The only thing to which I can compare the level of my excited anticipation about this new episode is Beardy Jack and Unbeardy Jack both on the verge of orgasm at the exact same time.
What do you think is "the best fooking shoo in the histoory oof shoos"?
Aside from Lost (ZOMG 30 minutes!!!!11!!!eleventy-one!!!!), my favorite show is probably Twin Peaks. Tied with Extras.
Shortly behind: The Office (UK and US).
(Ensembles? Why, yes I do like them!)
Wow, I never thought I'd see the day. Our Lady of the Prison Camps opines as follows (via S,N!):
So, Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed John McCain. He extolled McCain for “reach[ing] across the political aisle to get things done.”You've got to admire the purity of it.
We’ll hear that annoying platitude a bazillion and one times through Super Tuesday and beyond.
To which I say: When did it become the Republican Party’s top priority to “get things done?”
Sources: Al Qaeda's No. 3 man killed.
I guess we've finally captured or killed all the number twos—so it's on to the number threes at long last!
I'll be liveblogging tonight's debate, if you're interested in a live blog. If not, then don't come to my site -- there'll be a live blog there!
Still rape. As ever!
Part wev in an Ongoing Series by Liss and me, which I named here, about the World's Most Obnoxious Feminist Concern TrollTM.
Even newly armored by the spirit of Camelot, Barack Obama is still distressed by the sight of a certain damsel...their relations have been frosty and fraught ever since the young Chicago prince challenged Queen Hillary’s royal proclamation that it was her turn to rule...given her brazen quote to ABC News, Obama is right to be scared of Hillary. He just needs to learn that Uncle Teddy can’t fight all his fights, and that a little chivalry goes a long way.I mean, come the fuck on. This is a bi-weekly column in an internationally recognized newspaper, written by a person who for some reason was once awarded the Pulitzer, and this is what we get? Using the Camelot/queen/prince metaphor to analyze a presidential race is the journalistic equivalent of smashing the keyboard and grunting in monosyllables. I mean, "fraught"? As in "with peril"? Oh, she's using old-timey language; how clever. And Hillary is the "brazen Queen" because she was married to the president and she's all sassy and uppity-like with the power-hunger. Off with their heads, et al. I've said this before and I'll say it eleventy-six more times: Aside from being boring, this kind of cutesy 'journalism' is pure sexism disguised as humor. The tired accusation of female "entitlement," blatant in all Dowd's Hillary-related columns, is just a recycled variation on the ancient fear of women's attainment of social power. For someone who seems to brand herself a liberal, Dowd continues to demonstrate an impressive misunderstanding of feminism.
I just saw this headline at Raw Story in their BlogsMedia section: Bush to Barney: 'I'm open minded'.
An even though I'd already read the story reported at PageOneQ about Bush's exchange with Representative Barney Frank about his boyfriend, during which the president told the congressman that he was open-minded, I still read Bush to Barney: 'I'm open minded' and immediately figured Bush had had a heart-to-heart with his dog, i.e. Bush's most important Iraq advisor.
Next week, Brazilians will rise as one, and party their asses off. Yes, Carnival is coming, and nowhere on Earth is it celebrated with as much verve and style as in Brazil.
The best part of this year's Carnival? No floats about the Holocaust with a dancing Hitler on top. At least, not for a lack of trying.
You see, a big part of Carnival here is the Samba school competition. They have huge competitions both in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, they are televised, and they are a huge part of the lives of many Brazilians. It's a BIG deal, basically. Each Samba school will have hundreds and hundreds of dancers, drummers, and workers to make their Theme come to life.
It seems that a Samba school called Viradouro was planning on making its theme "É de arrepiar" which, loosely translated is "It's Shocking." One of their floats was to be dedicated to the Holocaust and was to be adorned with a pile of dead bodies (not real ones, mind you) with a dancing Hitler on top of it all.
Basically, what happened was, all the schools are required to tell what their theme will be beforehand. When this came out, the Jewish Federation in Brazil asked Viradouro to at least make one change - to put a sign saying "Never again" on the float. The school said no. So, they took it to court, where a judge said the school could not use the float, or any Hitlers, and that Carnival wasn't really the appropriate place for a dissection of the barbarities of the Holocaust
Of course, the school still has an appeal left before the celebration begins, so, a samba-ing Hitler on dead bodies is still a possibility.
You can see the Article here in Portuguese, and use Babel Fish or another translator to get a rough translation. Check out the comments, too (there are more than 600 at this point). They range from being furious over the judge's decision, claiming censorship, to some getting the point, to others hurling out illogical and ignorant anti-Semitic opinions.
--WKW
"When conservative bloggers are defending Bill Clinton against bad journalism, you know the journalism has to be really bad."—Steve Benen, correcting the record on Jake Tapper's shitastic piece suggesting Bill Clinton claimed that slowing economic growth was the solution to global warming, pretty much the exact opposite of what he said.
