I went to a debate and

the Festival of Banality broke out!

The republic is in serious trouble. The economy is collapsing, inflation is on the rise, we are despised throughout the world and caught in a nightmarish bungled occupation, our infrastructure is crumbling and higher education is beyond the reach of many. From that insipid disaster last night, you might well believe that America's greatest problems are caused by a retired minister, a University of Illinois at Chicago education professor and, of course, bitterness.

We do get the country we deserve.

In the silly season...

1) Which is more ridiculous, Mittens Romney as the "varmint hunter" or Hillary as "duck hunter?"

Wabbit season! Duck season!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga82ecXZuUs

2) Too damned funny

http://wonkette.com/379911/cindy-mccain-also-steals-recipes

and

3) Did anyone notice while the press was fulminating over "bitter" that the entire administration basically confessed to war crimes?

Paging Grizzly Adams

We had one of the snowiest winters on record, and now floods (my par 3 golf course is COMPLETELY under water). But beyond weather weirdness, we have critter oddities. In the last month I have seen several of these in town, the gray one below was in the library parking lot and at the commuter train station, the red one in front of my house.





But today took the cake. Reports to keep pets inside and a close eye on small children because of several sightings of one of these on the north shore:



Hello, I'm not Grizzly Adams? Coyotes? Cougars?

The coyote was interesting, and basically harmless, and the foxes are just cool. But a ****ing COUGAR?

So, Charlton -

Can we have that gun now?

Insert your own caption

Refresher Course

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."

John Stuart Mill

It's not really a 1st/14th Amendment free speech question but...

it still stinks.

Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall

An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.

It isn't really a constitutional issue (the 1st Amendment applies to the feds, 14th to the states, as an aside) because private property owners have the right to manage their premises far beyond what the police can do in public, but it is still sad.

Story here.

AHHH!

So, they've got the Giggling Murderer in the booth. I changed the channel to avoid throwing anything important at the TV. He's been in there for like 20 minutes. Doesn't he have a fuckin' job?

Inappropriate humor of the day

On "Baseball Tonight" before the Braves-Nationals game, they were playing clips of US Presidents who have thrown out at first pitches at Major League Baseball games. The gang on the set began critiquing the throwing styles of the Commanders in Chief, and yes, some of them were awful. One of the biggest guffaws was at the expense of the president who served the US during the Great Depression and World War II. You know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, polio survivor.

Sigh.

How's that surge working?

The U.S. occupation of Iraq has taken a new and deadly turn with the escalation of violence with the Sadrist forces. We have gone from being occupiers to participants in a political purge.

This conflict lays bare the foolish and simplistic rhetoric that we are fighting "terrorists" in Iraq. We project our western impressions onto alien situations and manage to screw things up entirely. The militias are political as well as military entities, that provide security and order within their territories. Muqtada al-Sadr is a powerful and popular political leader as well as the visible head of the Mahdi army.

This mess came about because the Sunnis in majority Sunni regions were demanding new elections, and the band-aid of our bribe deal was collapsing. However, in southern Iraq, if new elections were held, the stooge government would lose badly to the Sadrist supporters (al-Sadr, an Iraqi nationalist, wants us out. Of course the stooge government wants us to stay so their gravy train of corruption and privilege can continue), destroying any claim of legitimacy.

So what does the stooge government do? It decides to take out the Mahdi army, and presumably Sadr's power along with it. This all happens with our full support and cooperation.

And just by chance, did you notice how close Basra is to the main oil channel in the region? And how close it is to Iran, a major supporter of al-Sadr? Stay tuned.

How's that surge working?

Headline

From the AP: "Bush sees Iraq violence as defining"

This, of course, is yet another example of his Orwellian up-is-down, any outcome clearly supports any actions he's chosen to take "logic." On the other hand, as does happen from time to time, it's also a case of him being correct, even though he knows not why. The violence in Iraq does indeed define his disastrous reign as a fascist murdering cokehound monkey. Bully for him.

I don't write about him or the rest of the scheming demons dressed in kingly guise that masquerade as our government very much anymore not because they're not doing horrible things, but because I'm tired of the inarticulate rage that bubbles around behind my eyes when I do.

How many levels of wrong is this?

From that deep thinker, Pat Buchanan, in a piece oh so cleverly titled "A Brief for Whitey":

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. [Pastor Jerimiah]Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American....We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude

Oh my God. Having generations of the best and brightest kidnapped and enslaved? Generations disrupted, families destroyed and entire civilizations ripped apart?

Excuse them for not sending thank you notes.

Go away. Now.

