Renounce

DougJ:

And there’s one other thing here to keep in mind, and I don’t want to push this too far (for fearing of sounding like a nut), but no public Republican that I know of has renounced and rejected (or whatever it was Obama was supposed to do with Jeremiah Wright) Rush Limbaugh’s statements about wanting Obama to fail.

Party Of No

Michael Steele Becomes First Black RNC Chairman:

"We're going to say to friend and foe alike: We want you to be a part of us, we want you to with be with us, and for those who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over," Steele said.

Heh. What's been going on in politics the last couple of days?

There's That At Least

Burt Prelutsky has a new reason why we shouldn't criticize anything Israel does:

Israel has had nuclear weapons for a good number of years, but has never once used them. Is there anyone anywhere who honestly believes that if Israel’s enemies had nuclear capability, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem would be anything but moonscapes by this time?

Can you imagine the anger Burt must have for any country that has actually used nuclear weapons against civilian targets?

Heritage Rhetoric

Ur doin' it wrong when you blockquote your own site like a source.

Letter to NY1

I write to NY1:

Can you please remove that Hospital Budget cuts ad??! It's really upsetting to have to experience a family's (poorly acted) horrible tragedy several times each morning. Seriously, people freaking out about their child choking to death is really not what I need when I choose what station to leave on for 90 minutes to start each day.

Shorter Digby, God Love Her

Ominous

• Shit's worse than you think.

Don't get me wrong - I love digby, and think she's probably right. But still.

And some non-shorter to end it.

Remember: as Limbaugh said, Republicans want the president and his policies to fail. Their refusal, to a person, to vote for the stimulus bill demonstrates that they expect the worst to happen no matter what is done. They intend fully to exploit that. Remember Carter's "maliaise" and Reagan's "morning in America?" Republicans see a repeat of that dynamic, but this time on steroids. That is why we must never let the country forget who wrecked the economy: George W. Bush, his Republican enablers in Congress, and the literally bankrupt philosophy of conservatism.

I Have Been To The Internet

Comicician Joel Watson on that stupid Microsoft software Songsmith, which listens to you sing and then starts up an automatically generated backing band:

It is a product that fills no need. I have been to the internet and I promise you there weren’t any kids there clammering for a software that adds 1990’s-esque midi jams to their bittersweet lyrics about ponies and ninjas and such. It’s supply on one side and an absolute vacuum of demand on the other.

Not Funny

Jesus, the Right is just not funny:

That’s why I’m proud to introduce LEADages, my exclusive line of exotic motivational leadership proverbs from around the developing world. Designed for the executive on the go, these power-packed primitive catchphrases let your co-workers know that you’re the kind of leader who stays two steps ahead in the sensitivity game. Drop one into your next PowerPoint deck, and you’re on the fast track to the HR multicultural committee! Look for the complete line of limited edition desk sculptures, coming soon to SkyMall.

[I've selected some examples]

“Give a man a fish, he will eat today. Promise a man a million fish, he will contribute heap big wampum to your tribal election campaign fund.”
Iroqouis

“The man who builds his well at a distance soon laments when his wife’s mustache catches fire.”
Khazhak

“Do not waste your time talking to the yak. Because yakkity yak don’t talk back.”
Mongolian

“The single lotus blossom that brushes against river jade can defeat an army of steel fire-dragon. Well, okay, maybe that’s just the opium talking.”
Chinese

Christ.

Chuckleheads

The very definition of "chuckleheads."

Get It?

Warner Todd Huston is such a dick. Here he is generating humor in the form of a "Letter to Iran from Obama." How does his characterization of Obama begin?

Dear Iran,

Yo, yo, yo waddup, fellas? It’s me, Hussein. You know, the guy that just became president of the USA?

"Yo yo yo," because, you see, Obama is black. Is that clear?

