Sadly, No!

Rain, a little after lunchtime, stopped tractor driving for the day, and I was soon home relaxing, about to do a little more work on an article that’s already past deadline. At some point I noticed that the patter-patter sound on the tin roof had ceased. The sky had lightened.

My houseplace features several pecan trees planted by my great-great grandfather. And being about a century old, they’re the size of Ents. Well, drought killed one several years ago, and lightning combined with last summer’s horrific drought killed another. Limbs and branches constantly fall (though, actually, this is a common thing with healthy pecans), and so I went outside to see what I had to pick-up and throw on the burn pile.

I stepped out the front door, on to the porch, but the damnedest kind of racket stopped me short. WTF? Now I’ve got a pair of wood ducks who nest in a walnut tree in the front yard and who cuss me loudly on those rare mornings when I wake up at an honest hour. (When hungover, I cuss them right back.) But the source of this raucous noise wasn’t no woodie. And it sure as hell wasn’t one of the little, flitty red-headed woodpeckers I have in abundance here and whom I like to think of, when I’m feeling particularly ginger-centric (identity politics, sure, but I’m not completely immune to the general disease of Campaign ’08), as my avian cousins. No, this was some unusual bird chat: shrill, frequent, sounded like a retarded bird trying to imitate a squirrel’s bark. What is it? Where is it? I stepped off the porch and immediately saw…

Whoa. Now I dunno shit about birds, but I’m pretty sure what I saw today was a pair of pileated woodpeckers. Though I couldn’t get a close look, they were huge; they had some kinda white, stripey marking on their wings that only showed while they were in flight; the one I saw best had a red head with a silly dingly crest, and when it tore into the limb of the pecan the plated bark showered down to earth.

Too bad it wasn’t the same kind of woodpecker I have on my license plate. Or was it!?! Ornithologists and bird watchers may come to investigate for a small daily fee of $1,000 per person, payable to the HTML Mencken: Intensity at the DNC! fund.

Let Us by All Means Have an Honest Conversation About Race

• White people aren’t racist; it’s the n*gg*rs who are racist. This is really ironic given that white people have every reason to be racist seeing as how blacks are more likely to be criminals than white people.
  

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  ‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.

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You can’t make fun of this stuff fast enough, because it keeps coming true.

Of donuts and dumb celebrities
By Michelle Malkin
May 23, 2008 12:50 PM

Sigh. You all know I’ve been a fan of Dunkin Donuts for quite some time–and have touted their strong position in favor of immigration enforcement.

Charles Johnson notes, and many readers have e-mailed about, Dunkin Donuts’ spokeswoman Rachel Ray’s clueless sporting of a jihadi chic keffiyeh in a recent DD ad campaign. I’m hoping her hate couture choice was spurred more by ignorance than ideology.

Is Ray’s blunder worth boycotting DD over? I’ll be interested to hear the company’s take. At this point, I’m going to give the management the benefit of the doubt. They have braved boycott threats and attacks over their lonely, principled stance against illegal immigration. Given their pro-rule of law, America first position, I highly doubt the executive offices are filled with moonbats who endorse Ray’s keffiyeh chic.

A garment commonly worn in the Middle East is the keffiyeh. Arafat wore a particular style of keffiyeh as a symbol of Palestine. Thus, reason tells us that a keffiyeh is a magical talisman that weakens America, and those who wear one ignorantly supposing that it is merely a harmless shemagh — well, those people will be stopped.

I believe we have a new predictive model here. Let’s go over to Pam Atlas’s place again and see what flop-headed ishkabibble she’s howling today, for it promises to be the talk of the town tomorrow.

OBAMA THE COMMUNIST

[…]

Today, on Capital Hill, two veterans of investigations into Communist influence on the U.S. political process will hold a briefing to release two new explosive reports on Barack Obama’s ties with extreme anti-American elements, including agents of the Moscow-controlled Communist Party USA. The reports will shed important new light on Barack Obama’s mysterious past.

…Um, wow, we just made fun of that.

William Kristol Nude In Cocaine Brawl

Ho ho ho, we can’t stop laughing about William Kristol, what with his being caught nude in that cocaine brawl.

I’m just sticking that in here quickly in case we’re experiencing some kind of bizarre, momentary inversion of cause and effect. Also, it’s hilarious how a million dollars has been credited to our PayPal account.

BTD asks:

It turns out that Hillary Clinton said something similar regarding RFK and the 1968 race in a Time Magazine interview in March 2008, but there was not an uproar then. […]

Apparently, at the time, I did not think it was the most grievous mistake ever. And apparently no one else did either. Why now? Since I do feel it was bad, I am asking myself that question and my quick answer is this – it seemed clearer in that formulation that she was talking about the race being contested in June 1968. But that seems a weak argument to me. Anyone want to help me out here? What is different now than then?

