Posted on July 14th, 2007 by HTML Mencken
Not all memories of the 90’s are objectively good. They just seem that way in the era of Bush. Much as I like Scott Lemieux, digamma has him here:
Posted on July 14th, 2007 by Gavin M.
We’ll be back right after these important messages.
Posted on July 13th, 2007 by D. Aristophanes
It’s the Twilight of the Latter Day Saints over at Townhall:
The Four Walls Of The American Home
By Mitt Romney
Friday, July 13, 2007
He’s right about the walls, you know. And the fourth wall is the one with the reality TV production crew filming our wife-swapping misadventures. Also, Friday the 13th for your first Townhall column, Mitt? Maybe the headline could have been: “(Jason Voorhees Smashing Through) The Four Walls Of The American Home”. That would have been funny.
At this critical time in our nation’s history, we are confronted by daily reminders of the existence of evil. It would be foolish and irresponsible for us to believe that evil will simply go away. Hatred, as much as we want it to, does not always fade with each generation. To combat those who would perpetuate evil in the world, we must project our strength and our goodness, which rely in part on the strength of our people and culture.
Would that be Creamy Goodness™? Or Sweet Goodness™? Remarkably, ‘The Creamy Goodness’ is a trademark of one ‘Wank Industries, Ltd.’ Sometimes, the jokes not only write themselves, they submit themselves for peer review by other jokes in the Catskills Journal of Funny Medicine.
Around the world, our goal should be to employ American strength, courage, fortitude and goodness. Our country leads in not only military technology, but in science, education, health care and innovation. It is time that we apply the things that make America the world’s leader to making America a safer, freer, and more prosperous nation. By doing so, we can project America’s strength and goodness to the world.
[Gavin adds: Oh, I see what he’s up to here: ‘Project[ing] our strength and goodness to the world’ is a new euphemism for ginning up a war with Iran.]
Again, with the ‘goodness’! Why does Mitt’s portrayal of the Global War on Terror resemble a children’s manga story? Like, in Mitt’s world cute little animal characters are going to vaporize terrorists with colorful bursts of tickle energy. Then the American squirrel character and the British bulldog character and a couple of saucer-eyed anime kids from Albania do a freeze-frame high five, and they all drive to the mall to celebrate with the bulldog lashed to the roof of their car.
Above: The new face of American power
Here’s a tip, Mitt: Your base wants you to talk about putting a boot in Osama bin Laden’s ass, not a Barney song on his lips.
I have great faith in the American people and in the American family. I have faith in our children and our grandchildren. At the same time, I am deeply troubled by the culture that surrounds them today. Following the Columbine shootings, author Peggy Noonan wrote a column describing what she called “the ocean in which our children swim.” It was a cesspool of violence, sex, drugs, indolence, and perversion. She wrote that the boys who did the shooting had “inhaled too deep the ocean in which they swam.”
True that. If only they had gone swimming in the ocean where they keep the Jesus dolphins, then Columbine would have never happened.
We need to clean up the water in which our children are swimming.
The metaphorical water, of course. Not the actual water. Al Gore is a fat hypocrite who has the carbon footprint of an enormous fat man with really, really big feet. That are made of carbon. Also, he is fat.
Cleaning “the ocean in which our children swim” begins with ensuring that we have strong families. The most important work being done to strengthen America’s future is the work that is being done within the four walls of the American home.
So there you have it. Mitt Romney’s pledge: Elect me and your house will be full of seawater.
UPDATE: Find out where your current mood fits on the Dick Cheney Emotional Chart. Praise the genius of t4toby.
Posted on July 13th, 2007 by Gavin M.
One of our Noonans has escaped! With a historic flounce, Peggy picked up her bottle of Grey Goose and marched straight off the reservation:
Above: “Peg, it will come back to you…“
American Grit
We can’t fire the president right now, so we’re waiting it out.
Friday, July 13, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDTIt’s been a slow week in a hot era. I found myself Thursday watching President Bush’s news conference and thinking about what it is about him, real or perceived, that makes people who used to smile at the mention of his name now grit their teeth. I mean what it is apart from the huge and obvious issues on which they might disagree with him.
