It can’t even hold an honest internal election.
The Republicans in the House got together to vote by secret ballot for a Republican leader. The three main choices were Blunt, Boehner, and Shadegg.
An Open Letter To That Deer I Almost Ran Over
Dear Roadkill Wannabe:
Dude, that was so not funny.
What are you — nuts?!? Are you just some nutty nutjob who is just a crazy nut?
You see that hard black path with a yellow line down the middle? That’s called a road, asshole! Cars drive on them!
There was, like, 200 yards between me and the closet car. Plenty of time for you to amble across. Yes, I said amble!!!
But did you do that?!? No! You wait until I’m right upon you and then you leap out from nowhere and do a Baryshnikov across the road! You didn’t even "look both ways" first. Even a child knows better than that!!!
Yeah, I know. Your feet didn’t touch the road – and it was a two-laner. Was that supposed to impress me? It didn’t. Besides, that’s hardly the point.
The point is that I drive a very visible red Ford Escape Hybrid, and even though it’s a "mini-SUV", it’s still a couple of tons of metal and glass. At 35 miles per hour, don’t you know what it can do to a deer upon impact?
Here, click on this link (or if you can’t click because of your hooves, find a raccoon to help you — I understand that they have opposable thumbs). Yeah, that could be you one day, shithead.
It would have been curtains for you my friend, not to mention the damage to my car. Talk about your animal-man-hybrid misfortunes.
Didn’t you listen to NPR this morning? Don’t you know that one of your buddies got nailed at the corner of Reynolda Road and Shattalon Drive?!? Can’t you take a friggin’ hint?
And I’m one of the good guys. I support the World Wildlife Fund. I’m on your side, bro. But if you do that again, me and my SUV are just going to get medieval on your Bambi ass.
You scared me, dude. You scared that woman in the white van, too. So not cool.
Jerk. Moron. Venison.
Yours in Disgust, Ken
Not Christian Enough!
I admit it. I enjoy it when fundamentalist Christian propagandists turn on each other:
Christian ministers were enthusiastic at the early private screenings of "End of the Spear," made by Every Tribe Entertainment, an evangelical film company. But days before the film’s premiere, a controversy erupted over the casting of a gay actor that has all but eclipsed the movie and revealed fault lines among evangelicals.
The film relates the true story of five American missionaries who were killed in 1956 by an indigenous tribe in Ecuador. The missionaries’ families ultimately converted the tribe to Christianity, and forgave and befriended the killers. The tale inspired evangelicals 40 years ago with its message of redemption and grace, and the film company expected a similar reception.
On Jan. 12, though, the Rev. Jason Janz took the filmmakers to task for casting Chad Allen, an openly gay man and an activist, in the movie’s lead role as one of the slain missionaries, and later, his grown son.
An assistant pastor at the independent Red Rocks Baptist Church in Denver, Mr. Janz posted his comments on his fundamentalist Christian Web site, sharperiron.org. He also asked the filmmakers to apologize for their choice.
Bush Not Cooperating With Senate Investigation
The Bush administration is rebuffing requests from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee for its classified legal opinions on President Bush’s domestic spying program, setting up a confrontation in advance of a hearing scheduled for next week, administration and Congressional officials said Wednesday.
The Justice Department is balking at the request so far, administration officials said, arguing that the legal opinions would add little to the public debate because the administration has already laid out its legal defense at length in several public settings.
Yeah, but we don’t know if the administration’s laid out legal defense is to be taken literally.
FireDogLake has a few thoughts.
God’s Thing Not Wroughting Anymore
The world’s first telegram was sent on May 24, 1844 by inventor Samuel Morse. The message, "What hath God wrought," was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore.
Guess what? The telegram is now offically a thing of the past. After 145 of telegram service, Western Union (now mostly a fnancial services company) is no longer in the telegram business (for obvious reasons).
If you go to their website, and click on the word "Telegrams", you come to this page and get this message:
Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage.
That’s kinda sad, don’t you think?
Company spokesman Victor Chayet tells AP that Western Union still managed to move 20,000 telegrams in 2005, despite a cost of about $10 a message and a delivery structure in which your telegram was actually delivered by Airborne rather than by a spiffy Western Union courier.
Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) – Man Of Principle
When Capitol Police dragged Rep. Young’s wife out of the SOTU because she was wearing a "Support Our Troops" T-shirt, Rep. Young was outraged. Even though Mrs. Young was not handcuffed, fingerprint, and thrown in jail (like Cindy Sheehan), Rep. Young took to the floor of the House and denounced the actions of the police.
