More news from the department of isolated incidents

More along the lines of this week’s other, unrelated isolated incidents:

BAQOUBA, Iraq June 26, 2004 ? Insurgents attacked two political party offices and a government building Saturday, killing three people and wounding two, the latest in an upsurge in violence just days before Iraq’s interim government takes power.

Also Saturday, a car bombing wounded a Kurdish government official and killed one of his bodyguards in the northern city of Irbil, according to police and a spokesman for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

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Finally, a Ron we can get excited about!

Reagan Jr backing Kerry

He said he could never join the Republican party because it “tolerates members who are bigots … homophobes, racists” and revealed that he would vote for Democrat John Kerry on November 2.

Are you listening, Andrew Sullivan?

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Don’t say the truth, that’s an attack!

The George W. Bush blog is getting upset:

John Kerry yesterday launched a new round of divisive, partisan attacks, including one aimed at the economic record of President Ronald Reagan

The article they link to quotes Kerry saying the following:

”I was part of that effort in the 1990s that had the courage to do what Ronald Reagan, for all his rhetoric — and God rest his soul, we loved him for his strength in many things — but I don’t recall vetoes of major appropriations bills. I recall a lot of talk about deficits; I don’t recall balancing the budget. I recall deficits getting larger.”

Not only is this hardly an attack, it happens to be totally accurate. Yet this “you’ve attacked Ronnie” line is ripped from today’s playbook (same link:)

He [Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt] also blasted Kerry for criticizing Reagan’s fiscal record. ”Kerry’s attack on President Reagan is beyond the pale, and will be very troubling to most Americans,” he said.

So now, if you say that Reagan presided over increasingly large deficits, you’re attacking the man. Is Alzheimer’s contagious?

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If you missed it…

This week’s Flash Friday is Sadly, No Love! (6MB of pure comedy genius. Or as close as we’ll ever get anyway.)

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Shhh, the Ambassador is sleeping

Good thing this happened during the Clinton years:

…the German ambassador to the United States, Wolfgang Ischinger, recently disclosed a long-kept secret from his diplomatic career. Ischinger was a frequent participant in late-night teleconferences that Madeleine Albright held with European officials while she was U.S. secretary of state. While listening to a tape of one conference, officials in Germany’s Foreign Ministry were particularly amused by the sound of someone snoring on the tape, but the culprit remained in the dark for a long time. At a recent meeting of the Robert-Bosch Foundation transatlantic exchange program, Ischinger confessed that it was he who had fallen asleep, aided he said by a hearty meal and a glass of heavy red wine.

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By that logic, only four planes were hijacked on September 11

Iraqi’s interim Prime Minister is apparently a graduate of the Ari Fleischer school of public relations:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq’s interim prime minister has vowed to crush Baathist die-hards and foreign militants he blamed for killing 100 people
in a day of suicide bombings and attacks meant to sabotage next week’s move
toward Iraqi rule.

“These are isolated incidents,” said Iyad Allawi. “We are going to defeat them…We have been expecting this escalation and we are expecting more escalation in the days ahead.”

Here is your isolated incidents scoreboard for yesterday:

Attacks:

Go ahead, hit her with your best shot!

This time, our good friend Michelle Malkin means it!

Feel free to leave the profanity-free putdown you would have used on Leahy. (And for those who have been dying to leave one of these for me, go ahead if it gets you through the day.)

So what are you waiting for?

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We pay a visit to an old friend

Before our switch to Movable Type, we had written about an eBay user who tended to leave peculiar responses to his feedback. Today, we turn our attention to feedback he leaves for others:

You know what, that just doesn’t sound good

In yet another round of electricity in Iraq related news:

[Nick] Horne, for his part, was a computer consultant attracted by the idea of working in Iraq. He took a taxi from Jordan to Baghdad and landed a job as the CPA’s senior adviser for electricity. He said he found himself briefing Bremer on the country’s critical electricity grid, which he didn’t yet understand. [Emphasis added]

In other related news:

Despite promises by the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) to rebuild and expand Iraq’s infrastructure, Iraq is still not producing as much electricity or as much oil on a sustained basis as it was just before the war, according to the report which blames a combination of sabotage by insurgents and incompetence and profiteering by big U.S. companies like Halliburton that captured virtually all of the reconstruction contracts to the exclusion of more-experienced Iraqi firms.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for a correction (or even a reply to our email.)

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It will never stop, will it?

No More Mister Nice Blog has the ultimate shorter version of Dick Morris’ latest column. We’ll just note that this sentence by Dick really caught our, uh, eye:

And [Clinton] cannot resist mounting the platform when it is erected every four years.

It’s always about the Clenis.

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Kick it way over the crossbar like Beckham

Oops.

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Well aren’t you lucky!

Sadly, we must take an early leave from the duties of Sadly, No! today Oskar is really bummed out about yesterday’s football game, and we promised we’d go out looking for junk mail together.) The good news however is that we’ve decided to post this week’s Flash Friday a day early. (Which means Flash Friday has, for all practical purposes, never actually been posted on a Friday. But we digress.)