Eventually We Were On A Train

I've never played either of the Gears of War games, and this article is pretty annoying in many ways, but I do love Mr. Riley's description of the pleasure of a big dumb game:

If there was a purpose to all the alien killing in Gears of War I don't remember it clearly. I can say that there was at least one point where I was told to do something specific involving a bomb. Then the characters did it in a cutscene. This, of course, prompted swarms of evil aliens to explode from the very soil of the planet in an attempt to halt our progress. Well we dispatched them but good! Then we killed some more aliens! Eventually we were on a train. Then the game ended. It was radiant in its simplicity.

License To Ignore

Never an Obama cheerleader, Larison:

House Republicans have just given Obama license to ignore them in future negotiations on the budget and on other major questions. Granted, Obama had the numbers in both houses to do that anyway, but the only thing that will really keep him from writing off the GOP members now is his own interest in being seen as a consensus-builder (or at least someone trying to build consensus).

Sever

This seems like kind of a big deal:

VATICAN CITY - Israel's chief rabbinate severed ties with the Vatican on Wednesday to protest a papal decision to reinstate a bishop who publicly denied 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The Jewish state's highest religious authority sent a letter to the Holy See expressing "sorrow and pain" at the papal decision.

"It will be very difficult for the chief rabbinate of Israel to continue its dialogue with the Vatican as before," the letter said. Chief rabbis of both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews were parties to the letter.

Hoping

The GOP is now in the position of hoping that our economy remains terrible. Hell, further deterioration would be greater than their wildest dreams!

The ongoing legacy of the "Country First" people.

Meh

Fine, but could we have politically-aligned battles over something else?

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bucking the Obama administration, House Republicans on Wednesday defeated a bill to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting to June 12 -- leaving the current Feb. 17 deadline intact for now.

The 258-168 vote failed to clear the two-thirds threshold needed for passage. It's a victory for the GOP members, who warn that postponing the transition would confuse consumers.

Obama's administration is a failure because it was unable to pass the Digital TV Switch Delay.

Flush

David Malki is the creator of brilliant comic Wondermark.

Imagination

TRex says: "I used to be better at imagination"

Yes Please

An interview with Wizards of the Coast’s senior Dungeons and Dragons art director? Okay!

Not Bad

There will be ups and downs, and I'll pull my hair out certainly over zombie lies and skewed narratives to come, but this, from Nate Silver, is a nice place to start:

Not only is Obama popular in every state, in fact, but in every region of every state in SurveyUSA's crosstabs. The poorest numbers I can find are in central Virginia, where SurveyUSA pegs Obama's approval score at 55 percent (but against just 23 percent disapproving).

Simple As A Lie

A reminder to be skeptical of anything Redstate says. Sometimes it's really just a flat out lie!

Enough

Goddamnit, Eric Dondero, why are you such a fucking asshole?

Sock 'Em Demons

I'm confused by "young Jesse Helms" Nathan Tabor's message:

But blacks are not the only minority group which could suffer under the Democratic regime in Washington. Democratic leaders believe that children must be taught evolution, and they cringe at the common-sense notion of intelligent design. The evolutionary theory promoted by Charles Darwin teaches survival of the fittest. That would place homosexuals at the bottom of the chain, since they cannot procreate. Under evolution, they are destined to die out, forced out of existence by the heterosexuals who can procreate.

Wait - will homosexuals be able to procreate if we stop teaching evolution? And Nathan, it appears you're setting your demons up to fight against each other, like you're saying evolution's bad because it is not respectful of homosexuals?

The idea that our nation's Democratic leaders are anti-black, anti-minority, and anti-homosexual is an inconvenient truth.

Sure looks like it. Sure looks like you're standing up for "homosexuals" - does your Faith, Family, Freedom Alliance know you've reached this rhetorical position?

It is uncomfortable to read because it is uncomfortable to write. But, as an old adage goes, the truth will make you free. Only when Democrats confront their own bigoted demons can true progress begin, can we finally heal as a nation.

Hung Up

I just can't get over the insanity coming out of Andrew Breitbart’s Haunted Clown Toilet of Angry Sad, like this rundown from Andrew Klavan:

Benjamin Button??? You gotta be kidding me. I spent three days watching Benjamin Button one evening and if that’s not the emptiest, most meaningless piece of high gloss semi-entertainment produced last year than I don’t know my American Idol. I mean, Brad Pitt’s a great actor who’s had sex with Angelina Jolie, I concede that. But what was the movie about? People don’t actually get younger, right? So it had to be a metaphor for something. But what? As near as I can make out, it was Hollywood’s take on what marriage is like: You hook up when you’re both hot then she loses her looks and he starts acting like a child.