Dear Sen. Clinton:

You have been running on your experience.

The news of the last few days have shown how you lied about your experience, and did so in a stupifyingly lame way. There were reporters on the plane, Madam Senator. Remember? Did you think they wouldn't? It was such a dangerous mission that you were there with SINBAD??

It also appears from your own records, hesitatingly released, that you have your stories on NAFTA exactly reversed. It seems that you were an active advocate for this anti-labor and anti-American job measure.

Withdraw. Now.

Kisses,

Peter

How could you?

How could you? I know you have an important and stressful job, and that you need some levity occasionally. But how could you appear with someone like this? Why did you stand next to a cartoonish buffoon that no one believes in, just a fraud dressed up in a suit?

How could you, Easter Bunny?

Back from Away

Last night, Mrsdrmagoo and I finally made it back from Houston. I say "finally" not because the travel was tough - our flight was on time, and the drive home from O'Hare to Champaign was uneventful. I say it because downtown Houston is the most boring large city in the entire universe. Chicago is the third largest city in the country, and Houston fourth, which is bizarre because nobody's there. I've never crossed against the light so many times during the week in a business district in my life - there's just nobody there. Not only is the area around the convention center (which also houses the baseball and basketball stadia) dead in terms of people, there's nowhere to go to eat or drink. Every other city I've traveled to for conferences, especially in areas with this many large venues has, y'know, restaurants and bars and stuff where people can go, but not Houston. And if you do walk the 10+ blocks to the nearest handful of restaurants, your choices are fast food or $25 entrees. C'mon, folks. The worst is trying to find breakfast - it's either the hotel, where you're paying $8 for a bagel (once you figure in tip, etc), or Starbucks (which isn't really breakfast, at least not 7 days in a row). And all of that conveys an epic level of busy compared to Houston on a Sunday, a day which could best be described by Buzz Aldrin's comment about the moon, "Magnificent desolation."

The last day or so, we shared the convention center with the Foursquare Church, a group founded by Aimee Semple McPherson and which is so very excited about the imminent second coming. If they spend a lot of time in Houston, I can see why.

Pardon my skepticism

Time reports: Afghan and NATO forces killed more than 40 insurgents in an air and ground battle in southern Afghanistan, a security official said Sunday.

Insurgents? I'm sure.

Let's hear it for that foreign policy expertise

According to Sen. McCain, it is "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."

Well, it isn't that special. We ALL know that despite being sworn mortal enemies, Iran and al Qaeda are practically sharing a summer home. After Joe Lieberman whispered sweet nothings in his ear, he had to come back to the reporters with an Emily Litella-like "never mind."

Just keep 'em comin' John.

All from this morning's paper

No longer shocking story #1:

Petraeus: Iraqi Leaders Not Making 'Sufficient Progress'

BAGHDAD, March 13 -- Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

No longer shocking story #2:

NRCC Says Ex-Treasurer Diverted Up to $1 Million
By Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer

The former treasurer for the National Republican Congressional Committee diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly as much as $1 million -- of the organization's funds into his personal accounts,GOP officials said yesterday, describing an alleged scheme that could become one of the largest political frauds in recent history.

For at least four years, Christopher J. Ward, who is under investigation by the FBI, allegedly used wire transfers to funnel money out of NRCC coffers and into other political committee accounts he controlled as treasurer, NRCC leaders and lawyers said in their first public statement since they turned the matter over to the FBI six weeks ago.

"The evidence we have today indicated we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual," said Rep. Tom Cole R-Okla.), the NRCC chairman.

And no longer shocking story #3:

Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest
EPA Scrambles To Justify Action

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

Solicitor General Paul D. Clement warned administration officials late Tuesday night that the rules contradicted the EPA's past submissions to the Supreme Court, according to sources familiar with the conversation. As a consequence, administration lawyers hustled to craft new legal justifications for the weakened standard.

And that's just ONE day, folks.

Oh Madam Senator..

For all of the drama of Ohio and Texas, Obama has made up any gains HRC might have gotten out of last Tuesday.

It is almost a statistical impossibility for her to win the available electoral delegates. I know the "superdelegates" have a role to play, and I believe in playing by the rules, but in this year, with record voter turnouts, I think there will be hell to pay if these party operatives thwart the voter's will.

So exactly what is HRC up to? Why is she praising McCain at Obama's expense? What is this endgame?

On Elliot Spitzer

I know, it's all been done. He's an idiot. Why does his wife stand on the podium? Even questioning the nature of the investigation, wiretaps? On prostitution? Even a prostitution "ring?" All that said, it comes back to--he's an idiot.