My fellow Soros minion Spencer Ackerman, now fully moved in at Minnesota Monitor's sister publication the Washington Independent, has taken a look at how the surge is doing these days. You remember, the surge? Won us Iraq finally, after our long nightmare of not winning Iraq? Stopped all violence? Has completely transformed Iraq into a paradise with flowers and chirping birds and butterflies and candy and democracy, whisky, sexy? That surge? Yeah, turns out those may not be permanent gains:
It used to be that surge enthusiasts would at least hint at the unachieved strategic objective of the surge. As Bush himself put it, the surge was meant to provide the Iraqi government "the breathing space it needs to make progress" on sectarian reconciliation. But reconciliation hasn’t happened, and, in important respects, sectarianism has deepened over the past year. So surgeniks are now simply declaring victory by the sheer fact of reduced violence itself, unmoored to any strategic goal.
But even accepting that lowered standard, there are growing signs of backsliding in Iraq—even before the surge brigades depart in July.
The Sunni insurgency, all but decimated in the imagination of the surge advocates, has demonstrated something of a surge of its own in recent weeks. Baghdad, Anbar and Diyala provinces, the hotbeds of the insurgency, have seen a return of high-profile suicide bombing. Prominent collaborators with the U.S., like the so-called "Concerned Local Citizens" militias, have been targeted for death by insurgents and terrorists. "Of late, though, as you’ve been seeing, is certainly an increase in the number of suicide events that occur with individuals, mostly with a suicide vest wrapped around their waist," Adm. Greg Smith, a spokesman for Multi-National Force-Iraq, said in a blogger conference call last week.
Iraq security statistics over the past 13 weeks, obtained exclusively by The Washington Independent, tell the tale. In Baghdad, improvised-explosive device (IED) detonations explosions in Baghdad have ticked up slightly to 131 in January from 129 in December—and the last week of January is not included in these latest figures. Countrywide, there was an increase in IED explosions to 2,291 in December from 1,394 in November, followed by a dip to 1,270 in the first three weeks of January. But the week ending on January 25 saw seven suicide explosions Iraq-wide, the most since the week ending Dec. 21, 2007.
(Once in a while, Liss asks me to repost the following entry, which was - I think - my very first post here. Kind of a TV Land-style revisit. Today I actually remembered...)
As happens occasionally, the larder at Casa Waveflux was lacking some essential items last night. I volunteered to brave the after-work crowds at the local supermarket and pick up a few things. I asked M what she wanted for dinner. "Spinach," she said. "And 'boeuf.'"
"Spinach and 'boeuf' it is," I said, and off I went.
The trick to early evening grocery shopping is a laser-like focus on the objective. Get it and get out. I grabbed a couple of Balance bars*, then guided the shopping cart to the asparagus. I love asparagus, but finding the right bundle of spears requires some attention. I rejected the first two candidates, then eyed a third which looked promising.
"Excuse me," said a voice to my left.
I turned to find myself facing an older white guy - perhaps sixty, sixty-five. He was casually dressed, had graying hair, glasses. He carried a plastic bag of some produce or other in his left hand. His expression seemed friendly enough. I thought at first that I was blocking his access to the asparagus and prepared to sidle over with a suitable "Excuse me." But it wasn't asparagus that the man had on his mind.
"I was listening to public radio this afternoon," he began.
I smiled expectantly, but my heart sank. I was about to be roped into a conversation. This is what happens when you let your guard down in the produce section. It's happened before.
"They had on two men from that black and white television show," the man continued.
Context is vitally important in impromptu social encounters. Given that this gentleman had heard about the show on NPR, and recently at that, and given the difference in our racial profiles, and given finally his very earnest expression, I knew that he wasn't referring to Leave It to Beaver. He could only be describing Black. White. , the FX race-swapping show. Oh, dear, I thought. The asparagus seemed suddenly far away.
My companion - whose name I never learned - went on to describe the exchange between these two men, one African-American and the other Italian-American, who ventured into the world guised as white and black respectively. They had returned with very different takes on the experience; my companion was highly distressed at the Italian-American man's seeming denial of racism in the culture, and he really, really wanted to tell somebody.
So he told me.
He was mystified that anyone, regardless of skin color, could go through life unaware of prejudice even if untouched by it him/herself, and asked me how that could possibly be. I said something about the difference in individual experiences that left people more or less equipped to recognize racism; I suggested that sometimes people come to such perceptions very late in life. He looked skeptical, but seemed to accept the possibility.
He went on to talk about the integration of Catholic schools here in St. Louis - seven years before Brown v. Board of Education, the work of Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Ritter - and the shock and resistance that the change produced in the community here. I know practically nothing about Ritter - just the name, really - but this was history that my companion had lived, and it had clearly left a profound impression on him.
At length, we parted company. I really had to finish my shopping and get dinner ready, I said. He gave me a rather hearty clap on the back, thanked me for talking to him, and away he went.