But later on, to reporters:
Young said he wouldn’t be so mad if it were just Sheehan. "I totally disagree with everything she stands for," he said.
Oy.
Respect And Reason
This conservative blogger ought to visit his own website.
He pens a screed against Cindy Sheehan, writing:
This is a time when our country should be emanating strength and unity of purpose, where intellectual differences are debated with respect and reason.
And to the right of these words? An advertisement of Jonah Goldberg’s book: "Liberal Fascism". Complete with a picture of a smiley face with a Hitler moustache.
[H/T: Glenn Greenwald]
Milestones
I guess I should take note of a couple of milestones:
(1) I passed by two-year blogging anniversary on January 21, 2006. Ironically, my first post was about the State Of the Union . . in 2004. (Although not really, because I was part of a group blog back in 2003. But whatever.)
(2) My 2,000th post was written today.
Two years. 2000 posts. So that’s something like 1,000 posts per year.
Okay, where’s my gold watch?
Last Post About The SOTU, I Promise
The best thing about this clip (Quicktime) is that Bush thinks he is about to give a snappy retort to the Democratic outburst, and then he totally trips over his tongue.
Clintonism In MilInt
I’m a reasonably smart man, and I understand that the English is not an exact science, but this strikes me as utter bullshit. From Congressional Quarterly:
“Contrary to popular belief, there is no absolute ban on [military] intelligence components collecting U.S. person information,” the U.S.Army’s top intelligence officer said in a 2001 memo that surfaced Tuesday.
Not only that, military intelligence agencies are permitted to “receive” domestic intelligence information, even though they cannot legally “collect” it,” according to the Nov. 5, 2001, memo issued by Lt. Gen. Robert W. Noonan Jr., the deputy chief of staff for intelligence.
***
“Remember, merely receiving information does not constitute ‘collection’ under AR [Army Regulation] 381-10; collection entails receiving ‘for use,’ ” he added. (Army Regulation 381-10, “U.S. Army Intelligence Activities,” was reissued on Nov. 22, 2005, but had not previously been disclosed publicly.) “Army intelligence may always receive information, if only to determine its intelligence value and whether it can be collected, retained, or disseminated in accordance with governing policy,”
The distinction between “receiving” and “collecting” seems “to offer considerable leeway for domestic surveillance activities under the existing legal framework,” wrote editor Steven Aftergood in Tuesday’s edition of Secrecy News.
“This in turn makes it harder to understand why the NSA domestic surveillance program departed from previous practice.”
Aftergood was alerted to the existence of the memo by another security expert, John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, who thought that “there is enough ambiguity in the language that with a bit of creativity in managing the U.S. persons files there would have been not too much trouble” applying existing rules to the warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency.
Trick Question
MyDD commissioned a poll. One of the questions was this:
Q14. Given events since the invasion, do you support the decision to maintain a U.S. combat force of over 100,000 troops in Iraq for the next few years?
All Dem Rep Ind
Strongly Support 15.6 5.2 29.2 13.7
Support 38.2 28.2 49.3 38.0
Oppose 24.0 30.7 16.0 24.6
Strongly Oppose 22.2 35.9 5.6 23.7
Okay. That’s pretty much what you expect. Republicans tend to want to stay; Democrats don’t.
Then they asked a question based on the "Murtha Plan" — the plan suggested by Democratic Senator John Murtha.
Except, the poll didn’t call it the "Murtha Plan". It just described the plan. The result?
Q15. A new troop deployment plan was proposed recently. The plan is to withdraw US troops from Iraq but to keep them close by in neighboring countries like Kuwait to be sent back in if they are needed to maintain civil order. Do you, strongly support, support, oppose or strongly oppose this new troop deployment plan for Iraq?
All Dem Rep Ind
Strongly Support 11.8 8.8 17.9 9.5
Support 51.5 50.5 46.8 56.4
Oppose 22.3 25.1 23.6 18.7
Strongly Oppose 14.4 15.6 11.8 15.4
Yup. 64% of Republicans support or strongly support the Murtha Plan.
It’s amazing what you find out when you remove political bias.
Et Tu, Grover?
Grover Norquist, father of the neo-conservative movement, leading anti-tax advocate, and extreme war-on-terror hawk, commented on Bush’s "terrorist surveillance program" vs. upholding civil liberties :
"It’s not either/or. If the president thinks he needs different tools, pass a law to get them. Don’t break the existing laws."
Ouch. Why does Norquist hate America?
UPDATE: Guess what? This is my 2000th blog post.
As Emily Litella Said: “Never Mind”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry:
One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America’s dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn’t mean it literally.
What the hell?