Sadly, No!

Ladies and gents, I think I’ve discovered the perfect man to replace Alberto Gonzales at the Department of Justice. Take it away, coach:

Did you craft the statement yourself?
“It’s my statement.”

You wrote it?
“It’s my statement, yes.”

Why would you not read or actually speak that statement?
“There was quite a bit of interest and we had a number of requests from the media to respond to the decision. I tried to do that.”

But in essence, you never actually stood in front of people and expressed your remorse, if that’s the right word.
“I tried to act in a timely way. Right now, it’s San Diego and that’s what we’re moving on to.”

Do you want to address the fans?
“We’re moving on to San Diego. That’s what I’m addressing. All my energy is on the San Diego Chargers.” […]

Can you describe what the procedure will be as you focus on San Diego?
“We’re getting ready for the Chargers. That’s plenty to get ready for. They’re a great football team. They’re coming in here, had a big win against Chicago, and we’re doing what we can to get ready for them. Everything else is in the past.”

Can you explain how you misinterpreted the rule?
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. We’re moving on.”

But you lost a first-round draft choice and were fined a half-million dollars. It does matter.
“It already happened. Right now, we’re focusing on what’s in front of us, and that’s the Chargers.”

Would you care to comment on people suggesting this has happened in the past, and if it taints your record in the past?
“All my focus is on the San Diego Chargers. I’m just working to get ready for that team.”

Do you get to pay a half-million dollars in installments or do you have to pay it up front?
“I’m just thinking about the Chargers.”

With the Chargers in mind, has this become a distraction?
“We’re going to try to do the best we can to get ready — Friday, Saturday, all day Sunday. Do all we can to get ready and put our best effort out there. That’s what we’re doing.”

Why didn’t the statement apologize to the Jets?
“We’re moving on. San Diego.”

How difficult is it to move on?
“My focus is on the Chargers. I understand there is interest out there. I understand there are stories. But everything is in the past. It’s been decided. It’s over with.”

It is what it is.

Marvel once again as John approves of a Bush speech, then jumps up and down with steam shooting out his ears:

Bush Takes His Case to the People

I was not able to watch President Bush’s speech tonight, but have read it. It was, I think, a great speech. Once again, the President, instead of retreating in the face of his enemies, has upped the ante and taken his case to the people. President Bush laid out the case for engagement in Iraq in a way that most will find compelling. And he postured the surge as an opportunity for pro-war and anti-war factions to unite:

Brilliantly, Bush is ‘posturing’ pro-war and anti-war people to unite behind his plan to keep having a war. What are his cowardly, sneering enemies thinking after this master stroke? Something deranged, as always — but always more deranged than last time, since everything in America is always simultaneously getting hugely better and horribly worse:

One more thing about the Rasmussen poll: thirty-seven percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of General Petraeus, while eighteen percent expressed an unfavorable view. Think about that for a moment: how in the world could anyone have an unfavorable view of David Petraeus? Whatever one thinks of Iraq, the man has devoted his life to serving his country. He is a brilliant soldier as well as a brave one. The eighteen percent that disapprove of Petraeus must define the portion of the country that has gone stark, raving mad. One might say that they have progressed beyond Bush Derangement Syndrome to a Generalized Derangement Syndrome.

Dude, at least we aren’t masturbating during blogger conference calls:

Feeling it

John McCain was “feeling it” during his blogger phone conference today.

This has been today’s Powerline moment.

Debbie Schlussel is a lonely owl in the forest of Islamofascism sometimes, hooting incessantly all through the night even though no one will listen. Lately, she’s been following the story of an innocent young white girl who has been seduced over the computer-box by one of those greasy Mahometans (probably he tortured some Jew into teaching him how it worked, since they lack the intellect to master complicated machinery on their own). And now, she plans to marry him, thus forever diluting the fair-skinned gene pool of our gentle race!

In honor of my last post’s interminable comic-book discussion, I will rate the dumbest sentences from the Costco Coulter’s defense of white ladyhood using an image of Solomon Grundy going “daaaaar”.

18-year-old Katherine Lester is on her way to Jericho in the so-called “West Bank” of Israel.