I picked out my asparagus and went on my way. Spinach and 'boeuf,' you know.
When I got home, I related the story to M, my wife - my white wife - and she laughed. "My people," she said, "can be very strange." She clearly considered the idea of picking out someone to represent all black people really odd.
And yeah, there's something to that. But hey, who's he going to talk to - George Bush? Conversation requires crossing lines, borders, barriers. As odd as it was, I'm glad he pulled me aside.
(Note: I no longer eat Balance bars.)
Sorry I'm late with getting this up! Our recipe this week comes from Shaker Arkades:
Sugar-Free Chocolate Pudding
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup Splenda® brand sweetener
1/4 cup corn starch
1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
2 cups milk (I usually use skim)
Combine the dry ingredients in a saucepan and whisk until thoroughly blended. (According to the sugary recipe from which I adapted this sugar-free variant, the dry pudding mix can be stored for up to a month in an airtight container in the fridge, though I usually just mix up as much as I need, just as I need it.)
Add the milk to the dry ingredients in the saucepan and whisk until well mixed; there may be a few lumps of dry cocoa in the mix, but most of the powder should be moistened and have attained a liquid-like consistency.
Warm the saucepan over medium heat until the mixture reaches a simmer, whisking as needed. (Whisk constantly for absolute best results, though once every couple of minutes usually turns out fine until the pan is simmering.)
Once the mixture is simmering and has thickened slightly, reduce the heat and set a timer for the amount of time you wish to stir (see below) and begin whisking continuously to prevent the mixture from burning on the bottom of the saucepan.
Once the timer goes off, or as soon as your pudding has reached a desirable consistency, pour the hot pudding into containers with lids and place in the fridge for an hour or so to chill and 'set'. (Or, enjoy immediately as a sugar-free hot fudge topping. Yummy!) The pudding will thicken upon standing.
In the fridge, the pudding will thicken yet more, possibly gaining a toothsome 'soft fudge' consistency. There will probably be some condensed water (formerly steam) inside the containers when you dig them out of the fridge; I usually pour off the excess water rather than stir it back in because I prefer the firmer fudge-like texture.
SO HOW LONG SHOULD I STIR WHILE IT SIMMERS?
If you like a creamier pudding, stop stirring-and-simmering somewhere around the 3.5 - 4 minute mark; the texture will seem a bit too liquid at first, but should firm up to creamy as the pudding cools. If (like me) you prefer a thicker pudding that you can sink your teeth into (kind of like a soft-set fudge, really), keep stirring longer, somewhere between 4 and 5 minutes. The pudding will look like 'normal' creamy pudding as you pour and will firm up even more in the fridge to assume a fudgy semi-solid state. Chocolate bliss, with only a teensy bit of guilt!
I posted this great Lee Stranahan video at my place on New Year's Eve; it was undoubtedly put up all over the 'tubes that week. Considering the recent rumblings hereabouts concerning the possibility (and implications) of a Ron Paul third-party run...well, here it is again. Enjoy!
You know those faux testicles you can buy for your car, the ones that scream, "I have castration anxiety," "I am a misogynist douchehound," "I am the biggest doofus you have ever met," and "I have a tiny penis" all at the same time? You do? Good, because those things have now reached a transcendent level of horribly wrong.
That's right -- support your troops testes!
I frankly want to meet someone who would buy these. I want to meet them, and I want to ask them: rather than buying testicle helper, why not simply enlist, and show actual gonadal fortitude? Because if we're going with the colloquial misogynistic sense of the term -- and these guys most certainly are -- then you're not showing any balls by getting fake plastic ones for your car. You're pretty much demonstrating the opposite.
Via PZ, who says, "I swear, if I ever saw one of these on the freeway, it would be a traffic hazard because I'd be laughing and crying too hard to maintain proper control of my vehicle."
Following George Bush's State of the Union, now's as good of time as any to look at the positives and negatives of Conservative policies in the U.S.:
The Good
-- Halliburton is doing great.
-- Exxon is doing great.
-- Shell is doing great.
The Bad
-- The U.S. military is unprepared to defend the nation and fighting two endless wars that amount to little more than a war profiteer's wettest dreams. And lots and lots of death.
-- A disgustingly inhumane health care system.
-- A tanking economy.
-- Rule of law is meaningless.
George W. Bush's Presidency has been the culmination of U.S. Conservative dreams and values all coming together under an incompetent ideologue. Yet no one in the mainstream media would dare say that U.S. Conservatism is a failed, evil ideology. It destroys the military, the economy, human rights, democracy and reputation of the U.S..
And the U.S. may very well elect another self-absorbed Conservative and corporate puppet in November.
And no good will come from it.
--WKW
Following up on Melissa's post: so Ralph Nader is considering another White House run. Only bloggers will notice.