I’m not referring to what used to be called Bush Derangement Syndrome. That phrase suggested that to passionately dislike the president was to be somewhat unhinged. No one thinks that anymore. I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who’d previously supported him. She said she’d had it. “I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.” I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: “I took the W off my car today,” it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.
O! When people ask why ah drive a ‘BM,’
I stand up an’ proudly say:
Ah took the ‘W’. . .off mah car today.
[grun chick-a-chunk chick-a-chunk twang-bow]
Mah wife’s Jeep Rangler,
And mah stepson’s Jeep Agoneer,
Come in handy down on the range,
Mah daughter the hippie,
Has a ’69 V Beetle,
Though the colors are terribly stray-ange,
When I flipped mah Dad’s Hummer,
The ‘m’s were inverted,
And obviously needed to change…
So if the state trooper asks why my plates read ‘Yoming,’
I’ll sit up and proudly say:
Ah took the ‘W’. . .off mah car today.
So if the garage man asks me ’bout my indshield ipers,
I’ll stand up real tall and say:
Ah took the ‘W’. . .off mah car today.
[grun chick-a-chunk chick-a-chunk bow-bow.]
Posted on July 13th, 2007 by HTML Mencken
Enchantress, my sweetest morsel of heavenly goodness. Let me romance you.
Marie Jon’: with Smoove B’, on the edge of freakstasy’
It is about time we call the rose by its rightful name when discussing the War against Terror. The problem the free world faces is that it is erroneously preoccupied with a belief system that has us fighting other faiths from its own perspective. Radical Islamists do not want to get along with or respect other’s choices in religion. It is time to stop pretending. We are fighting religious zealots of the Islamic faith.
All you need is to say its rightful name, and the rose will be yours. I will personally remove, with religious zeal, all its thorns just as I can remove, with secular skill, a fine lady’s clothing. The rose will be yours. You will admire my dexterity and taste. I know this to be true.
Terrorism is not spawned from Christianity or Judaism….They embrace the Lord’s Ten Commandments while living their lives in peace and uplifting God Almighty.
I know that you need pampering. Please ignore my presumption a moment ago: I did not mean that “secular” stuff. It is religion you need to embrace so that you may condemn a different faith. So, I will caress your ears with a hushed and silky baritone in agreement as I condemn several groups of terroristic Islamic zealots. Am I not the thoughtful lover? Oh, yes.
Posted on July 13th, 2007 by Gavin M.
WASHINGTON, July 12 /Christian Newswire/ — Ante Pavkovic, Kathy Pavkovic, and Kristen Sugar were all arrested in the chambers of the United States Senate as that chamber was violated by a false Hindu god.
Above: Lord Ganesh materializes in Senate chamber
What an exciting day in the Senate. How did this come to happen?
The Senate was opened with a Hindu prayer placing the false god of Hinduism on a level playing field with the One True God, Jesus Christ.
There’s so much that’s whiffy with this sentence theologically that perhaps it’s best to focus only on the ‘level playing field.’ Apparently, if there’s one thing Jesus hates, it’s good sportsmanship.
This would never have been allowed by our Founding Fathers. Not one Senator had the backbone to stand as our Founding Fathers stood. They stood on the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
In fairness, for awhile there, Senator Bunning hopped up and down on a Book of Common Prayer, but then he got embarrassed and sat down again.
It’s a fact that the Founding Fathers always used to stand up and yell for Jesus whenever a Hindu chaplain came around trying to materialize one of his false gods into the room. We know this from the part in the Bill of Rights saying how Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. This was meant to prevent Hindus from discharging their curry-scented spooks into the chambers; you can tell by how they phrased it.
There were three in the audience with the courage to stand and proclaim, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’
Unfortunately, none of them was Jesus.
They were immediately removed from the chambers, arrested, and are in jail now. God bless those who stand for Jesus as we know that He stands for them.” Rev. Flip Benham, Director, Operation Save America/Operation Rescue
Not to mention the fact that the Hindu chaplain began with the Gayatri Mantra — which, excuse me, but you can’t spell that without G-A-Y M-A-N.
