Category: Potpourri

Get Ready For The RNC To Use 'Hussein' in Obama's Name a LOT

RNC denounces use of ‘Hussein’ in Obama’s name

(CNN) – Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan formally denounced Thursday the Tennessee Republican Party’s use of Barack Obama’s full name in a recent press release questioning the Illinois senator’s commitment to Israel.

“The RNC rejects these kinds of campaign tactics,” RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said in a statement. “We believe this election needs to be about the critical issues confronting our nation.”

And, by the way, John McCain’s middle name is “Sidney.” And, oh yeah, he wasn’t even born in America.

What else, Robin?

  • MSNBC owes Hillary Clinton a cookie. Her weird meltdown last weekend made Tuesday’s debate—which I have not mentioned here because I have not felt like gloating—the most-watched debate EVAR—7.8 million people watched the thing—and the highest rating that cable network has evar seen. All were disappointed, however, when Hillary Clinton’s head did not actually turn all the way around, as we had expected it to.
  • I’ve mentioned the EdCast in a previous post. It’s a weird change for me, the erstwhile Air America Radio Associate, now stating a preference for the meat-eating, gun-toting leftie guy over many AAR programs. This week, Ed offers one very strong reason for this. This week, the AAR gliteratti are on a cruise at Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. You know where Big Ed will be this week? Tejas. Where there’s ACTUALLY SOMETHING HAPPENING. The AAR rarely ever sends its hosts to the news, and it’s seemed to me a screwy thing to do to have a big promotional cruise that takes a majority of their talent off the air during primary season and when they can’t even keep a fella like Kent Jones around. Big Ed has taken his show to quite a few of these primary states. It seems to me that taking your show there can lend a talker quite a lot more cred then will working on your studio tan in New York. Things like this convince me that Ed, not AAR, is the future of the Moonbat Radio genre.
  • A shoutout to a new weblog I’ve come across, The Hillary 1000. I had commented there, and the admin rejected the comment. But, she wrote and told me why, which was awesome netiquette. Cheers.

Perhaps Not So Zany.

From this morning’s edition of The Washington Post.

For Katrina Evacuees, A Chance to Be Heard
Their Votes May Be Pivotal in Texas

HOUSTON — In a cramped guard booth on the edge of a community of luxury townhouses, the sense of helplessness that has become so familiar to Gregory Sam since Hurricane Katrina uprooted him from his home town of New Orleans can become all-consuming.

“I’m struggling,” said Sam, 29, a college graduate who took an $8-an-hour post as a security guard after more than 20 job interviews led to nothing. “I feel like I’m isolated in the country somewhere . . . in a time warp.”

For the nearly quarter-million people such as Sam who were evacuated to Texas after the hurricane and its floodwaters left New Orleans devastated in 2005, powerlessness has been a constant theme, exacerbated by their reliance on goodwill and the government for help in starting over again. Angry at the Bush administration for failing them both before and after Katrina, many view the March 4 Democratic presidential primary as a chance to exert some control over their futures.

[ SNIP ]

In other bullshit:

  • I fully intend to watch the debate Tuesday, if for no other reason than that I’ve never actually witnessed someone’s eyeballs popping out of her head and smoke emanating from her ears. Sweet merciful crap, Britney Spears’ fall from grace achieved more aplomb than has Hillary Clinton’s.
  • Ralph who?

Based on a True Story

The Republigoat Congressman left the hall after having called a procedural vote during a memorial for the late Rep. Tom Lantos. The man approached him with his box.

“Here,” said the man. “Poop in this.”

“What?” asked the Congressman. “Why would I poop into that?”

“Because this box is magic. Because if you poop into this box, your guys will rule the White House for 100 years and eventually do away with the three branches government completely, replacing it with a wholly theocratic corporate fascist state run exclusively by the cloned polyp cells of Jeb Bush,” said the man.

“Wow, that sounds great!” said the Republigoat Congressman. He yanked down his pants. Then he heard a whimper from the inside. “What’s in the box?”

“Puppies,” said the man.

“Puppies?”

“Puppies.”

The Republigoat Congressman shrugged and dropped a nice big load into the box.

Priorities, People!

A leading human rights group appealed to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on Thursday to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft and performing supernatural acts.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the kingdom’s religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih, and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence in the face of “absurd charges that have no basis in law.”

[ SNIP ]

Please take note. This is not being reported to be happening in Iran nor in Iraq nor South Korea. It is happening in Saudi Arabia, where the current president keeps his sometimes home in King Abdullah’s pants.

And, oh, yes. Pakistan now not only has nukes but a missile with which to deliver its payload!

And they invaded what?

Other crap:

  • Speaking of priorities: Dear Arlen. How about letting the National Football League worry about Belichick’s penchant for spying and how about you worry about your president’s penchant for spying? Or at least about former Bushies flouting subpoenas? Stop trying to use your clout to asterisk-ize Super Bowl XXXIX, eh? Nobody cares.
  • Hillary Clinton recently offered up this applause line in Texas: “You have a saying here in Texas, ‘all hat and no cattle.’ After seven years of George Bush, we need a lot less hat and a lot more cattle.” Should Hillary Clinton be using this line, when it would be very easy for the Swift Voters to add the word “futures” to the end of this phrase and make hay of it?
  • Here’s yet another case supporting an immediate national moratorium on the death penalty: “A woman who spent 13 years in prison after being convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter has been exonerated by forensic evidence showing she died of a cocaine overdose, a prosecutor in the case said Wednesday.” Please note: Had she been killed to death by the state for her crime, it would be impossible to set her free following her overturned conviction. The death penalty. Is not. Justice. Had it been applied here, it would have been a sad injustice.