There's no point getting upset about this. Nader has the right to run if he wants. Anyone who wants to vote for him has the right to do so. In a democracy, any persons may seek public office for which they are legally qualified; and people may vote in any way they wish, for good reasons, bad reasons, or no reason. There's no point complaining about it, or pretending that the Democratic Party or any of its candidates are somehow owed anyone's vote; they never are. Votes always have to be earned, every time. That's the way democracies work. (N.B.: I'm not saying that Melissa has argued against any of these statements.)
There is also (and I realize this will be more controversial) no point in going over Nader's role in the Florida 2000 debacle again, as some of us will surely be tempted to do. Of course, Nader's candidacy was a factor in how things turned out there. So were the candidacies of about a half dozen other third-party candidates in that state that year, each of whom pulled more votes than the narrow distance between Bush and Gore.
But more importantly, going over Nader's role in Florida 2000 obscures the real lessons to be learned from that bizarre case: that the modern Republican Party will do anything to win, including breaking the law with gleeful abandon; and that they've got lots of help where it counts. Consider the defective butterfly ballot; a national media that refused to believe that Gore might have a case; the throwing of thousands of black voters off the rolls illegally; the Brooks Brothers riot; Katherine Harris and Brother Jeb their own selves; and the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the Florida Supreme Court when it had no business doing so. Amid all this Republican cheating, it seems odd to single out Nader or the Greens. And of course, when Nader ran again in 2004, he had no significant impact -- and yet similar shenanigans happened in Ohio, even with him more or less out of the picture.
So, let him run. Don't worry about it, and don't get distracted from the real problem, which is that there are going to be GOP dirty tricks everywhere this year, in a way that will make Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 pale by comparison. And if McCain is the Republican nominee, as I think he will be, the media will attempt a coronation so undemocratic it would make James Baker blush with shame. There's your problem, not Ralph Nader.
Siun at Crooks and Liars:
In the SOTU Monday night, George Bush cheered on the "young democracy" in Afghanistan:According to The Independent, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh received his sentence, issued by an Islamic court, as punishment for having allegedly downloaded and distributed a report on the internet "which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed."In Afghanistan, America, our 25 NATO allies and 15 partner nations are helping the Afghan people defend their freedom and rebuild their country. Thanks to the courage of these military and civilian personnel, a nation that was once a safe haven for al-Qaida is now a young democracy where boys and girls are going to school, new roads and hospitals are being built, and people are looking to the future with new hope.Yet just six days ago a young Afghan reporter was sentenced to death in Afghanistan and the case points to the return of both judicial extremists and the continuing power of the warlords.
You know, I always thought there was something wrong with the boy. Turns out Bart Simpson is a Scientologist. Well, at least his voice is.
Longtime Scientologist Nancy Cartwright — best known as the voice of Bart Simpson — last year gave the church $10 million to help spread the word of founder L. Ron Hubbard into other galaxies.
It was all part of Scientology’s Global Salvage effort, which aims to "de-aberrate" Earth — meaning to rid mankind of psychology ills and other "aberrant" behavior.
Surprisingly, Nancy, 50, forked over twice as much as the Scientology's most prominent member, Tom Cruise, who only gave $5 million in an installment plan.
According to Impact, Scientology's magazine, here's a look at those sucked in by the Scientology scam for big - and I mean big - bucks, (via Page Six):What are the biggest selling points for you on Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama?
Let's keep this thread positive. A lot of us are disappointed about Edwards dropping out of the race, but we are now faced with the prospect of a historic campaign, in which the Democratic Party will nominate either a man of color or a woman to top their ticket, which is pretty cool, and, despite their flaws, there are lots of good things about Hillary and Barack to discuss, too. So let's go there, and let's stay there for this thread. I'll start...
Barack Obama: I admire Senator Obama for his involvement in community organizing, which is so important in urban communities (which I am not using as a euphemism for "black communities," but as a literal description of city neighborhoods, in which neighborliness and community involvement often requires some facilitation). I dig his quick wit and his tenacity. And his story is extremely compelling: Every time I think about how he would be the first Illinois legislator in the White House since Abraham Lincoln, and let that particular historical juxtaposition wash over me, it makes me feel more than a wee bit blubby.
Hillary Clinton: I like that she's got the most ethnically diverse campaign staff and the most women among both her paid campaign staff and senior staff of any Democrat in the race. I also really like Senator Clinton as a person. I've never gotten the whole Ice Queen thing; she's actually always struck me as warm and caring and clever and funny, but what do I know?—I hear an infectious laugh where others hear a cackle. She's tough and unbreakable, which I deeply respect. And, as I've said before, irrespective of how women feel about her, we all owe her an enormous and unknowable debt for going first, for bearing the burden of having to weather at every turn messages that you're intrinsically less than, despite being patently qualified to run a global superpower.