Benham (above) needs to order new Desi-enabled t-shirts.
Posted on July 12th, 2007 by Gavin M.
My gosh, what’s that sour smell? Ah, it’s only the NRO’s Media Blog again.
As clear as a glass of water from the Tigris.
[Denis Boyles]Here’s how US News is headlining its advance coverage of the interim Iraq progress report:
At Least Half Of Iraq Benchmarks Unmet
That “half-empty” take will be repeated ad infinitum over the next 48 hours or so. The Iraqi glass can never be half-full, of course. Something about the water in Baghdad.
Somewhere along the line — and I wish I’d been paying more attention — the NRO Media Blog developed a collective authorial voice that suggests an undershirted grouch chain-smoking Kents and muttering at the TV set. It isn’t just the codgers like Denis Boyles, either: When Stephen “Little Horseshoes” Spruiell, age roughly twelve, manned the operation, his idea of kritik was to quote a news reporter saying something at odds with the current Republican dogma, and to cackle out a rejoinder like, “Gee, no liberal bias here! What a bunch of liberals!” During his training, they must’ve put Spruiell in a heavily-farted La-Z-Boy recliner in a stuffy airshaft-view apartment, and clamped a can of Miller in his hand.
To his credit though, even when the Media Blog’s elderly wirehair terrier chewed up his New York Post, even when the antenna on his old Motorola set hit the fritz, and with all that racket from 4B — jeez, whattathey doin’ up there, fercryingoutloud? — Spruiell never did anything as lame as attending upon a report from the White House that gives a failing grade to the Iraq effort, and carping about (of all the enfeebled clichés in the world) a glass-half-empty.
If these standards keep up, the NRO’s Bench Memos blog will soon discover that possession is nine-tenths of the law, and Jonah Goldberg will find that on the road less-traveled, some march to the beat of a different drummer.
Actually, according to a five-minute review of the report (.pdf) — which of course would’ve taken five minutes out of Denis Boyles’s day, crammed as it is with fact-based debunkings of the media, as it were — it’s nine ‘unsatisfactories,’ two mixed reports, and seven ‘satisfactories.’ Other independent analyses (.pdf) naturally give a worse picture, but that’s what the White House has managed to come up with — and bully for them! So let’s rewrite that US News headline for ol’ Deeb, which is evidently all he read of the story before deciding it was at variance with the real story as momentarily invented by himself, as he set back to work filling the room with acrid stocking-feet aroma and halitosis amid a blare from the AM band of the Philco radio, comme il faut.
Almost Half Of Iraq Benchmarks Met
Nope, not yet good enough. Let’s try harder.
Seven Iraq Benchmarks Met
Better, but still not upbeat enough.
Iraq Benchmarks Met
There; perfect. No wait, almost perfect.
Hero Cop Bush Wins Big In Wacko Iraqo Lotto
Ahh. Now if the NRO only had They’ll Do It Every Time, not to mention the whattayacall, not the crossword but the Jumble, they’d have a nice little paper there.
Posted on July 12th, 2007 by Brad
State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20, police said.
TWENTY BUCKS??!!! What the hell is anyone supposed to buy with that??!
Allen, R-Merritt Island, was booked into the Brevard County jail in Sharpes on a charge of solicitation to commit prostitution, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in the county jail and a $500 fine.
So the fine will be 25 times what he was willing to pay for sex. I hope it was worth it to him.
Posted on July 12th, 2007 by D. Aristophanes
U.S. Intel Warns al-Qaeda Rebuilt
U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaeda has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned.
Oh. It’s just the AP. Jamil Hussein probably told them that. Anyway, we already knew al Qaeda was taking over Iraq. Baking children, actually. So yadda, yadda, yadda, Time. Tell us more of what we know about al Qaeda in Iraq.
The conclusion suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on the United States has been able to regroup along the Afghan-Pakistani border despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it.
