Rod Blagojevich is nutz.
Harry Reid slightly less so.
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1. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski appears on "Morning Joe" with Joe Scarborough to discuss the Israel-Hamas conflict.
2. Scarborough engages in his usual fucknuttery.
3. Brzezinski tells him matter-of-factly, "You have a such stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."
4. I laugh…and laugh…and laugh!
[H/T to Shaker Oddjob.]
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Via fellow nominee Blue Gal, I've found out that Shakesville is one of the finalists for Best Liberal Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards.
Voting begins January 5, and you can bet your big gay blogarounds that I'll be reminding you, because we're going to need all the help we can get, given that we're up against, in addition to Blue Gal: Hullabaloo, Think Progress, Sadly, No!, Brad Blog, Orcinus, Truthdig, Wonkette, Taylor Marsh, Crooks & Liars, The Confluence, Glenn Greenwald, and Talking Points Memo.
Well, like I said, it's an honor just to be nominated...
I'm also pleased to see that The Guardian's Comment is free has been nominated as Best Blog. Woot!
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Smarty McSmartson:
Chicago police have arrested a man who allegedly robbed a bank using a threatening note written on the back of his own pay cheque.
Police say 40-year-old Thomas Infante walked into the bank and gave a staff member a note saying, "Be Quick...Give your cash or I'll shoot".
He got $400 (£270), but left behind half of his note as he fled.
Detectives found the rest of the slip - complete with his name and home address - outside the bank's front doors.
Mr Infante was later arrested at his home in Cary, Illinois. If convicted of bank robbery, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
That guy's one use of a bullet as a fuse away from King of the Darwin Awards.
[H/T Space Cowboy.]
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Republicans continue to react to the fallout from party chair candidate Chip Saltsman's Christmas CD, which contained a track parodying "Puff the Magic Dragon" called "Barack the Magic Negro."
"When I heard about the story I had to figure out what was going on for myself. When I found out what this was about I had to ask, 'boy, what's the big deal here?' because there wasn't any."—Mark Ellis, chairman of the Maine Republican Party.
"Didn't bother me one bit. ... This is just people looking for something to make an issue of."—Alabama Republican committeeman Paul Reynolds.
"I don't think he intended it as any kind of racial slur. I think he intended it as a humor gift."—Oklahoma GOP committeewoman Carolyn McClarty.
And the blue ribbon of racist apologism goes to Saltsman's former boss, Mike Huckabee, who defends Saltsman on his blog:
"Chip should have been more careful in his selection of Christmas gifts, but no one who knows him would ever suggest that he in any way would purposely disparage other people."
Evidently, Huckabee's argument is that Saltsman isn't racist; he's just too fucking stupid to know that "Barack the Magic Negro" was disparaging. And yet he still thinks he'd make a fine leader for the RNC.
Awesome.
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Every year, for about three decades now, our good friend Jon Swift does a "Best Blog Posts" end-of-year round-up, wherein bloggers are invited to submit what they think are their best blog posts of the year. Then Jon Swift compiles them, separates the links with his patented witticisms, and posts the whole lot for our reading pleasure.
There's a ton of good stuff there: Some of my personal favorites are Bitty's "Wealth, Redistributed," Michael Bérubé's "More on Peter Singer and Jamie Bérubé," Avedon Carol's "The Supreme Court was right about this," and Scott's "My Abortion Made Me Impotent," which is quite genuinely hilarious.
In case you're wondering, I submitted "Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish." I'm not sure it was technically my best, but it's one I like a lot.
Many thanks to Jon Swift for putting the whole thing together for us!
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Since we're already thinking animals...
What's the most memorable experience you've ever had with a pet? What's the most memorable experience you've ever had with a wild (or non-domesticated but captive) animal?
I've had so many great experiences with the dogs and cats I've owned in my lifetime that it's difficult for me to pinpoint one, although choosing my cat Jimmy, with whom I had an amazingly strong connection from the first moment we made eye contact to the moment his eyes closed for the last time, is up there. This weekend, I visited the shelter where I adopted him, and just the smell of the place (not an unpleasant one, by the way) so strongly evoked the day I walked in and saw the goofiest little kitten of all time sitting in his food dish that I nearly blubbed right in their entryway.
I've also had a few really cool experiences with captive/wild animals—seeing a herd of wild mustang, riding an elephant, stroking the long neck of a gentle giraffe, making friends with a possum who learned to hang out on my back porch at dinnertime for a tasty treat—but the best thing I've ever seen in my life has got to be the buffalo who was holding up traffic by taking a nap in the middle of the road at Yellowstone, until some impatient asshole in an RV decided to nudge him with his front bumper. The buffalo got up, turned toward him, and ran head-on into the dude's grill, completely destroying it. Then he snorted and sauntered away.
It was awesome. And everyone in the line of cars on either side applauded wildly for the buffalo.
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Back in April of 2006, we did a six-part series (One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six) of Shaker Pets, and I've always meant to do it again, but never got around to it.
So since it's a slow time for news, I figured it was a good time for another round. Email me pix of your pets with their names (and breeds—and species, if necessary!) and I'll post a collection. Cats, dogs, birds, lizards, snakes, rabbits, frogs, goats, chickens—whatever you've got.
To get us started, here's a partial gallery of Shakesville Contributor Pets...
Afonso Wolfrum
Duchess Wolfrum
Jack Wolfrum
Max Wolfrum
Rory the Spud
Sam O'Misty
Zoë O'Misty
Kali and Juni Van Deeky
Delia Petulant
Dashiell Petulant
Dagny Petulant
Moon Spacecowpokeblaum
Feather Spacecowpokeblaum
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