Sadly, No!

Larry Craig Denied Withdrawal By Stern, Unforgiving Judge
Washington, Oct. 4

Turning a deaf ear to Craig’s pleas, the judge informed him that his initial plea to submit himself to the judge’s discretion was given “unambiguously and without coercion”. In light of this fact, the judge would not permit any withdrawal, and swore to see to it that Craig took the full punishment coming to him.

Craig was visibly shaken by the intensity of the judge’s position. “I’ve never been in this situation before in my life,” Senator Craig announced between what sounded like gasps of disbelief. “I cannot recall ever having been this far on the bottom before, and I don’t quite know what to do next”.

Despite Craig’s complaints, the judge denied his motion and scolded him about the circularity of his actions, insisting that they did not please the court.

…okay, I’m done. Consider this your home for having some fun with Larry “I’m not Gay; I’m a Hypocrite” Craig.

Gavin adds:

Matt Zeitlin, the precociously brilliant high-school kid who polishes apples for Megan “Mrs. Robinson” McArdle, is now confronted with a return of interest. Alas, these Spring/early-Autumn relationships rarely work out:

Defending Vegetarian Honor
04 Oct 2007 08:15 am

Matt Zeitlin writes:

I read Christopher Hitchens’ heartbreaking piece about a 23 year old soldier who was inspired to enlist by reading Hitchens and was killed in action in Iraq. The soldier, Mark Daily, was a UCLA graduate, registered Democrat, an agnostic, had early doubts about the war and even was once a vegetarian.

We’re* not pacifists, you know. Indeed, some of us are quite feisty. I could have joined the military with a clean conscience in 2002–except for the part where I’m a 4F asthmatic with lousy eyesight who was medically unfit for the State Department. But that had nothing to do with my tofu-loving ways.

Translation: Hi Matt, I’m me! Speaking of me, I’m feisty. I could even have joined the military, except I never tried to join the military the State Department website suggested that I couldn’t join the military the diplomatic corps, maybe. Memories are like butterflies. But fear not, Jeff, I am complex and even love tofu, as though to confound cynics. Uh, ‘Matt,’ I mean.

* Technically, I’m not a vegetarian: I eat humanely raised and killed meat. However, given the difficulty of locating such meat, and the expense of buying it, this is generally a distinction without a difference. Moreover, I was a vegetarian at the time of the Iraq War’s inception.

Oh, well okay then. See, that excuses the remark about beating war protesters with 2x4s. Indeed, finding such meat requires great difficulty, and Megan has important things to do, like being utterly clueless about any given aspect of modern life, despite being paid as a columnist in a major magazine deciding how various things in the world make her feel.

Then again, maybe there’s a future for this couple. He thinks she’s interesting, and she thinks so too.

Above (l-r): Ahmed Chalabi, Mohammad Khatami, Richard Cohen unnamed cleric (Tehran)

Above: Debra “Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs” Cagan

Art by Drummer Hoff. ‘LOLcons’ concept created by Jon Swift and named by Marita. (Online LOLcat builder here.)

John M. forwards an email:

Johnny – you won’t believe it, we met the woman in the leather jacket, Ms Cagan, spent an entire evening with her, at a concert given by a rock band made of central European right wingers (all diplomats), friends of Martin Palous, Czech ambassador to the UN. The band played one night a the Knitting Factory on Leonard street, called Coalition of the Willing, led by the Hungarian diplomat Andras Simonyi, who gave her the Iron Cross. We met Tom Stoppard, the playwright, there, as well as this crazy woman in a leatherette tunic, she gave us her business card, and was drinking heavily and dancing like a dervish. She tried to befriend us, but as she is obviously insane, and SCARIER IN PERSON THAN IN PHOTOS, we kind of slipped away. We thought from her rambling discussion that she was an arms dealer, she had just returned from what sounded like a sex junket to our fighting boys in Iraq. She was telling us how sexy the front line guys were, and the whole live for today ethos that prevails in the Green Zone. A truly, truly mad woman, and now Gates’ right hand man (she really looks like a bondage dude).

I fear for the republic.

Hasta, JB

Oh dear:

Gavin adds:

Clif adds:

I’m shocked, I tell you:

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

Impeach them all, and faster please.

I am amazed at the article Hewitt has at Townhall right now. It isn’t even so much the fine investigative acumen it must have taken to conduct such a piercing, penetrative interview with a radical as dangerous as Hillary Clinton — it’s the impressive journalistic courage it displays that he was even willing to arrange such a thing.

Above: “And we haven’t even said we love you, Yeti.” *

Through my sources, I have managed to get access to Hewitt’s reporter’s notebook. While he is too modest himself to ever draw attention to the selfless feats of bravery he displayed in arranging his Clinton interview, I thought it only fair that you should know how hard he worked to get a chance to speak with America’s most wanted revolutionary.

August 28, 2007. Inside my forty-fifth Starbucks.

I have made contact with some of La Clintonista’s supporters at last. Even this first step has been hellish – I think I’ve been to every single Starbucks in Manhattan. None of these people speak English; the only way I’ve been able to win their trust is by imbibing the local drink – something called in their language a “half-caf triple shot foam only”. I don’t know what it is, but it tastes foul, and ever since I started drinking them (two days ago) I haven’t been able to sleep.

