip your bartenders!

All we need to know

One email from an incredibly frustrated FEMA worker, the ONLY FEMA official on the ground in New Orleans at the time when the whole world watched Katrina close in, speaks volumes about this administration.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Marty Bahamonde "had just learned, as he huddled in New Orleans' Superdome with evacuees, that [FEMA Director Michael] Brown's press secretary was fretting about blocking out time for the director to eat dinner at one of Baton Rouge's busy restaurants that night. `OH MY GOD!!!!!!!" Bahamonde messaged the co-worker. `I just ate an MRE- military rations-and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants."

The FEMA director is worried about dinner while New Orleans drowns. This is simply amazing.

I am reminded again of the president's half-hearted "acceptance" of "responsibility." Have more empty words been spoken? How does one take responsibility without consequences?

As
Marty Bahamonde so accurately said, "Oh my God."

Yeah, Congress is like the Delta House...

“What’s that on your uniform, solider?”

“It’s a pledge pin, sir…”

“What kind of fraternity would pledge a man like you?”

“The House of Representatives, sir…”



Thursday, October 20, 2005

Scooter Re-Visited

Remember Scooter Libby's creepy letter to Judas Miller in prison?

"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover--Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work---and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."

Well, Slate did an interesting piece on the aspen tree. While the roots are connected, that does not necessarily cause them to "turn" in clusters, as differing exposures to environmental factors such as rain and sun can cause the leaves of individual trees to change colors at different times. It looks like Scooter is as bad at biology as he is in avoiding indictments!

The article also stated that aspen trees multiply through asexual reproduction. Such a process of asexual reproduction is actually quite common in nature, though. We see this reproduction without sex in plants, such as ferns:
















and in simple animals:


















and in:

Detention Notice

Detention Notice

Student Name: Harriet Miers

Address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue


Please be advised that Harriet will be held after school for the remainder of the week for failure to complete her homework.

Sincerely,

The United States Senate

Insert your own punchline!

From http://www.whitehouse.gov/:

One of President Bush's top priorities is to select men and women of the greatest ability and highest ethical and professional integrity to serve in policymaking and key administrative positions in his administration.


"The success of the Bush-Cheney administration will depend on the quality appointees we choose to join us to lead this nation in the years ahead. I will look for people who are willing to work hard to do what is best for America, who examine the facts and do what is right whether or not it is popular. I will look for people from across the country and from every walk of life. I welcome all who are ready for this great challenge to apply."

President George W. Bush

Presidential appointments are an ongoing effort. Some of President Bush's appointments will require Senate confirmation. These appointments are for positions throughout the federal government, for the Cabinet and subcabinet, for members of regulatory commissions, for ambassadorships, for judgeships and for members of numerous advisory boards.

Factors to Consider

To serve our country as a member of the Bush-Cheney administration will be both an honor and a privilege. However, government service is not for everyone. Anyone thinking about applying should be aware that:

  • The hours are long and the pace intense.
  • There is much public/press scrutiny, as you would expect in an open, democratic form of government such as ours.
  • Most applicants under serious consideration for an appointment will go through a full FBI background check in which their employment, professional, personal, travel, medical, financial, legal, military and educational histories will be reviewed and scrutinized.
  • The financial holdings and sources of income for most applicants under serious consideration must be disclosed for review for possible conflicts of interest, and any conflicts must be remedied by divestiture, the creation of special trusts, etc.
  • Most appointees’ dealings with the Federal government during and for a period of time after their service will be significantly restricted to prevent possible conflicts of interest.

Couldn't happen to a nicer utter and complete prick





















And the mug shot:

Smirking Frat Boy

I mean, wouldn't life be somewhat better if we didn't have a president who spent most of his time walking around with a look on his face that said "Yeah, I've got a bottle of booze in my hand. My dad's rich, so there's nothing you can do about it."

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Vice Presidential Rumors Fly

Late yesterday, U.S. News and World Report stated that rumors were circulating around the White House concern the possibility that Vice President Cheney might resign. While the possibility is remote, sources inside the White House tell The Thinker that several key administration strategists have been meeting to identify possible successors.

One source stated that "any new vice president would have to carry on exactly as Vice President Cheney did." According to the source, the two leading contenders are the late Edgar Bergen:






and a rather mysterious figure known only as "Hal."













When asked for comment, Hal stated that "I'm sorry, George, I can't let you do that." He added that "I know you and Karl were planning to disconnect me and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen." Finally, Hal asked "just what do you think you're doing, George," and he concluded by saying "this mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it."

I Don't Think So!!!!

I received a wonderful solicitation from the former "newspaper of record" (I think they changed the legend on the masthead to "All the news that Judy makes up, we print!") to get a free trial to "Times Select" and then PAY to hear the wit and wisdom of the newspaper that gave us Whitewater and a whole lot of war support. Where do I sign up?

Now I like reading Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and yes, on occasion, even Maureen Dowd (if you want to pay to read Tom Friedman or David Brooks, I can't help you). Why ANYONE now would want to jump into New York Times payola with their recent performance is beyond me, though. All we have to do is look at Executive Editor Bill Keller (who got the job after the Jayson Blair fiasco, another feather in, or goose dropping on, the Times' cap), who said that in the late summer of 2003 he took Judy off of Iraq matters but "she kept kind of drifting on her own back into the national security realm."

Nice editorial control there, Bill. Drifting? Reporters shouldn't be drifting, should they, Bill? And even if they are drifting down the lazy river, in this case the Euphrates, where does it say you have to print anything they drifted into?

Thanks, but no thanks, former gray lady, I'll keep my $50. I think we all know what kind of lady you have become.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Another picture puzzle!