Slumdog Millionaire? Yeah, I enjoyed it—then promptly forgot it: it’s a little, you know, light. And though I sympathize with Muslims getting persecuted in the world’s largest democracy, I can’t help noticing that Hollywood almost completely ignores all the Christians getting persecuted by genuine tyrants like the Myanmar junta and the ACLU.

Milk was also good, an entertaining little hagiography which proved once and for all that Sean Penn has made a deal with Satan:

You can be the greatest actor of your generation, Sean, if you will but embrace my servants Hugo and Fidel.

Yes, my master Satan, so let it be sealed in my blood.

That's what I hear everywhere - that Slumdog's great but it's a pity it doesn't attack the ACLU more.

Respect

I'm always surprised to see the Bush defenders take the position that not only is Guantanamo not a disgrace, but is actually kinda awesome:

What always comes to mind when I think of Guantanamo Bay is the astonishing lengths the administration has gone to in order to show respect for Islam, including a rule that American soldiers can't touch the detainees' Korans.

Later

At Kotaku we find some stats demonstrating the unsurprising fact that Circuit City died as it lived: utterly fucking useless.

Edward Binkley

Tor.com has a great interview and gallery from artist Edward Binkley.

Shorter Rightwing Blogosphere

...as performed by a verbatim Michael M. Bates in his post Include Me Out:

It’s numbing. The adulation, the elation, the mirth, the idolatry, the reveling in every possible facet of Obamaness. And that’s just the response of the mainstream media.

[...]

Some Republicans are wishing Obama success. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is one, saying that “We need to get behind our new president and our new Congress,” and “support them.”

Support them in driving this country into the ground? If Obama delivers on his campaign promises, it’ll be an unmitigated disaster. Good luck for him means bad luck for the United States.

Other conservatives may wish the new president success. That’s their prerogative. As movie producer Samuel Goldwyn said, include me out.

Bye Gag

Fuck yeah!

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama signed an executive order lifting the ban on sending U.S. government funds to organizations that provide abortion counseling with money from other sources as part of overseas family planning programs.

To clarify: Reagan (and then Bush, after Clinton dropped it) made it illegal for the US to give any money to international groups that gave abortion counseling - even when the money for that work came from other sources!

Good fucking riddance.

Wrong Approach

This is Bush-style anti-terrorism mindset.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Saudi national released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2007 is believed to be a key leader in al Qaeda's operations in Yemen, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official.

You know who else is in "key" positions in Al-Qaeda? People who have never been held in Guantanamo.

Furthermore, you cannot predict what someone is going to do. If you could, why don't we institute pre-emptive criminal arrests in the US?

This is like the whole nonsense of counting how many "insurgents" or "terrorists" are killed in an offensive, and as someone once said, "if you have 100 terrorists and you kill 50, how many do you have? 200."

Zip Code Visualizer

I've wanted something like this my whole life, letting you see how different digits of zip codes map to different parts of the country. Very simple and effective interface.



(Via PonyPonyShow, which someone claimed was Justine Bateman's site)

Something Right

Ha ha ha ha, Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett thought Obama was being a meanie in his Inauguration speech.

Perfect

Gavin at SadlyNo has hit upon the proper name for the silly new site Big Hollywood:

Andrew Breitbart’s Haunted Clown Toilet of Angry Sad.

Brain

T Rex has an announcement!

Scapegoat

Doesn't it feel like the Right is taking its disappointment over Obama and channeling it towards Geithner?

And I have yet to hear any objection besides the "taxes owed" one! Do they really have no other problems? Ideologically perfect, if only he had paid his taxes right? It's all:

[H]is own serial incompetence at doing his taxes certainly doesn’t recommend him as a qualified candidate for the Treasury.