Oh. But, um. . .would that be the Afghan-Pakistani border in Anbar province? Yeah, that’s the ticket! I bet some villager told some Kurdish corporal who told Michael Yon’s interpreter that “Pakistan” is the local nickname for “Baqubah”. Send Michael cash so he can report this critical information! You can bet the MSM won’t!
[Gavin adds: Woop! News flash from Michelle Malkin. “Michael Yon reports that al Qaeda is on the run in Baqubah. But elsewhere, al Qaeda is reportedly at pre-9/11 strength.” By “elsewhere” she means, you know, other parts of Anbar province and also the rest of the world.]
Counterterrorism analysts produced the document, titled “Al-Qaeda better positioned to strike the West.” The document focuses on the terror group’s safe haven in Pakistan and makes a range of observations about the threat posed to the United States and its allies, officials said.
Al-Qaeda is “considerably operationally stronger than a year ago” and has “regrouped to an extent not seen since 2001,” the official said, paraphrasing the report’s conclusions. “They are showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States.”
Damn you, Time! This isn’t going according to the script! Stay on message! And what’s “al Qaeda”, anyway? Let’s ask Michael Yon:
Like many things in Iraq, the question of whether or not the murderers were al Qaeda is flawed from beginning. Al Qaeda is not a union, it doesn’t issue passports. What is al Qaeda but the collection of people who claim to be al Qaeda? Those responsible for murdering and burying those bodies in al Ahamir (or al Hamira) had the markers of al Qaeda, the same al Qaeda that had boastfully installed itself as the shadow government of Baqubah. The al Qaeda who committed atrocities in Afghanistan, New York . . . the list is long. As for al Ahamir, the massacre “walks like a duck.” It happened in duck headquarters. The people here say the duck did it. The duck laughs.
That’s good enough for me. Whoops, gotta run. It’s a travel day for me and the rest of the San Francisco Giants.
UPDATE: Gavin points to this post on Hot Air, in which Allahpundit wonders, re: Bush’s utter failure to reduce the threat of al Qaeda terrorism after 5+ years of “smokin’ them out” hijinks:
How does all this shake out for the left? Grim victory insofar as it proves Bush hasn’t done enough dismantle to AQ (irrespective of whether there’s anything else he could have done) or inadvertent defeat insofar as it reminds people of the threat from both branches of Al Qaeda just as the withdrawal debate is hitting the floor of the Senate? If you see more than the usual amount of questioning the timing among the paranoiac nutroots blogs, you’ll know it’s the latter.
In other news, the arrest of Florida State Rep. Bob Allen (R-Merritt Island) … how does it shake out for the left? Grim victory insofar as it proves that yet another conservative hypocrite is paying for teh gay sex … or inadvertent defeat insofar as it reminds people of blowjobs? If you see more than the usual amount of Clenis talk among the infantile wingnut blogs, you’ll know it’s the latter.
Oh, and the comments are already deeply disturbing. This guy wants another 9/11 … to save the country, of course:
If it takes them hitting us again for the People to unite and finally get rid of these psychopathic theocratic crapulous maniacs, so be it.
One wake up call didn’t work.
Maybe the snooze alarm needs a bomb.
profitsbeard on July 11, 2007 at 9:37 PM
And this guy’s all ready to declare 9/11 2.0 “all the liberals’ fault”:
The more interesting question is what happens after the event. Some possibilities:
… 2. We’ll have a wonderful opportunity to see if the American Left has any remaining sense of irony whatsoever. After doing all in their power to hamstring our ability to monitor and detect terrorist networks here and abroad in the name of “Civil Liberties,” watch what their reactions will be when after the next 9/11 we show them what it really means to profile people and deprive them of their precious freedoms. …
Spurius Ligustinus on July 12, 2007 at 1:13 AM
Posted on July 12th, 2007 by Gavin M.
Above: Kleyne kinder kakn kleyne kutshes.
- Bwa-ha-ha! This miscreant Muslim shopkeeper refuses to sell pork! PS: Candle Lighting is 18 minutes before Shkiah. Friday, July 13, 2007: Light candles at 8:03 PM.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.