Last week, we told you that our latest effort was totally awesome. (And no besides that were involved!) Well, this week’s animation makes last week’s look like a piece of crap. We kid you not. Sadly, No Love! will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will show you that when you get right down to it, and all appearances to the contrary, the good people of Sadly, No! truly are romantics at heart. Vicious, petty, mean-spirited, hateful, kick-a-man-when-he’s-down, wouldn’t-spit-on-his-hair-if-it-was-on-fire romantics. So sit back, put away your beverages, and enjoy Sadly, No Love!

Technical Notes: Animation is, yet again, a healthy 6MB, with every megabyte better than the next. Or something.

Credits: Were it not for Pete M. from The Dark Window, these things would consist of 3 pictures and 1 quote, circling around for 4 minutes. So we thank him once again for his essential, and invaluable, assistance. Fellow freedom-hater Blair also provided valuable feedback. [In other Pete M. related news, he has the latest on Wilson C. Lucom. Read it now before the authorities find out about it.]

[Removed some unrelated links.]

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Review of Reviewers*

Steve at No More Mister Nice Blog and TBOGG review some Clinton book reviews.

* We miss SPY magazine.

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As sovereign as I wanna be

The Washington Post reports:

The Bush administration has decided to take the unusual step of bestowing on its own troops and personnel immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for killing Iraqis or destroying local property after the occupation ends and political power is transferred to an interim Iraqi government, U.S.
officials said.

The administration plans to accomplish that step — which would bypass the most contentious remaining issue before the transfer of power — by extending an order that has been in place during the year-long occupation of Iraq. Order 17 gives all foreign personnel in the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority immunity from “local criminal, civil and administrative jurisdiction and from any form of arrest or detention other than by persons acting on behalf of their parent states.”

U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer is expected to extend Order 17 as one of his last acts before shutting down the occupation next week, U.S. officials said. The order is expected to last an additional six or seven months, until the first national elections are held. [Emphasis added]

Thanks to Blair for the link.

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Hey Jude, don’t make it bad

Roger Ailes points out what a real Saddam-lover looks like. His name? Jude Wanniski. His article? Saddam Suddenly Looks Innocent:

I’m only suggesting you go back to your law books and, for your own good, get a good grip on why Saddam Hussein is behind bars when it now turns out he doesn’t seem to have done anything wrong. You might then be in a better position to advise the President on how to proceed in the best way to avoid further Bigtime Boo-Boos.

Now that is some seriously fucked up shit:

As an associate editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1972 to 1978, Jude Wanniski repopularized the classical theories of supply-side economics.

Come back next week, when Jude will write on the following topics:

Well, that sounds just about right

Following Germany’s defeat last night:

Sadly, Yes!

PS: Deppen = schnooks, dolts.

Added: So long to the coach.

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Yeah, imagine that!

Paula Jones, who like Paul Harvey is not yet dead, is mad:

Frustrated that ex-president Bill Clinton is still insisting he never sexually harassed her in interviews about his memoir “My Life,” former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones is challenging him to a public debate. [...]

“He still thinks that that was not an admission of guilt when he settled out of court with me,” she said, referring to the sexual harassment lawsuit she launched in 1994 that ended in Clinton’s impeachment.

He still thinks that, does he? We wonder why:

Clinton-Jones settlement text
Whereas it is the desire of all the parties to end the above-captioned litigation for all purposes, it is hereby stipulated and agreed as follows: [...]

5. Nothing in this agreement shall be construed to be an admission of liability or wrongdoing by any party;

With her $850,000 maybe Paula can sign up for some reading comprehension courses.

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If you’ve already met our neighbor

Say hello to… Get Donkey.

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Wednesday Evening Neighbor Blogging

Ever since the infamous Atrios-Andrew Sullivan smackdown over anonymity, the good people of Sadly, No! have wondered whether we should just come out and, say, put up a picture or share a bit more about our personal lives. Some bloggers seem to go halfway, by posting pictures of their cat, in the tradition of Kevin Drum’s Friday Cat Blogging. So we wondered, how could we improve on that and share a bit more about our personal lives. Which is why we are now proud to introduce Wednesday Evening Neighbor Blogging (WENB.)

Starting today and every Wednesday, we will post a picture of one our neighbors. (That is, every week until we run out of neighbors willing to let us take their picture and post it online, which may well happen sooner than we think.)

This week’s neighbor is Oskar. He’s lived in this part of town ever since we got here, and is by far our favorite neighbor. While he has a habit of going away for days at a time without telling us, he is very friendly whenever we stop by to say hello. He used to live with Lisa & Paula (lucky him!) but they moved out a few months ago. Oskar won’t tell us why, so we know he’s still upset. So if you ever find yourself in Stuttgart and see him, please do say hello for us. If you’re nice, he might even tell you where to find us.

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Shorter Judson “Pandas of Mass Destruction” Cox

Terrorists have more rights than you

Muslims in America should be arrested unless they immediately cease engaging in threatening and suspicious activities, like praying and going to Mosque.

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