Fail

Holy cow, the original Starbuck (from the first Battlestar Galactica) is a dick!

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Hans Solo as Hans Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women “hand out” babies. And thus the world for thousands of years has gone’ round.

Diagonally

How brilliant is Jon Stewart? Even without his delivery, this bit, from his interview with Bishop Gene Robinson, is hilarious:

STEWART: Washington was, so, crowded today. There were so many people. You as a bishop were sort of doubly handicapped in that situation because you are only allowed to move diagonally. How is that negotiating the crowds.

Shorter Jeff Emanuel

A Sneak Preview of the Clean, Earth-Friendly Goodness we Have to Look Forward to Under the Earth-First/Mother Gaia Crowd

• Because the inauguration crowd left trash (as shown in this photo I found), environmentalism is hypocritical.

Shorter Stephen F. Hayes

In Black and White

• "I didn't need to hear what they were saying," just the presence of three black males I saw in DC yesterday made me think about what we've overcome, but you know how I know racism is not past? Because a white man was prevented from joining the Congressional Black Caucus two years ago.

Wolverines!

TPM Reader JF says:

The first Republican member of Congress who cries "Wolverines!" on the House or Senate floor has to be considered the front-runner for the 2012 Iowa caucus.

More on the Red Dawn fantasy that is the guiding light of the GOP these days is supplied by Sadly No.

As Bad As

It's funny to watch the right attack Obama by claiming that "hey, he says he's going to be awesome, but he's actually doing all the shitty things that Bush did! Wait..."

Update: John Cole notes the same thing, the Obama is "more of the same."

Buy Low

I totally agree with Kottke on Obama saying that he has been asking McCain for advice:

He's essentially buying McCain stock at a low point and will presumably leverage that purchase when that stock inevitably rises.

Respect From Obama For Non-Believers

Amanda heard that "non-believers" line, too!

Excited

How could you talk to people like this?

At the begining of his speach the tv screen went all fuzzy–my first thought was “Jesus is coming!”—I got real excited then it came back on and Obama was still talking.

(via Cynical-C)

Classy

Erick Erickson's post on the new Whitehouse.gov site: Tasteless, Pompous Asses Move In

Off We Go

Via Andrew Sullivan, fuckwattle Michael Goldfarb at 12:22pm ET today:

The victory in Iraq is Obama's to lose.

Over

Finally. I can retire my GWB countdown widget. For the record, here's the final frame:

Waaahhhh!

Have you been reading the new "conservative" pop-culture site Big Hollywood? If not, you're missing whining shit like this from James Hudnall:

In Hollywood movies men are either stupid or gay.

Goodbye, George!

Work Experience

Cole:

[T]he reason being a Bush appointee looks bad on a resume is not because people hate George W. Bush (though they do), it’s because they assume (correctly) that nearly everyone he hired was a hack.

Gene Robinson's Prayer Kicks off Inaugural Events

Not aired by HBO, so let's share it online. Coverage from USA Today (!) here, and Episcopal Cafe has the full text.

Update: Slightly distressing is YouTube's auto-picks for "related videos"...

How's That Now?

Jesus H Christ on a Fucking Stick.



(via Cynical-C)

The weekend arrives.

Tick Tock

Already out of date.

Chelicerata Games

Been a long time since we've seen anything about the chelicerata game Deadly Creatures, but Kotaku has a bunch of new screens, including the ultimate chelicerate vs. chelicerate one below.



Please include a whip scorpion!

Fear of Science

These people are totally stumped by the possibility that science is a process that is done before reaching conclusions. For them, the notion of increased funding for science does not equate wider observation and thus better-supported results, but rather fills them with fear.

Bob Eggleton

Illustrator Bob Eggleton's work at concept ships.



I love felines/canines/wha? in space suits.

Laden on Warming

This should be a good series on Global Warming from Greg Laden:

So what is this an introduction to? I plan to systematically go through a number of topics related to Global Warming (and more broadly climate change, to some extent) and provide up to date information and description. What are the components of "forcing," what are the greenhouse gases, and why do some matter more than others? Why is sea level so important, and so incredibly interesting? What is the link between overall climate pattern and important events such as hurricanes and tornadoes, or whether we have a lot of snow or very little in a given winter? And so on.