Navigating this concrete jungle for the last two days just serves to remind me how far from civilization I am. Everyone here walks, and when I ask the natives why they don’t just drive cars, they stare at me in blank incomprehension before laughing. I miss the comforts of home, where I am never more than ten minutes from a Walmart or a McDonald’s with a drive-thru.

But I don’t have time to think about now. I must focus on my goal, difficult as that might be with the godawful native music they seem to always be playing in these Starbucks – this time it seems to be something the locals call “Joni Mitchell”. I truly am in another world, aren’t I?

I guess word has gotten out that a stranger is in town, looking to speak with the elusive jungle rebel known as La Clintonista, because two of her followers have just approached me. They are not young, which is a surprise to me, but their dress immediately gives away their loyalties. The expensive tailored suits, the drab colors (perfect camouflage?), the leather attache cases – all the hallmarks of a true Clintonista.

They eyed me suspiciously. “Are you the one running around town making an ass of yourself trying to get in touch with Hillary?” they ask.

Their hostility does not surprise me; La Clintonista has only been able to survive as long as she has by surrounding herself with fierce and capable aides de camp.

“Yes,” I tell them. “I know La Clintonista has struggled to get her side of the story told, and I want to help her change that. I know she is passionate about her beliefs; for her to have given up her life as a simple governor’s wife in Arkansas in order to be reduced to being a mere U.S. Senator is not a sacrifice many people would be willing to make. Whether or not I agree with her, I take her commitment to her cause seriously, and I want her story to be told. Will you help me?”

I waited breathlessly. An inexplicable look passed between the two Clintonistas. Would they attack me? Would my life end here and now, in this wretched backwater Starbucks, alone and unmourned?

One of the Clintonistas reached into her attache case. My life flashed before my eyes. She pulled out a business card, and I released a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding. “Look, if all you want is to know her position on things, you could go to her website – it’s not really a secret. But here’s her press secretary’s phone number. Just call like normal people do, and stop running around the city accosting people in Starbucks and asking them if they know where ‘LaClintonista’s Jungle Headquarters’ is, okay? You’re freaking people out.”

Success! But at such a cost. Between all the native drinks and the terror of confronting an actual Clintonista, I don’t think I’ll be able to wear these chinos again.

I stand in awe of what this man has done. But this is only the beginning – the true drama begins when he actually sits face-to-face with That Woman, herself.
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‘LOLcons’ concept created by Jon Swift and named by Marita. (Online LOLcat builder here.)

Art by Rageohol; original Young America’s Foundation poster here.

…Nor any DT experience nor ketamine trip. And yet we’ve learned something: When Ann Coulter and Dinesh D’Souza* dated back at Dartmouth, they definitely didn’t wear each other’s shirts and jackets like some couples do.

Note: If you’ve sent an email or contact-form thingy in the past week or so, and I haven’t replied yet, it’s because I’m bad and slow and in a swamp of oatmeal, timewise. Will reply shortly. G-

* Charles Pierce corrects us: Coulter went to Cornell while Laura Ingraham went to Dartmouth with D’Souza. We must add that D’Souza dated both creatures, and if any word is ever to be said in D’Souza’s favor, it must be that he has seen things that would send Lovecraft gibbering into the vasty waste.

Michael Knox Beran is still sort of a B-List wingnut, notwithstanding some truly wingnutterific things he’s written. Like his book “The Last Patrician” where he claimed that Bobby Kennedy would have become a Reagan conservative if only he hadn’t been shot. Not surprisingly, most of the footnotes to that scholarly tome referenced sessions that Beran had with a certain Madame Olga Glyzewskaia who channeled Bobby Kennedy using a Magic Eight Ball and a pinochle deck.

But I think Beran has outdone himself with a recent short article titled “Clarence Thomas, Created Equal: Liberal elites use the stigma of affirmative action to belittle a great justice.” After a lot of hoohah about l’ancien regime, caste, paternalism and the welfare state, Beran lets loose this little jaw dropper:

Liberals portray Justice Thomas as a beneficiary of affirmative action. He is in fact its victim.

For that line alone, Beran deserves to be an inductee into the Kaye Grogan Hall of Fame. Thomas is a victim of affirmative action, you see, because if it hadn’t been for affirmative action he wouldn’t be just a sitting justice of the Supreme Court of the United States but probably a member of the Holy Trinity, hell, maybe even the Holy Trinity itself, ruling the universe, forgiving sins and casting errant liberals into the fiery lakes of Hell.

Thomas rose from a poverty all but incomprehensible to most Americans today. He studied for the priesthood, went to college at Holy Cross and law school at Yale, and became a distinguished lawyer and jurist. Yet the liberal mandarins have made these triumphs bitter by continually disparaging Thomas as a token appointee.

Just like those liberal mandarins did for Justice Thurgood Marshall. A sad but little known footnote to Supreme Court history is that Justice William O. Douglas used to burst into Justice Marshall’s chambers shouting “Neener, Neener! Token, token!” and then run back laughing to his own chambers as fast as he could.