The answer is that we’re closer to the end of the primary, and Obama is very close to having the Democratic nomination locked up. Thus, the thought of potential violence bringing down the Democratic nominee is that much more horrifying.

Now again: I know that Hillary isn’t saying she’s holding out for an Obama assassination. Personally, I don’t think she thought she was saying anything all that controversial here, just as Obama didn’t think he was saying anything all that controversial when he talked about bitter rural voters. It was, in other words, a gaffe. I’m glad her campaign apologized for it, though I think it should have been a more direct apology and not an “I’m-sorry-if-it-offended-you” apology.

But you just gotta be really careful when you mention assassinations of any kind. This campaign has been intensely fought by both candidates and emotions on both sides are running really high right now. Any reminder about the painful, horrible assassination of RFK during such a tense time in the political season is just bound to elicit emotional responses from people.

OK, I’m off to drink now.

Gavin’s discovery that there is a person who calls himself the ‘Purple Avenger’ has left me wistful for those heady days of the first Bush term, when every other day a new warblogger with an appallingly stupid nom de blog would appear on the scene.

Back then, we had the good fortune to be regularly introduced to a brand new Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiller or Lt. Smash, to marvel at the misfiring synapses of anyone who would voluntarily refer to themselves as Lord Spatula I, King & Tyrant, Sgt. Stryker or Steven den Beste. We scarcely knew how good we had it back then. These days, the fresh crop of wingnuts is far more likely to just use their real name to blog, and while ‘Don Surber’ may be sort of silly-sounding, it just can’t hold a candle to the various ‘Morgoth the Moonbat-Slayers’ of our not-so-distant past.

So when a Purple Avenger comes along, it’s worth a few chuckles but at a considerable price. You see, when the laughter subsides, we’re left with the depressing realization that it could be months before someone as ridiculous brightens our day again, and that the comedic oil boom of 2001-2004 may never come again.

I miss those days, I really do, and all this got me to thinking that it may just be that wingnut bloggers, never terribly imaginative to begin with, have simply run out of ideas for silly, cartoonishly violent pen names. Which is sad, but which also presents us with an opportunity. Maybe all that’s needed is for us to give the current batch of rightwing bloggers a wee nudge in the proper direction, to re-attach the training wheels on their propensity for the broadest possible self-aggrandizement.

I hereby propose we offer the wingnutosphere, free of charge, the finest, silliest, violentist and most egregiously phallic-sounding noms de blog the nimble readers of this blog can dream up. A few to get us started:

– Crimson Vindicator
– Rear Admiral
– Archduke Von Armchair, Battle Orderist
– Viscount Longrod McFuckrapekill
– Plumpcheeks Bill, Libtard’s Bane
– Flextor Warpling’s Liege
– Murdertron IV: The Reckoning
– Cap’n Nanopundit
– Corporal TacNukeSysConDef (r’tired)
– Dick ‘Cock’ Dickcockdickfuck

Have at it!

OK, I’ve defended Hillary against sexism. I can’t defend her against charges of being completely tasteless:

Hillary Clinton appeared to raise the specter of assassination in defending her decision to stay in the Democratic race despite Barack Obama closing in on the delegate number to clinch.

In an interview with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, she dismissed calls to drop out, adding, “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it.”

I got nothin’ to add to this. Wow.

(Via.)

UPDATE: TPM has the video. Watch for yourself:

I don’t think there’s anyway this is being taken out of context. She literally listed potential assassination as a reason for her to stay in the race. [OK, now that I’ve had time to calm down and think about this some, I realize that’s not true. She actually didn’t do that. But that is how it came off to me at first blush after I’d watched the clip in its entirety. I initially reacted emotionally to this and I should have thought it through more carefully before posting.]

As I said in the comments, I don’t think she’s praying for Obama to get assassinated or anything that gruesome. I think she was trying to think of examples of Dem primaries that didn’t end until June, and she picked the absolute worst possible one to mention.

But wow. Wow-wuh-wee-wuh-wow. It’s about the most shockingly dumb thing I’ve ever heard her say. And it’ll probably be the final nail in her candidacy’s coffin. [This I’m going to stand by, though.]

UPDATE II: And yes, by the way, Big Tent Democrat agrees that there’s no way to justify this. I’ve criticized the dude quite a bit over this campaign, but I think in recent weeks he’s been very thoughtful and level-headed.

UPDATE III: The folks at NoQuarter are just fucking crazy, however.

I’m thinking of writing a comic strip about a dystopian future where Supreme Commander Hussein Obama X has outlawed Cheetos, has given the entire Southwestern region of the U.S. back to Mexico and has thrown all ungrateful white people into Reparations Camps. The story begins with the 101st Fighting Keyboarders, led by Jonah Goldberg and a now-cyborg version of Glenn Reynolds, living underground and secretly plotting the overthrow of Hussein X’s hated tyranny. The title for this masterwork will be called “Barackalypse Now.”