No longer will anyone see her long, flowing blonde hair.

She furtively corresponded back-and-forth with “Abdullah Psycho” a/k/a Abdullah Jimzawi a/k/a Abdullah Jinzawi, a 25-year-old Palestinian Muslim (who–surprise!–lied about his age online) in the terrorist-dominated, extremist town of Jericho. Yes, what was once the same Biblical Jericho. But this story isn’t Bibilical. It’s tragic.

Abdullah Psycho’s mother–let’s call her Umm Psycho [partial Arabic for “Mother of Psycho”] lamented to the press about this unfortunately dashed situation.

Parents, let that be a lesson to you: “Seventeen” is not your daughter’s friend. Or yours. It’s trash.

Who would ever consider educating their daughter on the real perils of Islam, especially for a young American girl with her whole life ahead of her? Not her stepparents, apparently.

Now, Katherine Lester is lost to Islam and the barbaric Palestinian jungle of a “society,” forever.

Remember that vaporware Schulte paper that supposedly refuted the claim that there’s a scientific consensus on global warming? It turns out to be blatantly plagiarized, among other problems.

So I guess we’ll just sit here and wait until all the right-wingers stop by and admit that they were duped again like big ol’ honking dupes who keep always getting duped all the time.

[…]

Pass the remote? Thanks.

[…]

Yeah, I like the red ones best, but the green ones are good too. Oh wait, here’s the part with the thing.

[…]

Sure, I think there’s some in the freezer. Get me one too.

[…]

No, you can change it. I’ve seen this Iron Chef already.

[…]

Oh crap, what’s this? Apparently while we were sitting here, another right-wing foundation has produced a new study of the very same kind:

Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun’s irradiance. “This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850,” said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.

They ought to get at least couple weeks of mileage out of this one too. After that, perhaps the usual ignominy.

Posted in comments at the Atlantic:

Obviously, I am not nearly as funny as I think I am

We just keep remembering how the Atlantic published ‘Letter From Birmingham Jail’ during the Weeks era, so yeah, I guess we’re missing a punchline here and there.

Posted by Sadly, No! Investor Services September 13, 2007 4:18 PM

Discovered in place of the above (note redirected link):

This comment has been deleted for rampant trolling

Posted by Sadly, No! Investor Services | September 13, 2007 4:18 PM

The great tragedy here is that she probably thinks Letter From Birmingham Jail is that song where the guy shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

The fact is that it is I, Gary Rupperto. As all right thinking people know, Liberal Communist moonbats like the authors of this blog hate America but are happy to live off her bloated welfare system. It seems like a number of the regular authors here must have all gotten their welfare checks at the same time and gone down to one of the Gay Abortion Check Cashing And Discotheque places that you find on every corner in Liberal neighborhoods, because I peeked in the window here at Sadly, No! and found some of the America-haters passed out on the floor with that Noam Chomsky pornography you all love playing on the TV. When I tried the door, it was open, so I took the opportunity to seize this battlefield in the name of the Grand War On Terror. Not everyone can fight the enemy abroad, you know, and the fact is that the most important battlefront is right here on the internet, where our own Greatest Generation is defending freedom. The fact is that I’m going to be holding one of these Islamofascist-loving Liberals as an enemy combatant in my own Guantanamo until all of you swear allegiance to George W. Bush and stop acting as a fifth column against America and freedom. I’m also going to make you listen to the facts, whether you like them or not.

The fact is that the new surveillance laws passed by Our Leader have foiled more terrorist plots than you’ll ever know, despite what the Liberal MSM says.

The fact is that the only reason anyone would doubt the word of General Petraeus in his testimony before Congress is because that person is a Liberal Communist who hates the troops.

Although the real reason we went to war with Iraq was to bring them the unified democratic government they have always wanted, the fact is that the way the war has lowered oil prices is just further proof of George W. Bush’s genius.

The fact is that the troop reduction George W. Bush announced tonight proves that the surge is a stunning success.