It's always good to have knowledge at your disposal, because people you love can start falling for anti-vax or global-warming's-a-hoax things at any moment. You should be ready to argue intelligently against their concerns.

GO!

The time has come. The time is now. Just go. Go. GO!

As one of his final actions in office, President Bush proclaimed today that Jan. 18 is National Sanctity of Human Life Day

Lullaby

What the hell is wrong with Roger Cohen to write schlock like this?

But this 47-year-old man of mixed race, whose very name — O-Ba-Ma — has the three-syllable universality of a child’s lullaby, has always had something of the providential about him, a global figure who looks more like the guy at the local bodega than the guys on dollar bills. That’s the magic.

Right, Roger, I'm sure that "globally" Obama reminds people of the "guy at the local bodega." I think your NYC provincialism's showing.

(via IOZ)

Update: I'm sorry, but this is just such an irritating bit of writing. Why, oh Roger, does Obama "look[] more like the guy at the local bodega?" Because he's brown? And brown people look like...people in bodegas? What. The. Fuck.

More Education

If we're attacked soon into Obama's presidency, I wonder if Friedman thinks we'll all rise up and demand that Obama step down because some attackers educated us that we had made the wrong choice.

"Bring back Bush!," I'm sure we'll all yell. "Get rid of the one we elected democratically!"

Exercising Robots

It's been a bit heavy around here of late. Here's an exercising robot, with some little robotees in a microwave oven, and then, after some weird shit happens at the end, a kid with a toothbrush shows up. Yeah.

One Day

Gavin M is wistful:

Maybe one day a mistake will be discovered that is genuinely the fault of President Bush, and if we find one, we’ll be sure to write it down on the Internet so that CNN can include it in a story.

Education Strategy

Yglesias on Friedman's column today claiming that Israel's actions will "educate" Hamas:

This in much the same way that Osama bin Laden sought to “educate” American civilians about the price to be paid for supporting corrupt oil monarchies by killing people who happened to be in a prominent skyscraper, and the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade tried to educate Israeli civilians about the cost of occupation with this suicide bombing in Beit Yisrael? Or, I suppose, the United States when firebombing Dresden. As with his repugnant remarks that the point of invading Iraq was to send a “suck on this” message to Arabs everywhere, Friedman is positing a much sicker rationale for military action than its actual initiators have been willing to articulate.

Stand By Their Man

I'm often struck more by the inverse of the headlines of a poll. Turned around, this Rasmussen poll says that 40% of Americans do not think that Bush is among the 5 worst Presidents we've ever had.

Of course, the really telling detail is that 81% of Democrats think he is among the worst 5, while only 20% of Republicans do.

Cling to him until the bitter end!

All There To See

On Blogs For Victory, Leo Pusateri writes a post called "24" Can Teach Us A Lot About Liberalism, which merely cites a discussion on Glenn Beck's website.

My comment:


They're all so crushed that 24 is not just "Torture's Awesome!" this season.

Awesome

Joe the Plumber:

I think the military should decide what information to give the media and then the media can release it to the public.

Yeeeeeaaaaaarrrgghhh!

The Barbarity Dennis Loved

In a piece called, without intentional irony, "America today: a parody of what once was," Dennis Campbell remembers his corporal punishment perhaps a bit too fondly:

Even after more than four decades the memory is sharp and clear. The dread, the sound, the pain. The lesson taught and learned.

I was a senior at a mid-sized high school in suburban Los Angeles County. We were dressing for gym class and I was harassing a nerdy kid at the next locker. Suddenly, I heard the voice of coach O'Brien.

"Campbell, get in here."

He stood in the coaches' office adjoining the locker room, holding a paddle, maybe a foot long, three or four inches wide, a half inch deep.

I was about to get my lesson.

Within moments I was bent over, grabbing my knees. With one deft twist of his wrist, he let me have it. BAM! It sounded like a gunshot and reverberated through the locker room.