Though his rebellion against liberal paternalism was punished with what he aptly called a “high-tech lynching,” Thomas is in spirit unbowed. Yet his career remains a poignant reminder of the tragedy that results whenever the country strays from its faith that all men are created equal.

Yes, it is a tragedy. Tenure for life. Chauffeur-driven limos to and from work. An army of clerks to write opinions for you. Nice long naps on the bench. Nice tragedy, if you can get it.

This CrankCentralStation piece by James Miller on the mass production of embryos has plenty of funnies. This, however, is particularly hilarious:

Embryo selection gets even more interesting when we consider how a nation such as China might use it. Imagine that in ten years China forces all its college students to get genetic tests. Students with intelligence genes in the top 1% of the top 1% of humankind are then forced to donate sperm or eggs.

See, this is what I don’t understand about the sort of “libertarians” who write at TCS. They scream like freshly-neutered puppies if anyone tries to raise their taxes, but they have zero problem with having the government force people to donate their sperm and eggs to create an army of hyper-intelligent Over Men:

China then uses the sperm and eggs to create a billion embryos each year. The genetic intellectual potential of all these embryos is checked. Those in the top 10,000 are implanted into women.

How are you likin’ this Brave New World, ladies? Are you looking forward to being used as the government’s incubators for its Übermensches?

Each of these embryos has the intellectual potential to be in the top one-billionth of humankind. Now because of environmental factors many of these embryos won’t turn into intellectual titans.

And I’m sure they’ll lead rich and fulfilling lives as failed genetic experiments.

But let’s say that one in ten does. This means that each year 1,000 people with the scientific ability of Einstein will be born. By 2035 they will become adults and start doing scientific research. I imagine these Einsteins will be rather helpful to China’s economy and military.

“Mr. President, we must not allow a Chinese-super-baby gap!”

Get outta here, ya maniac!

UPDATE: Someone who knows something about genetics replies to Miller in the comments. I will imagine Dr. Miller’s responses:

Ten years from now?…the Chinese are going to screen 1 billion 3-day old embryoes looking for the 10,000 best?

“Each of these embryos has the intellectual potential to be in the top one-billionth of humankind.” What? Each of these would be among the “top six or seven” smartest people on Earth? And now there are going to be 10,000 of those born each year? Starting ten years from now?

Is it really that simple? We can’t do any of this…none of the techniques we are using today would ever be used to do this. But even if any of this could work (and it can’t) we might be able to do such a thing once or twice…One billion times? with the current technology? ten years from now? in China? Really?

Imagined Miller response: You are clearly the victim of linear thinking, my friend. Once the Singularity arrives, all technological progress will increase exponentially forever and ever. Thus, the Chinese will be able to screen 10,000 embryos per day if they’re lazy. The real number of post-singularity embryos screened could reach 20 kajillion-katrillion.

Do you have any idea how expensive that would be (the first time) if we are ever able to do it? Who is going to fund the project to develop this technology?

Imagined Miller response: Tax cuts!

And then provide the service as a commodity? Our global economy would need to be fundamentally different long before this could happen. No corporate entity would undertake it…no government.

Imagined Miller response: The Laffer curve states that if you cut taxes to a rate of -25% for the richest individuals, then revenue will go up forever.

What are you thinking? Are you even thinking at all when you write such foolishness?

Imagined Miller response: Uh… do I have to answer that?

Jesus Christ:

No joke: Hillary Clinton’s laugh is now being analyzed, scrutinized and, yes, mocked as if it were a sound barrier on her glide path to the Democratic presidential nomination: Is it real? Is it fake? Is it a diabolically clever attempt to portray her as a human being?

“Depending on who you ask,” ABC’s Kate Snow said on “Good Morning America,” “Hillary Clinton is either having a really good time out on the campaign trail, or she’s the master of a shrewd political skill disarming her critics with the gleam in her eye and a roar straight from the belly.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity said Clinton’s “maniacal laughing fits on ‘Fox News Sunday’ have sparked speculation that she is trying to get voters to believe that she’s not the cold, calculating candidate that the press has often characterized her as.”

On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” author Drew Westen likened the spectacle to the infamous Howard Dean scream, saying: “I think it can get blown out of proportion. It does sound like a defensive laugh.”

We need to bring back public shamings in this country. Beltway pundits who think we should elect leaders based upon the way they laugh will be the first to get locked up in the stocks.

Continuing:

The subtext here is that the media have collectively decided that the wife of the 42nd president is the inevitable nominee and a good bet to become the 44th Oval Office occupant. Lacking much of a horse race, since Clinton has maintained a 20-point national lead over Barack Obama all year, journalists are resorting to a classic general-election question: Are Americans ready to have this woman in their living rooms every night for four years? Are they comfortable with her personality? Do they like her voice?

Plus, examining her personality quirks is more fun than deconstructing her stance on Iraq.

Yes, analyzing Hillary’s laugh is of greater importance that discussing our country’s biggest foreign policy disaster since Vietnam.

Unfortunately, the media can’t take all of the blame for being as stupid as they are, since their viewers actually tolerate this sort of nonsense. Le sigh.