That’s just a taste of what’s to come, America-haters. It’s time you all learned how to handle the truth. And, unlike Vietnam, the Great War of the Internets will not be lost to the backstabbing ways of the Liberal Communists in our midst. The fact is that your failed ideology belongs in the Dustbin of History. Remember, I’ve got your leader, and I’ll be checking to see if those loyalty pledges have been made – you have been warned! (The fact is, I don’t know if it’s Travis or Mencken or one of the other hate-spewers I’ve taken. All you Liberal Communists look the same to me.)

I will be back.

Jillian adds: Hey guys, it’s me. If you hang out in the comments at all, you’ve probably seen me chatting away down there. Well today, I swung by this place, and the back door was standing wide open, and….well, it’s obvious that our most beloved troll, Gary Ruppert, really was here. For one thing, it looks like a Cheetos factory exploded in the place, and for another, the smell….well, the less said about that, the better.

I’m not really sure what Gary went and did, because I can’t seem to get rid of the rant he posted, but I did manage to go through and fix the links that were obviously supposed to have been there from the start, so at least it makes a little more sense. I’m also not sure what he’s talking about with “enemy combatants” and “loyalty pledges”, but there is a trail of Cheeto-dust leading out of this place right to somebody’s basement door not too far from here, so things don’t look good. Hopefully, Gavin or Brad will fill us in on what happened here when they can, but until then, I might be posting a little bit here and there – if it’s all right with you guys, that is. If nothing else, my being here might help to keep Gary from coming back, because we all know that there’s nothing a wingnut hates more than a woman who isn’t a shrieking harpy or a punctuation freak with a glue fetish.

I don’t know if I’ve ever told y’all this, but robots frighten me. Especially ones that are designed to look, talk and act like creepy little children. Like this one:

David Hanson has two little Zenos to care for these days.

There’s his 18-month-old son Zeno, who prattles and smiles as he bounds through his father’s cramped office.

Then there’s the robotic Zeno. It can’t speak or walk yet, but has blinking eyes that can track people and a face that captivates with a range of expressions.

Dear Mr. Hanson: please, please, please stop.

You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Oh sure, your new little friend may talk sweet right now. He may say “goo-goo-gah-gah” or “Da-da” or “I made poop” or whatever cute things you’ve programmed to say. But when you wake up in the middle of the night with him standing on your bed and saying “Daddy, teach me to love!” before knifing you to death, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Sowell, a Senior Fellow over at the Shame of Stanford, gets paid to sit on the crapper and dream up solutions to the pressing problems of the day. Normally Sowell’s scholarly excretions are simply inane, but recently the potty philospher applied himself to high speed car chases and came up with a solution that is both moronic and scary.

Naturally Sowell is peeved at the liberals who tell the cops that they can’t go tearing through suburban school zones at 105 mph in pursuit of some nitwit whose car is missing a taillight.

The police have some tough choices to make when deciding when to chase and when to let the driver continue on his high-speed way. Innocent people can get killed either way. … We have no way of knowing whether reckless speeders will slow down if the cops don’t follow them when they try to get away.

But we do know that the reckless speeders sure as shit won’t slow down if the cop continues the pursuit and then we then have not one but two idiots careening through the city streets. But not so fast, Sowell is one step ahead of us:

No doubt there is much to be said for bringing high-speed chases to an end quicker [sic] …

(Are there no standards at the Hoover Institution? Doesn’t a Senior Fellow have to know the difference between an adjective and an adverb? But I digress.)

… and especially before the speeder can get off the highway and go speeding through city streets, endangering both other motorists and pedestrians.

Okay, Tom, yes, there is much to be said for that. So what do you propose? Brace yourself, kids, because Tom thinks that helicopter snipers are the solution.

When there is a police helicopter overhead, a shot straight down would have little chance of hitting some innocent bystander. Maybe the speeder is just someone out joy-riding but that does not make a reckless driver any less dangerous.

Not only is Sowell a Senior Fellow in economics, but he’s also an expert at shooting speeding cars from moving helicopters and thus can assure us all that there’s little chance of hitting the wrong person. I hope that makes you all feel better.