The pain was searing. On my backside was a welt as big around as a grapefruit. And not only did I suffer the swat, but Coach O'Brien informed me that if anyone else hassled Nerdy Ned during the next hour, I would be held responsible and could expect another, um, lesson.

My, how things have changed.

Ahh, beatings by the gym teacher. That's the good ol' days.

Oh, the barbarity. But we loved it.

Let's face it. America has become a feminized, pansied parody of what it once was. Our over-protective school nannies are turning out legions of overweight sissies and wusses who spend more time using their thumbs playing video games and text messaging than they do in meaningful physical activity.

I'll give him this: he's pretty honest about what he likes.

Dennis, I think you should meet Eric Dondero. He also likes to complain about girly men!

Democratically Elected

Daniel Larison:

[W]hen the Russians were responding to Georgian escalation in August and they wrongly began hitting targets outside South Ossetia, I don’t recall anyone saying that the Georgian people deserved what they were getting because they had voted so overwhelmingly for Saakashvili

Can You Guess?

UFC + Reading Rainbow...where do they come together? Here.

(His highly recommended twitter feed is here)

Metaphorically!

William Kristol cracks himself up making jokes about torture:

And at one point [Obama] returned, unbidden, to the much-maligned vice president, commenting, “I thought that Dick Cheney’s advice was good.”

Perhaps the president-elect was just being polite. Or perhaps he just enjoys torturing (metaphorically!) some of his previously most ardent supporters who want Dick Cheney tried as a war criminal.

Persecuted and Triumphant

Roy Edroso on the "current, two-pronged rightblogger strategy":

One might call it "Gun and Run" -- shoot bullshit at available targets, then retreat to a happy place where they are simultaneously persecuted and triumphant.

Pixel Peeper

Pixel-Peeper lets you search Flickr shots by a variety of technical filters, including specific lens or camera model, giving you a good resource for considering how to blow more money on photo gear.

(Via Lone Gunman)

Go Photos

GCOM Family Picnic 2008, originally uploaded by Eric E Haas.

There's an extensive pool of Go-related photos over at Flickr. I've been working on getting my head around the game for a few years, and if you're interested, there's a fantastic iPhone app available, too.

Just seeing a wide variety of people play the game helps humanize it, if you've grown up (like me) in a culture where the game is pretty rare!

You Can Have Him

This Joe the Plumber World Tour thing is so funny and so telling. For some reason, some people on the Right, like Powerline's Scott Johnson, are raising him up as some great savior. Scott writes:

Is there any chance Pajamas can send Joe on to Beirut, Damascus and Tehran after he completes his assignment in Israel? I think he could teach the media reporting from those locales how to do it right as well.

What A Gift

Shorter Leftwing Blogosphere:

• More Joe the Plumber videos, please!

And one more, from Hilzoy.

Dreams Could Come True

Some advice from redstater Josh Painter:

My own unsolicited advice for Sarah Palin is to hire Fred Thompson as her issues consultant.

Um...

No Thanks

Hey, Drew Barrymore! Get the fuck away from my beloved Grey Gardens! Who the hell makes a fictional remake of a documentary?

Sounds excruciating.

Warner Todd Contributes

More contributions to the betterment of the country by Warner Todd Huston:

So, when, exactly, did it become the job of the Sec. of Labor to “create” jobs? What magical powder was she given to sprinkle upon the earth for these jobs to rise forth like a spring daffodil?

No idea what she might mean?

Warner Todd Reminds me of a kid who doesn't want to leave a museum or a playground, and so just flops on the ground, and forces his parents to drag him along the ground.

See his previous aid to the discourse.

Shorter Kathryn Jean Lopez

Eyeless in Gaza, Heartless at Home

• Even in a war with 100% good guys like Israel, there are costs, like the sad death of Cristina, a 15-year-old Palestinian Christian girl

Succinct

Shorter Rightwing blogosphere today:

• Ha ha! They drowned!