What Is That Thing On Aaron Neville's Face?

  • Is it a mole? Or a tumor? Or a Milk Dud he misplaced?
  • I keep asking to myself what good it will do us to have a Democratic President when we have a uniballer Congress. Sen. Webb? What the Hell are you doing, buddy? You voted ‘yes’ on telecomm immunity?
  • As just heard on the Rachel Maddow Show: There were a million Democratic voters who came out on Tuesday. There were a half million Republigoats.

Pennies In My Thoughts

60 Minutes last night ran a piece on one of my pet nerd obsessions: The penny.

There are some weisenheimers who think it would be a spiffy idea to just eliminate the penny. They argue that it costs more to mint a penny than it’s actually worth and, sillier still, that having pennies in our economy is just time consuming.

What a bunch of assclowns.

Eliminating the penny doesn’t make sense on its face. You see, Jerry, the number “one” is a particularly interesting number in that it is the only unit of measure that represents a single unit of anything. When you say “five,” you’re really using a mathematical and linguistic shorthand, meaning “five ones.” Remove the unit representing a single unit, and what are you counting? What? A nickel is five pennies. A dime is ten pennies. A quarter is 25 pennies. A dollar is 100 pennies. Ten dollars is 1,000 pennies. If you eliminate the penny, YOU ELIMINATE THE MOST BASIC UNIT OF CURRENCY, DUMB-DUMB, and you necessiate by definition that our economy goes from counting in units of “one” to counting in units of “five.” If you don’t think that sounds like a doomsday scenario, you probably work in the Bush administration.

Besides. Arguing for the elimination of the penny because it costs money to mint is, wow, it’s an If It Weren’t For My Horse if I’ve ever heard one. You see, Jerry, metal markets are what we call “volatile.” Yes, the price of copper and other metals are very high today. But prices of those commodities do not stay flat. They could tumble by year’s end. Then you’ve eliminated the most basic unit of the American currency for even one less stupid reason than before. Besides again: I’m sure what it costs to mint all those pennies in a year would pay for a half a day in Iraq.

Look. Anyone concerned with the price of minting pennies should go home and look at your guilty reflection in that overflowing jar on his dresser (this means you, U.S. Mint Director Edmund Moy, who admitted in the story that even he has such a jar). Perhaps if more would bother to spend those pennies rather than hoarding them, the Mint wouldn’t have to make so many. And that would be good for the U.S. economy and for individual economies as well, since that jar is just wasted income. And by the way, the cashier at the local mom-and-pop where you get your morning Twinkie? She likes it, too. It means fewer trips to her local credit union for change. Spend your pennies, and you will get to hang on to more of your dollars. It’s that simple.

I told you it was a nerd obsession.

Rhebus Challenge

Here’s a KIAV Rhebus Challenge for you, category: “Famous Quotations.” Leave your answers in comments.

Also:

  • Do me a favor. Click on the big yellow “Dennis!” button over there and give Dennis Kucinich a few bucks. Thanks!
  • I am reading (okay, listening to via Audible) Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, though I will probably purchase the book for reference. As Angela Chase might say: It is a really depressing book. But it is eye-opening, and it may provide huge zen to the average moonbat. You see. It’s not that they don’t get it or that you’re wrong. It’s that they’re playing an entirely different game, one that by its very nature abhores reasonable policy and good government. I have always believed this and have always believed that the invasion of Iraq was spurred by twisted utopians. Klein’s book thoroughly examines the scope of this movement. It will blow your mind.

After the Garden is Gone

  • I have been listening more and more lately to Neil Young’s “Living with War.” It is an unbelievable collection of music, not just the best protest music in 20 years, but some of the best music in 20 years. These are not just recordings, they are performances, and they are touching, outraged, and beautiful. If you don’t have it now, you should git it.
  • From this day forward, “to poorly plan and execute in pursuit of a monumental challenge so severely that your fantastic decline and monumental failure make Joey Buttafuoco seem functional and successful” is the new definition of the verb “giuliani.” Mmmmmmm, schadenfreude. Actually, Rudy’s spectacular failure makes me sad. I think watching Rudy actually run for national office with the New York firefighters poised to eat him up like Alien would have been so much more satisfying.
  • John Edwards is awesome. He got in at the right time. He said the right things. His candidacy forced all of them to address issues they might have found it easier to just skirt otherwise. And now, he’s gotten out just in time not to be a spoiler on Fat Super Tuesday. Even better, he’s chosen to withhold an endorsement, probably until after Feb. 5. Smart smart smart smart smart smart smart. Salon has good coverage on this. »
  • “What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label ‘Liberal?’ If by ‘Liberal’ they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer’s dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of ‘Liberal.’ But if by a ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties—someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a ‘Liberal,’ then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘Liberal.’” ( John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Acceptance Speech of the New York
    Liberal Party Nomination »     )
  • One thing seems for sure. If you’re a Democrat, you’re either an Obama person or a Clinton person. Here’s to hoping this condition doesn’t survive through the summer into fall.
  • Tonight: Keith WITH a Special Comment, followed by a Democratic debate? Who needs Grey’s Anatomy?