Now being the painty-waist liberal that I am, I feel constrained to point out that I’m a just a teensy bit troubled by summary execution of traffic offenders. Not so for Mr. Sowell:

The issue is not whether the crime for which the driver is being pursued deserves the death penalty. It is the driver’s choice whether to put his life — and other people’s lives — at risk.

Well, I guess that settles that.

Ding! Ding! What’s that? Oh nothing, We’re just banging our heads on this lightpost.

[Hanx! Andrewsomething]

Megan “Jane Galt” McArdle, Atlantic Online, Sept. 10th, 2007:

Mr Chait’s recent writings seem to imply that he hasn’t really understood the terms of the debate, or learned how to separate the cranks from the titans, which may be why his article lumps all of their claims together. Unfortunately, I haven’t a copy of the book, so I can’t tell if it’s any better than the article in The New Republic.

Goodness, not having a copy of Jonathan Chait’s new book would seem to be a handicap in terms of writing about, you know, Chait’s new book.

Then again, maybe not so much.

Megan “Jane Galt” McArdle, TPM Book Club, Sept. 11th, 2007:

When the journalist is Jonathan Chait, and the claims are that tax cuts are the solution to every problem that ails the economy, the answer is “write a book”. And in the parts that are confined to that mission, or to an interesting, if highly incomplete, history of the supply-side movement, I was happy to be Mr Chait’s fellow traveler. […]

But overall, I was disappointed with the thrust of the book. Mr Chait has cast himself as one undertaking to solve a mystery: why Republican politicians push for tax cuts using shady rationales, when no one except a tiny handful of their richest donors supports the tax cuts. Of course, if you systematically throw out any evidence that contradicts these assumptions, you are practically forced to Mr Chait’s conclusion, which is that a supply-side cult funded by fantastically wealthy donors has hijacked American politics to its own nefarious ends.

[Insert several hundred words of Ms. McArdle’s personal views on things, with no direct references to anything Chait wrote.]

I prefer my explanation because it doesn’t rely on believing that thirty years ago the Republicans, suddenly and for no apparent reason, become eviler, while simultaneously–luckily for them!–the American public, suddenly and for no apparent reason, became stupider. So stupid, in fact, that they couldn’t find the lever to vote for the people they actually agreed with. Happily, my explanation also does not require that I insult the intelligence of my opponents.

True enough. Then again, why not go the extra mile?

Update: Today we find this:

The Naked Truth

So it’s fall. And that means fall shopping. And that means that once again, 95% of the clothing I see that I want to try on, will not fit me.

As long time readers know, I am 6’2. That’s four standard deviations from the mean. I understand that manufacturers are not actually going to focus on serving this tiny market.

[…]

Yes, I could learn to sew, and actually, I’m considering it. But specialization is the strength of our modern economy. I have a strong comparitive advantage in journalism, and no advantage at all in sempstressing–so why can’t I find any manufacturers to trade with me?

McArdle: So what do you think? I’ll trade my journalism skills for some kicky fall clothes.

Sempstress: When the journalist is Megan McArdle, and the claims are that longer cuts are the solution to every problem that ails her, the answer is “sew some clothing.”

McArdle: Oh great. Now, the thing is, my measurements…

Sempstress: Overall, I was disappointed with the thrust of your measurements.

McArdle: No, but you haven’t seen them yet. If you just look at this paper with the…

Sempstress: You are a size 4. Let me tell you what I think about that, and also, here’s a glove.

McArdle: I am not a size 4! Will you just look at the…

Sempstress: I prefer my own measurements because they don’t rely on believing that you, suddenly and for no apparent reason, got taller, while — lucky for you! — your clothes, suddenly and for no apparent reason, got smaller. Here is a sock and a size-4 pinafore.

McArdle: AAAAARGH!!!

Sempstress: Okay, good. Now as to the journalism skills you’re going to trade with me: Specialization is the strength of our modern economy, and my daughter needs a paper for school. Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, relationship between Anna and Vronsky, major themes thereof — due Friday, 20 pages, double-spaced.

Sempstress’s Daughter: Dude, just use the Cliffs Notes. Der, like anyone would ever find out.