The seemingly never ending battle against spam comments continues, and one unfortunate downside is that real commenters with valuable contributions to make about Gavin’s shorts sometimes get caught by overzealous (or simply very wise) spam filters. In order to give humans the chance to post without fear of robot reprisal, we’ve opened up registration to the general public. Registered users (who are logged in!) will bypass all spam control. This is not an invitation to use registration to post intimate details about my two penises, so consider yourselves warned. Just to be extra clear:
Registration is optional — the only benefit being that you will avoid automated spam control.
Comments, whether posted by registered or unregistered users, are not moderated or edited. [With the exception of posts containing private information, e.g. Michelle Malkin’s home adress; take that shit elsewhere.]
Shorter Byron York: Liberal bloggers are finding out the hard way that it requires a lot of blood, sweat and tears to chart a course for your political party, instead of just doing it the other way around.
New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon’s National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in internet technology – specifically the forthcoming “semantic web” championed by the web standards organisation W3C – to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals.
Gee, I can’t imagine how that capability might possibly be abused.
[Gavin adds: It’s an outgrowth of the existing NSA program(s). If I can be allowed an I-told-you-so moment, remember this?
We researched this with a lot of phone calls and source-checking (Correntewire has been working on it as well). The NSA program is structured according to networks of people, not ‘phone records’ or bulk Internet surveillance.]
Orwell’s telescreens required invasive, mind-reading technology that doesn’t actually exist (so far as we know), but we voluntarily pour our most private thoughts into the Internet for anyone’s viewing enjoyment (or stultification, depending on what you happen to be viewing). And with the way these college kids are addicted to their Facebooks and their My Spaces, there’s an awful lot of personal information out there.
Anyone here a fútbol fan? I’ve been trying to get into it for a while, but since American soccer totally sucks, I’ve failed. I’m rooting for the Argentines this year. No reason. Just ’cause.
Seb adds: Are you ready for some football? As for Argentina: Boooh!
This game will determine what the greatest nation on this planet is: Portugal or MexicoGermany or Costa Rica.
Bradroquette adds: If y’all can’t beat Costa Rica, y’all iz wack.
Gavin adds: I’m hoping for a surprise upset by a Finnish death-metal band.
Hugh Hewitt, the wingnut of sweaty-manboobs fame, has a true talent. No matter how wingnutty he is, he can always coax superior wingnuttery out of his radio show’s guests. What a wretched talent that must be for a wingnut: Hugh’s doomed to always be a bridesmaid but never a bride. (It may help to imagine the groom always being Dear Leader, flightsuited and codpieced — wait, no it doesn’t help to think of that; forget I said it.)
Now, after wiping the barf from our chins, let’s consider Hugh’s latest showso that we may barf again, his guest being superwingnutien Mark Steyn:
HH: Let’s do a second quote. This from Steny Hoyer, the number two ranking Democrat. While the death of al-Zarqawi is certainly a positive development, it must be tempered by the sober recognition that this will not end the insurgency.
Nothing wrong there, correct? Pretty sensible reaction from Hoyer, yes? It is the truth, after all. Ahhh, but these are wingnuts and Hugh has just set Steyn up to spew some pure batshit-insanity:
MS: Yes, well they’re doing a lot of tempering with sobriety, and I think they haven’t quite got the formula right. You know, the Democrats sound to me a bit like al Qaeda. Al Qaeda released this statement on the death of Zarqawi, saying congratulations to our glorious comrade al-Zarqawi for finally achieving martyrdom. It is a great victory for us. And it reminded me of the announcements the Democratic Party puts out after they failed to pull off the victory in the special election in California this week, and the one in the Ohio Congressional district last year, I think, where they lose, but they nevertheless hail it as a tremendous political upset and a great victory.
Democrats remind him of al-Qaeda; al-Qaeda reminds him of Democrats. Also, “sobriety” reminds him of al-Qaeda, which I guess makes sort of wingnutty sense when you remember that the Greatest Good is Dear Dry-Drunk Leader. Other things that might remind Steyn of al-Qaeda include sensibility, apple pie and puppies. No, that doesn’t add up for me, either, but I’m just trying to figure out this wingnut association game and it hurts my head gahhh.
Things may seem all placid here, with fluffy clouds drifting over fields of gently waving grass, and duck-ponds with queues of fuzzy little baby ducks swimming about, et cetera, but things are in fact decidedly not placid around here.
You’ve probably heard the latest, but here it is again.
We’ve spent a lot of time lately doing things that haven’t become posts immediately, and we have to ask for some extra patience as we work the phones and send the carrier pigeons back and forth.
In normal societies, people like this would spend their days stumbling through alleyways and yelling at deviant garbage cans. But in post-9/11 America, they are paid large sums of money to work as analysts on nationally-syndicated television programs.
Ladies and gentlemen (and Yosef), I give you the lovely Sandy Rios, a FOX News contributor who is defending Ann Coulter’s assertion that four outspoken 9/11 widows are “enjoying their husbands’ deaths”:
RIOS: Well, Bill, I think, I don’t disagree with your basic premise. I mean, it is certainly not my choice to attack people. However, we are living in strange times. And I think while everybody else is making nice, Ann’s words are laser-focused on truth. She says things that no one else dares say and it kind of made me think about, for instance, holocaust pictures. Do we have to see pictures of emaciated bodies to understand what happened? It’s kind of offensive. But, you know what? Yes, we do.
Take a deep breath and think about what Sandy is saying here. She is literally comparing Ann Coulter “exposing” the 9/11 widows as “harpies” who are “ejoying their husband’s deaths” to exposing the evil brutality of Nazi Germany. In other words, the “horror” of 9/11 widows who criticize Bush is on par with the horror of Auschwitz.
While poor Seb was reduced to hiring an untalented hack like me, the lovely and snarkerific Ms S.Z. of World O’Crap went out and hired my non-union Mexican equivalent, Scott, who does five times the work I do, and is ten times as funny:
Russert: Mr. Christ, what do you say to accusations that you’re opposed to fighting a battle to bring about the end of all life on Earth because you’re an Anti-Semite?
Jesus: Well, first of all, I’d like to point out that I myself am Jewish—
Ann Coulter: Yeah! Just like George Soros. Another Jew who somehow figured out a way to avoid crucifixion.
Jesus: I WAS crucified! (DISPLAYS WOUNDS IN HANDS)
Michelle Malkin: Why don’t people ask him more specific questions about the nails in his hands and feet? There are legitimate questions about whether or not they were self-inflicted wounds.
Russert: What do you mean self-inflicted? Are you suggesting Mr. Christ crucified himself on purpose?
Michelle Malkin: Did you read the book by Barabbas and the Golgotha Veterans for Truth? Some of the thieves who were actually crucified have made allegations that these were self-inflicted wounds.
That’s some funny. I hate you, Scott. I’m calling INS.
In an interview with CNN he stays on message. There’s no reason necessarily to think we needed troops in Iraq to get Zarqawi and “we cannot win this.” Video and transcript here.
UPDATE: A reader writes: “Murtha actually said “we cannot win this militarily”. His qualification is crucial, and it’s dishonest to ignore that.”
Fair point, though I hardly think I was being dishonest in pointing people to the video and transcript.