XicanoPwr at ¡Para Justicia y Libertad! on the latest affront to women perpetrated by the jackbooted thugs of the Bush-brand patriarchy:
Once again, the Department of Homeland Security has decided to abuse their prosecutorial discretion. Homeland Security has now set its sight on victims of domestic abuse as they are now considering eliminating the domestic violence program that was meant to protect people like Emelina Ramirez Bojorquez and Ana Bertha Arellano.Go read the whole thing. Thanks to Liza for passing that along.“I have my own health insurance. I don’t take any aid for anything. I don’t want anything else but a chance to have some stability for my family,” said Arellano, 37, one of the thousands of immigrants, many mothers of U.S.-born children, who could be affected if the policy shifts.After applying for her green card six months ago, she is now being told by the Sacramento office of Citizenship and Immigration Services that her application for a green card has been put on hold. According to the Sacramento Bee, Homeland Security is considering whether to reject green-card petitions for immigrant abuse survivors if they entered the United States in the past illegally. The Bee also reported that more than 30,670 immigrants married to US spouses have been granted Violence Against Women Act visas, however, now they will soon be in limbo. Arellano fears that her green-card application will soon be rejected and being deported is the ultimate punishment for her.
…By eliminating the Violence Against Women Act’s domestic violence program, Homeland Security will only force more battered immigrants into the shadows and some into an early grave at the hands of their abuser.
Because it can't be noted often enough that John McCain has, in fact, not been a maverick lo these past seven years, but a pathetic, sycophantic lackey of the Bush cartel, repeatedly and happily embracing the man whose political operatives called his wife a junky and his daughter a bastard.
(You’ll have to turn it up because it’s kind of quiet, and sorry for the dead space at the end. The only software I have to do this suckzzz ass.)
About a month after Ron Paul's record-breaking 24-hour fundraising juggernaut netted him $4.3 million in contributions, I offhandedly observed to Spudsy that it was sort of weird how he didn't seem to actually be spending any of it. We then immediately got distracted, no doubt, making fun of the Paulnuts or wondering what the Ronpaulbuxxx to Euros exchange rate was or something.
But, noting a relevant diary asking What is Ron Paul REALLY doing with all that money?, actual grown-up Dave Neiwert says:
[M]y guess is that Paul has conceded the GOP nomination and is laying the groundwork for a third-party run. That's where this warchest will be directed.Well, that would certainly be amusing.
You can say you read it here first.
A woman dead since October cast an absentee ballot in St. Louis for the presidential primary. It is alleged that the woman’s son marked X and fraudulently return the ballot.
St. Louis city election officials are pleased that the system caught the alleged fraud.
Everyone else wants to know who the dead woman’s vote would have gone to and whether it hurts of helps their campaign.
Blink.
Here is video of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama and their fawning adoration of John Edwards. Obama pledges to "achieve that dream of one America." Hillary wants to reach out to his supporters. Both have pledged to continue his work on poverty. All those corporations need all the help they can get.
John Edwards ended his campaign today in the same way he started it - by standing with the people who are too often left behind and nearly always left out of our national debate.Senator Barack Obama:
John ran with compassion and conviction and lifted this campaign with his deep concern for the daily lives of the American people. That is what this election is about - it's about our people. And John is one of the greatest champions the American people could ask for.
I wish John and Elizabeth all the best. They have my great personal respect and gratitude. And I know they will continue to fight passionately for the country and the people they love so deeply.
“John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling, even when it wasn’t popular to do or covered in the news. At a time when our politics is too focused on who’s up and who’s down, he made a nation focus again on who matters – the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington.
"John and Elizabeth Edwards have always believed deeply that we can change this – that two Americans can become one, and that our country can rally around this common purpose. So while his campaign may end today, the cause of their lives endures for all of us who still believe that we can achieve that dream of one America.
What's the frequency, Shakers?
Recommended Reading:
In Feminism : Ginmar—Hired Victim-Blamer for Wife Murderer Busted for....Wife Beating (You just can't make this stuff up.) Cara—For the Love of the Game: Covering Up Rape to Win the Rose Bowl. And Laura—Front Page Murder.
In Domestic Issues: Molly Ivors—Not In My Airforce. Terrance—A Basic Health Care Failure. And Coturnix—Huckabee on Evolution.
In Democratic Primary Stuff: Roxanne—Stuff That Makes Me Want to Vote for Clinton Just to Spite You. Tom Watson—State of Diss Union. And Creature—Hold Hillary Accountable.
AP:
Rudy Giuliani told supporters Wednesday he's abandoning his bid for president and backing Republican rival and longtime friend John McCain.I find it coincidental that he decides this now with just about 9 months to go till the election in the 11th month of the year.
"I spoke with Rudy Giuliani this morning and he confirmed that he is dropping out of the race and will endorse Senator John McCain for president," New York Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno said in a statement.