Not Since

John Swift lays out an exhaustive review of the strong legacy of One of Our Greatest Presidents. Among them,

In the three years and a half years since Hurricane Katrina not a single American city has been destroyed or partially destroyed. There are more than 10,000 cities in the United States and because of George Bush every single one of them, except for New Orleans, is still largely intact. Of course, no one could have predicted Hurricane Katrina, and if President Clinton had not left us so woefully unprepared, New Orleans would probably be in a lot better shape than it is now

Also:

Unfortunately, seven years was just not enough time to capture those responsible for the attacks, but he certainly has Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda on the run. I'm sure Obama will try to take credit if he does capture Bin Laden, but no one can take away from President Bush the credit he is due for keeping America completely safe from terrorist attacks for seven years, eight if you don't count 9/11, which wasn't really his fault.

This Big Hollywood Site's Gonna Be Fun

Verbatim Evan Sayet:

Just to be clear, yes, I’m saying that, while Springsteen the multimillionaire, rock star with the mansion in Beverly Hills may be a Liberal, Bruce Springsteen the poet is one-hundred percent Republican.

Ooooh, let me try, let me try!

Just to be clear, while Obama the Democrat is a Liberal, Obama the "first black President" is one-hundred percent Republican!

How'd I do?

Mars Is A Place

I love that feeling that the surface of Mars is a real place.



This is a tiny detail of a montage referred to as the Bonestell Panorama, prepared by James Canvin.

Participation

This is a visualization of the participation we will get from Warner Todd Huston over the next 4 years:


In conclusion, Warner writes:

Barack is a Blagoist. He’s Barack OBlago, even.

"Budget"

Wait - what?

As The Early Show Saturday Edition's "Chef on a Shoestring," Freitag sought to take a traditional, three-course spaghetti dinner and give it a little twist any family would love - on our new, lower, recession-busting budget of $35.

Seems like it would take a lot of work to make a spaghetti dinner cost as much as $35.

Not Interested

Why should we care what anyone on the Right thinks about Obama's potential appointees? When their team was making selections, the choices were terrible.

Settle Down

Okay, CNN, please settle down:

(CNN) -- Gu Gu is not your typical soft and cuddly giant panda.

For the third time, he's tasted the flesh of an unwitting intruder in his pen at the Beijing Zoo.

Panic

IMHO, this was one of the better garfield minus garfield comics in a while.

Bombing For Peace

Scott Lemieux:

The assumption that a lengthy, destructive Israeli bombing campaign will produce a government more sympathetic to Israel and less sympathetic to Iran is so transparently idiotic that I think we can assume it's the one that Krauthammer is working with

It's always war-for-peace with these people.

Shot

The best comment about dealing with insane wingnut comments like "fanatical religious cult of Communism" comes from IOZ:

take one shot of triple-sic

Opposite of Midas Touch

We hate him and he ruined everything he touched.

Surge

How long will the word "Surge" mean something you can't debate?

Think Your Thoughts For You

A friend of mine introduced me to this incredible essay by George Orwell called Politics and the English Language from 1946.

Just a few choice bits:

As I have tried to show, modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, and making the results presentable by sheer humbug.

It's really a fantastic essay if you use words and/or try to be clear in your thinking.

People who write in this manner [I have criticized] usually have a general emotional meaning — they dislike one thing and want to express solidarity with another — but they are not interested in the detail of what they are saying. A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

The part I've bolded is the "shorter" version of most of what I read in the rightwing blogs I criticize - although such poor writing certainly extends across the full ideological spectrum.

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. They will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself. It is at this point that the special connection between politics and the debasement of language becomes clear.

Epiphany

Yesterday I posted on twitter, somewhat snarkily, that I had been raised a Christian and lived for 35 years, 13 in NYC, and had never heard of something called "Three Kings Day." Well, some friends explained that it's also called Epiphany, which rang a bit more of a bell (Wikipedia notwithstanding) in me.

Well, apparently it's a significant enough holiday for the Sacramento Bee's The Frame photo blog to have a post on Epiphany ceremonies!


(This shot's from Bulgaria - continue to The Frame for more info and more photos)

I apologize for my ignorance!

A Couple Smart Things on Israel/Gaza

It's not all insanity.