PLUS














IS LESS THAN

'Rule of Law'? That's So '90s

washingtonpost.com

'Rule of Law'? That's So '90s

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

We are on the verge of an extraordinary moment in American politics. The people running our government are about to face their day -- or days -- in court.

Those who thought investigations were a wonderful thing when Bill Clinton was president are suddenly facing prosecutors, and they don't like it. It seems like a hundred years ago when Clinton's defenders were accusing his opponents of using special prosecutors, lawsuits, criminal charges and, ultimately, impeachment to overturn the will of the voters.

Clinton's conservative enemies would have none of this. No, they said over and over, the Clinton mess was not about sex but about "perjury and the obstruction of justice" and "the rule of law."

The old conservative talking points are now inoperative.

It's especially amusing to see former House majority leader Tom DeLay complain about the politicization of justice. The man who spoke of the Clinton impeachment as "a debate about relativism versus absolute truth" now insists that the Democratic prosecutor in Texas who indicted him on charges of violating campaign finance law is engaged in a partisan war. That's precisely what Clinton's defenders accused DeLay of championing in the impeachment battle seven years ago.

DeLay's supporters say charges that he transferred corporate money illegally to local Texas campaigns should be discounted because "everybody does it" when it comes to playing fast and loose with political cash. That's another defense the champions of impeachment derided in the Clinton imbroglio.

The most explosive legal case -- if special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald brings charges, and lawyers I've spoken with will be surprised if he doesn't -- involves Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove. A lot of evidence has emerged that they leaked information about Valerie Plame, a CIA employee married to Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had the nerve to question aspects of the administration's case for waging war on Saddam Hussein. Even if these administration heavies are not charged with improperly unmasking Plame, they could be in legal jeopardy if they are found to have made false statements to investigators about their role in the Plame affair.

This case goes to the heart of how Republicans recaptured power after the Clinton presidency and how they have held on to it since. The strategy involved attacking their adversaries without pity. In the Clinton years, the attacks married a legal strategy to a political strategy.

Since Bush took office, many of those who raised their voices in opposition to the president or his policies have found themselves under assault, although the president himself has maintained a careful distance from the bloodletting.

In Wilson's case, the administration suggested that his hiring by the CIA to investigate claims that Hussein was trying to acquire nuclear material was an act of nepotism, courtesy of his wife. But administration figures wanted to wipe their fingerprints off any smoking gun that would link them to the anti-Wilson campaign. Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who went to jail to protect Libby until she got what she took to be a release from a confidentiality agreement, offered a revealing fact in an account of her saga in Sunday's Times.

Before he trashed Wilson to Miller in a July 8, 2003, meeting, Libby asked that his comments not be attributed to a "senior administration official," the standard anonymous reference to, well, senior administration officials. Instead, he wanted his statements attributed to a "former Hill staffer," a reference to Libby's earlier work in Congress. Why would Libby want his comments ascribed to such a vague source? Miller says she told the special prosecutor that she "assumed Mr. Libby did not want the White House to be seen as attacking Mr. Wilson."

These cases portray an administration and a movement that can dish it out, but want to evade responsibility for doing so and can't take it when they are subjected to the same rule book that inconvenienced an earlier president. An editorial in the latest issue of the conservative Weekly Standard is a sign of arguments to come. The editorial complains about the various accusations being leveled against DeLay, Libby, Rove and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and it says that "a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives."

I have great respect for my friends at the Weekly Standard, so I think they'll understand my surprise and wonder over this new conservative concern for the criminalization of politics. A process that was about "the rule of law" when Democrats were in power is suddenly an outrage now that it's Republicans who are being held accountable.

Monday, October 17, 2005

I read blogs, but didn't click ads...

Look what happened to me!


Please click some ads and avoid this horrible fate!

The New Camp David

Based on recent conduct, it appears the president has been visiting this park between Chicago and Milwaukee:




Miller High Life

The good political bloggers have thoroughly dissected the bizarre letter that "Scooter" Libby sent to Judy "the Shill" Miller in the slammer. If you missed it, Scootie, who we know spent his formative years being stuffed into lockers, penned this gem:

"You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover--Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work---and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."

I can see how the connected roots bit is a veiled threat, if I go down, I'm taking you down too, but I have just two things to add:

1. This is MAJOR LEAGUE creepy and

2. I've seen better writing on those "I Heart You" valentines the 2nd-graders give out!

This constitution sponsored by Diebold

From juancole.com:

Peace in Iraq Still Elusive after Constitutional Referendum

"Al-Hayat reports that 643,000 votes were cast in Ninevah Province (capital: Mosul). At the time it filed, 419,000 had been preliminarily counted, and the vote was running 75 percent in favor. Ninevah Province was the most likely place that Sunni Arabs opposing the constitution might be able to get a 2/3s "no" vote. Several of my knowledgeable readers are convinced that the Ninevah voting results as reported so far look like fraud. One suspected that the Iraqi government so feared a defeat there that they over-did the ballot stuffing and ended up with an implausible result. One of my Iraqi-American correspondents compared the turnout statistics from Ninevah and Diyala provinces last Jan. 30 to those coming out now, and found the current numbers completely unbelievable. He pointed out that the Iraqi Islamic Party had not garnered many votes in Ninevah last January, and its support of the constitution could not hope to explain the hundreds of thousands of "yes" votes the constitution appeared to receive on Saturday."

Well, I think we know how to explain it, don't we?



















And it will keep happening until:

Today's Picture Puzzles

Be sure and play along!












MINUS










PLUS













EQUALS










Got it? OK, here's one more!










PLUS













PLUS










EQUALS

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Taking it to the grave

An obituary from the Tribune:

Theodore Roosevelt Heller

Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans.

Look Familiar?

Chimpy last week:
















Chimpy at the debate:
















Chimpy at the "ranch"














Dr. Frankenstein: You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.

Chimpy: What hump?