Ralph Nader has formed a presidential exploratory committee and is considering another run for the White House. He says, quite rightly, that Clinton and Obama have failed "to advance aggressive plans to tax corporations more fairly, and to fight for a vastly higher minimum wage," and wonders "who's going to carry the torch of democratic populism against the relentless domination of powerful corporations of our government" now that both Edwards and Kucinich are out of the race.
Nader also rejects the "spoiler" label many Democrats have applied to him since 2000, when his candidacy was blamed in some circles for helping defeat Democratic candidate Al Gore.You know, it's a good point. And I'd have a lot more respect for him if he made a concerted effort to make this point—and endeavored to either galvanize a vibrant third party or progressivize the Democratic party—in between elections, instead of popping up once every four years to indulge a vanity campaign.
"That is the sign of political bigotry," he said. "Why aren't the major candidates spoilers? They represent parties that spoil our electoral system and our government."
I was feeling a bit down today, until my wife sent me a handy link to some pictures of ...... Giraffe Baby!
andGiraffe Baby Giving Kisses!
So thank you, Querida. You've saved me from feeling down for the millionth time or so. And you're right, she is cuter than a puppy and a kitten trying to squeeze inside a slipper.
(Click the second photo to see how Baby Margaret is doing.)
--WKW
We've now pared the fields down enough to put the power rankings into one post. This is good, because I've run out of ways to say, "Jebus, but 9iu11ani has no chance." We'll start on the left side of the aisle.
Democrats
1. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. (Last Rank: 2)
Barack Obama really couldn't have asked for a better sequence of events. First, Bill Clinton acts like a complete jerk in South Carolina, managing to push every negative button on the anti-Hillary console in the process. Next, he absolutely crushes Clinton in South Carolina, doubling her up, thanks in part to the aforementioned former president. Then Caroline, Patrick, and Ted Kennedy all endorse him, with Teddy taking some serious shots at Hillary in the process. Then Clinton's plan to make Florida count backfires, making her look like the Machiavellian schemer Clintonphobes fear she is. Finally, today, John Edwards drops out, right at a point where Edwards supporters will be least likely to support Clinton and most likely to support Obama. It's gonna be really close down the stretch, but give the edge to Obama.
2. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. (LR: 1)
If you reread why Obama's up, you know why Clinton's down, and most of it is all about Clinton. But not, unfortunately, Hillary Clinton, the candidate who's actually running for president. No, Bill has injected himself into the race in a big, big way, seriously damaging himself and his wife in the process. Now, Bill Clinton was a perfectly cromulent president, but his wife has been a Senator for seven years and appears to be competent and bright, and not for nothing, but she's the candidate, not you, Bill. Hillary needs to get her husband to shut up for the duration of the campaign, and the Clinton campaign as a whole needs to recognize that Democrats do not particularly want to see a scorched-earth campaign in the primaries. As for Hillary, she's going to need to reassert herself as the actual candidate, because I've seen more of Bill on my teevee lately than Hill, and Bill isn't running.
3. Former Sen. Mike Gravel, D-Alaska (LR: 5)
On the one hand, I sort of respect Gravel's Quixotic campaign for the presidency; I've always been a sucker for lost causes, ever since I was in the pit orchestra for a high school production of Man of La Mancha that got canceled by the teachers because getting it produced was going to be too hard. Deep irony, that. At any rate, while I like the Quixotic attempt, I'm also reminded of a quote from Robert Heinlein: "Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills."
Dropping out: John Edwards (3), Dennis Kucinich (4)
Republicans
1. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. (LR: 2)
With a win in Florida, McCain gets the front-runner tag, and he's got a very good chance to win it all. That's the good news. The bad news is that he's out of money, and if he doesn't get a knockout blow on Super Duper Tuesday, he's going to have to deal with Mitt Romney, who has enough money to fight a war of attrition to St. Paul and beyond. The worse news is that, while he still has his sycophantic supporters in the media, a few members of the press are starting to wake up to the fact that McCain won in Florida by, well, lying. Hard to do straight talking when you're lying. I think McCain has dented his halo a bit, and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets further tarnished during the campaign. Add to the fact that McCain is perhaps the worst public speaker in the race, and you've got a candidate who looks much better on paper than in reality right now.
2. Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass. (LR: 1)
It was a nice run for Mitt, but he really needed to win in Florida and he didn't. His best chance now will be to muddy the waters during Super Tuesday; if he can win, say, 1/3 of the states and 1/3 of the delegates, he'll have a decent shot at fighting delegate-by-delegate to the convention, especially if Mike Huckabee drops out. But that's a big if, and while McCain is still vulnerable, it may be that the GOP simply decides to give Old Man Surge the reins to the party, in which case it will be hard for Mitt to win. Somewhere, Hugh Hewitt cries quietly.
3. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark. (LR: 3)
Huckabee's best chance came and went with South Carolina. Had he won there, it would likely be a Romney-Huckabee race right now. As it is, Huckabee is mired as the clear third-place candidate right now. The question now is how long he can stay in the race. He's going to mess things up for Romney on Super Tuesday, but if he gets knocked out after that then Romney might have a chance to stage a comeback. If he wins enough on Super Tuesday to stay in the race, then McCain probably wins the nomination -- although it's barely possible to see a situation in which the three top-tier candidates muddle into a brokered convention.
4. A Brokered Convention (LR:4)
Still less likely than a McCain win, but the scenario goes like this: McCain wins about half the delegates on Super Tuesday, but Huckabee and Romney both split the rest roughly equally. This keeps both in the race, and while McCain is the leader, he still struggles to match Romney's spending. The two split most of the remaining contests, while Huckabee picks up another two or three states, enough to keep everyone below 50 percent. Likely? Not really. But possible.
5. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex. (LR: 5)
Finally starting to fade from the peak of Paulmentum, Ron and the Paulbots will need to decide soon whether to keep campaigning for the GOP nomination or to switch over for a third-party run. Certainly, Paul is not going to win the nomination at this point, but he may as well stay in for a bit longer, if only to annoy Britt Hume. I'm always in favor of annoying Britt Hume.
6. Ambassador Alan Keyes (LR: 8)
Moves up in the rankings because everyone above him had enough smarts to quit the race. And...frankly, I'm running out of snarky things to say about that. I mean, yeah, we've talked about the neck beard, and the tying-every-social-ill-to-abortion, and the fact that I believe he's picked up a grand total of 11 votes nationwide, but...I mean, doesn't it feel like we've done this before? Oh yeah, we have, in '96 and '00.
Dropping Out: Fred Thompson (7), Rudy Giuliani (8)
By now, I'm sure everyone has heard that John Edwards reportedly plans to drop out of the presidential race. Right now, he's giving a speech in New Orleans where he is expected to announce his decision. It's fitting, as New Orleans is where his campaign began—and it remains the central front of the war on poverty in America, perhaps the place most representative, in so many different ways, of the current administration's failures.
An aide said Edwards does not plan to endorse either Clinton or Obama at this time but he may do so in the future.But, of course, neither of them is running the kind of campaign John Edwards was running. Neither of them is working on a Habitit for Humanity project today, as Edwards is scheduled to do, and has been long before this announcement was planned. Neither of them took public financing, though they both say they believe in it and will "fight" for that particular "change." Neither of them refused to employ lobbyists in their campaigns. Neither of them refuses money from lobbyists. Neither of them speaks with passion about the growing blight on the American landscape that is unchecked corporate avarice—and neither of them got ignored by the megacorporation-owned media for their troubles of siding, really and truly, with the American people.
A top Edwards aide said the former senator contacted Obama and Clinton on Tuesday, telling them he was considering dropping out of the race and asking them to make poverty a top issue of their campaigns and -- if either reaches the White House -- a central part of their administration.
Both candidates agreed, the aide said.
Air Force General Gene Renuart states that our own spy satellite will attempt to return, rather forcefully, to North America in an attempt to exact revenge upon its creator:
The U.S. military is developing contingency plans to deal with the possibility that a large spy satellite expected to fall to Earth in late February or early March could hit North America. [...]
Military agencies, he said, are doing an analysis to determine which pieces most likely would survive re-entry. But he cautioned that officials won't have much detail on where or when it will crash until it begins to move through the atmosphere and break up. [...]
The satellite includes some small engines that contain a toxic chemical called hydrazine—which is rocket fuel. But Renuart said they are not large booster engines with substantial amounts of fuel.
In 2004: "Senator John McCain says Major League Baseball has a "legitimacy problem" when it comes to suspicions about the use of illegal steroids by players. McCain and members of the Senate Commerce Committee blasted the sport's drug testing program and strongly urged baseball's commissioner and union chief to make it stronger. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports."
In 2008:
To be fair, McCain only said he was against illegal steroids in sports. Old actors guzzling 'roids to look ickily muscular for sports movie roles was never mentioned.
--WKW
Michael Gerson has the thankless task of defending George W. Bush as a compassionate conservative who doesn't get credit for all the good things he's done.
Watching the speech, I recalled meeting Gov. Bush of Texas in the spring of 1999, before he was a declared candidate. He talked with rushed intensity about being a "different kind of Republican," dedicated to racial healing and helping the poor and determined to provide moral leadership as a contrast and corrective to the Clinton years. Because I believed him, I left journalism and joined his campaign.That's a little like saying Jeffrey Dahmer had nice table manners.
It is conventional wisdom that Bush's idealism is either a fraud or has been pushed aside completely by the priorities of war.
[...]
My goal is a humbler assessment: Did President Bush, in the course of seven years, cast aside compassion and become the "same kind of Republican"?
The answer is no. Proposals such as No Child Left Behind, the AIDS and malaria initiatives, and the addition of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare would simply not have come from a traditional conservative politician. They became the agenda of a Republican administration precisely because of Bush's persistent, passionate advocacy. To put it bluntly, these would not have been the priorities of a Cheney administration.