If anyone knows of any good cartoonists who would be interested in illustrating this heart-pounding adventure, drop me a line. Thanks.

Gavin adds: What, like I don’t have enough art stored up already?

Above: Resistance Leader Goldberg rallies the Wolverines

UPDATE: Once again, my sorry attempt at parody is no match for reality:

Obama As You’ve Never Known Him!
By Dana Milbank
Friday, May 23, 2008

[…]

The group, assembled by something called America’s Survival Inc., gathered in the basement of Ebenezer Coffee House at Second and F streets NE. They shared the stage with a big drum set, and posters documenting items they would seek to tie to Obama: an SDS newsletter from 1969 (when he was 7), and a police killing from 1970 (when he was 8).

[…]

[T]he star of the show was the ancient Herbert Romerstein, who once plied his trade for the Un-American Activities committee. “We decided to start going back and seeing what things influenced him even before he was born,” Romerstein announced without a trace of irony, before tying Obama to the Communist Party of the 1930s in Hawaii and Soviet spies on the island. “This is the atmosphere that young Barack Obama grew up in.”

The smoking gun? Obama’s “mentor” during his teens, according to Kincaid, was “a key member of a Soviet-controlled network that was sponsored by Moscow and active in Hawaii.”

These accusations fall somewhere between guilt by association and guilt by invention, but the accusers were just getting started.

[…]

One inquired about the link between “the American left and Islamofascists.” Another asked about nefarious influences on Michelle Obama. A third raised the possibility that Obama’s “change” slogan is based on the 1961 communist “Movement for Change.”

“It’s clear that the communists and the socialists are backing him,” Kincaid confirmed.

The questions continued: “The Obama-Muslim connection . . . the background of Michelle Obama . . . How he gave $23,000 to this church . . . Was it connected with Tony Rezko . . . the results from Gary, Indiana, which were so late in being released.”

It was beginning to sound like a UFO convention.

[…]

The evidence was compelling enough for participant Friedman. For him, the Rosetta Stone was Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, who Friedman alleged was the protege of a man with “a Communist Party-front record” in Chicago. “The more I look at this, I’m seeing there are a lot of red-diaper babies around here,” he deduced. “By putting these pieces of the puzzle together, I’m beginning to see something much bigger.”

Six more months of this stuff. Should be endlessly entertaining.

She writeth:

Remember the xkcd cartoon?

That’s what we’ve seen over and over and over again during this primary. Not “Wow, this presidential candidate has positions and strategies I really don’t like” but “Wow, Hillary Clinton is an unlikable Machiavellian devil with a voice like a buzzsaw who’s so manifestly evil that neither she nor her supporters are even real Democrats.”

(And, yes, I could link to posts I’ve written countering all those precise assertions about her; I wish it were hyperbole. And, yes, I acknowledge the argument that none of that has anything to do with Clinton being a woman and naturally it’s just a tremendous coincidence that those criticisms neatly fit into historical themes used to marginalize powerful women. Moving on.)

The most depressing aspect of this campaign, in my opinion, is how quickly it has degenerated into the realm of nasty identity politics. And by that, I don’t mean that women should be chastised for supporting Hillary because she’s a woman, or that black people should be chastised for supporting Obama because he’s black. Rather, I mean the media has consistently pushed really stupid goddamn narratives that have consistently enforced sexist notions about Hillary Clinton in order to boost Obama’s candidacy.* As Bob Somerby notes:
Read the rest of this entry »

Above: Oh no, a hungry giant!

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From Talk Left, the Honeycomb Hideout of the Hillary Democrats:

Friday Morning OpenThread
By Big Tent Democrat
Posted on Fri May 23, 2008 at 08:30:35 AM EST

I just want to make a point about off topic comments. To me at least, they are unacceptable. If you do not want to talk about the issue I have posted about then you can refrain from commenting in that particular thread. I delete off topic comments and responses to such topics. Oh, and when comments are declared closed, that means you should not comment any further in that thread, I delete all comments posted after comments have been declared closed.

Open Threads, of which we now put more than a few a day, is the place to comment on your particular issues. Please use those Open Threads for that purpose.

BTW, I speak for me and my posts here. I am not sure if J sees it exactly as I do, but we are charged with policing our own comment threads. So that’s the way I will regulate the comment threads to my own posts. Ironically, this is an Open Thread.

And spit out that gum.

Don’t eff it up.

Just don’t.

The public is very, very unhappy right now. You’re not going to get a honeymoon period. Hit the damn ground running with proposals to invest in better transportation infrastructure, to withdraw from Iraq and to fix our health care system. People are understandably not patient with the government, and you’re going to have to get shit under control quickly.

That is all.