Daniel Larison:

To make one other quick point, comparison with Western reactions to the war in Georgia is useful. Most politicians and pundits deplored Russian “aggression” and disproportionate Russian actions following the initial Georgian escalation. Indeed, I also said that the Russian response was disproportionate, because it seemed to be so, but for most Western observers the importance of proportionality seems to come and go like the tide depending on the military action in question. Two years ago and again this year, Israeli military action has appeared to be proportionate to most of the same people who were deeply offended by Russian actions, or else they will insist that proportionality is irrelevant or impossible to define. If the consensus-supporting politicians and pundits are creative, they may argue both things at the same time. What never fails is their willingness to make excuses for one side while falsely claiming that their opponents in the debate are doing likewise. If there is one thing that most of the critics of U.S.-allied governments have in common, it is the desire to get Americans to stop making excuses for their allies when the allies are in error.

And a really excellent longer piece from Daniel Levy:

We also frequently hear the claim – what would America do if it came under rocket fire from Canada or Mexico? Again, there can be no justification for rockets targeting Israel's south, and of course America would respond if it were under fire from Canada or Mexico. But let's at least complete the analogy and here is that bigger picture. Gaza constitutes under 6 percent of the '67 territory in which a Palestinian state is supposed to be created (Gaza, West Bank, Palestinian East Jerusalem), about 94 percent remains under occupation so under our scenario 94 percent of Canada or Mexico would have remained under a 40 plus year American occupation with settlements and roadblocks, and with the "liberated" 6 percent still under siege. Now I like the Mexicans and Canadians as much as the next person but is it totally inconceivable that under such circumstances some of them would have formed hardline armed groups that would even become very popular and use that 6 percent of territory to launch attacks against America? I will leave it to your imagination.

You Guys?

Why the fucking hell should we give half a rat's ass what John Bolton and John Yoo think?

Seriously, it's hard to imagine a better illustration of the nutsos running things for the last 8 years than these two yahoos.



Also hilarious: the article urges Obama to be sure to respect the Senate's authority:

Like past presidents, Mr. Obama will likely be tempted to avoid the requirement that treaties must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate. The usual methods around this constitutional constraint are executive agreements or a majority vote in the House and Senate to pass a treaty as a simple law (known as a Congressional-executive agreement).

Executive agreements have an acknowledged but limited place in our foreign affairs. Congressional-executive agreements are far more troubling. They have evoked scathing attacks by constitutional experts and have been strongly resisted in the Senate, at least so far.

How do these people live at night? Don't they choke on their own irony?

Update: In a post called Big Brass Balls, John Cole is similarly flabbergasted.

Yeah Boyyyyyys!

I know it's a cop-out commentary, but these people are fucking nuts. I present to you Dr. Don Boys, PhD:



Author of the classic paranoid tome ISLAM: America’s Trojan Horse!, Dr. Don sets it straight:

Let me state the obvious: If Blacks (or anyone else) want to celebrate Kwanzaa that is their right; however, it is my right to set the record straight. Kwanzaa is not a religious holiday, nor is it a traditional “African thing.” Moreover, it is grounded in violence, corruption, and deceit. Furthermore, it has an admitted humanist foundation, so professing Christians should not go near the thing. Neither should black Americans!

Indeed, when black folk look for moral guidance, they turn first to Dr. Boys.

Later:

Blacks can celebrate whatever they choose but I will remind them that if it is Kwanzaa, they recognize a “holiday” that was designed by a hateful, bigoted, black Marxist who reportedly talks to his blanket, has imaginary friends and believed he was attacked by dive-bombers! Watch out, they’re coming out of the clouds at the two o’clock position!

Maybe Blacks and Whites should be more careful in choosing their holidays and their heroes.

People who live in imaginary houses shouldn't throw stones - or something.

[Boys] entered Moody Bible Institute immediately after high school, was married and continued his education at Tennessee Temple College, Immanuel College and Heritage Baptist University where he earned his Ph.D.

For Shame

Josh Marshall:

Republicans now accusing Obama of paling around with Democrats.