This leaves critics of the Bush administration with a "besides" problem. Bush is a heartless and callous conservative, "besides" the 1.4 million men, women and children who are alive because of treatment received through his AIDS initiative... "besides" the unquestioned gains of African American and Hispanic students in math and reading... "besides" 32 million seniors getting help to afford prescription drugs, including 10 million low-income seniors who get their medicine pretty much free. Iraq may have overshadowed these achievements; it does not eliminate them.
The Bush administration, in my view, should have devoted more resources and creativity to its faith-based initiatives. It should not have vetoed the State Children's Health Insurance Program expansion. The president's budget and economic teams have not been populated with enthusiastic compassionate conservatives, and sometimes this has shown. But by any fair historical measure, Bush's achievements on social justice at least equal those of Bill Clinton, who increased the earned-income tax credit, pushed for children's health coverage and reformed welfare to encourage work.
Bush has received little attention or thanks for his compassionate reforms.
FLORIDA - Addressing a crowd of supporters following its candidate's narrow primary defeat to John McCain, GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's Earpiece took the opportunity to look toward the future.
"This is just a send-off point; this is not an end. It's another beginning," said Romney's Earpiece. 
According to sources, Romney's Earpiece is confident that Romney will benefit from Rudy Giuliani's departure from the race, and that the Romney camp's ability to raise money will lead to victory come the "Super Tuesday" primaries that cover 20 states.
"The Earpiece really believes that the momentum will turn away from the liberal McCain, and favor Romney, who has been the most conservative candidate for several months now," said a spokesperson for the Earpiece. "The Earpiece is far more conservative than McCain's default candidate position."
Meanwhile, support for Romney's Earpiece has been growing, thanks in large part to its support from radio entertainers like Rush Limbaugh. On his daily radio show, Limbaugh praised the Earpiece.
"Mitt Romney's Earpiece has proven time and again that it is the true conservative choice," said Limbaugh. "Romney himself can be molded to fit the conservative ideology, just as the Earpiece can be molded to fit into an ear. As long as Romney sticks with the strategy of doing and saying whatever the Earpiece tells him, he'll be the next George W. Bush."
The Earpiece has remained optimistic, despite the results in Florida. In a recent interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," the Earpiece said that the ear of the man it has is truly the only conservative candidate worthy of the GOP nomination.
"I think what will happen across the country is that conservatives will give a good thought to whether or not they want to hand the party's nomination over to Senator McCain. He has not been their champion over the last several years," said the Earpiece. "Mitt Romney understands conservatives, because I've told him to. He's been their champion, even when he was listening to another, liberal earpiece during his time as governor of Massachusetts."
--WKW
A commenter on a forum that my brother frequents lamented:
The news is claiming that Mitt Rommey [sic] has lost Florida. Not good, McCain a very liberal Republican. Very soft on illegals and supports soft borders. Also may go along with same sex marriage. This opens up our children for more sexual assaults from other children and man boy associations. We now have over 150 gay and lesbian gangs in Baltimore and Washington area.Over 150 gay and lesbian gangs? Wow; do you think they all get together to coordinate their accessories?
Senator John McCain wins the Florida primary. (NY) (WP) (LA) (AP)Senator Hillary Clinton won also, but it doesn't count- YET. (NY) (WP)The King of 9/11 says goodbye to presidential aspirations and endorses McCain. (AP)Run for your lives! The spy satellite could hit North America. (AP)Bush's economic stimulus package passes the House, but the Senate has other ideas. (CNN)"Jorge Caraveo of El Paso, Texas, and Carlos Leal Barragan of Jalisco, Mexico, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Denver to felony charges in connection with the smuggling of sea turtle and other exotic skins and skin products into the United States from Mexico, the Justice Department announced today." (PR)"A man who has been indicted on charges of illegally possessing up to $1 million worth of Jack Daniel's whiskey claims he is a collector who was trying to sell the vintage bottles they came in, not the spirits." (Fox News)"WORKING with manure can drastically reduce chances of developing lung cancer, scientists have discovered." (Daily Telegraph)I just loved this headline- Naked Mole-rats Bear Chili Pepper Heat (Science Daily)A 2,500-year-old tomb containing nearly four dozen victims of human sacrifice has been excavated in eastern China, yielding a treasure trove of precious artifacts and new insights into ritual customs during the era of Confucius, archaeologists say. (NG)Pot vending machines! (LA Daily)
That's how many votes Fred Thompson pulled in today in Florida. That's pretty respectable for a candidate that's not even running anymore. Or maybe it isn't. I don't know. Honestly, I don't really care. I just wanted to post up this picture. Again. Still, it would have been nice to see him stay in the race a little longer. I'd have loved to have seen him beat Giuliani. Again.
Giuliani's tanking in Florida.
