Sadly, No!

The polls have opened in a few places, and the wingnuts are going out with one last round of nonsense. First up is Chris Alamo:

Has America thoroughly pondered the grim consequences, if the total lack of respect that John Kerry engenders is eventually projected upon an entire nation that would elect him president?

Have wingnuts pondered the grim consequences, if the total lack of respect that they engender is eventually projected upon an entire TownHall that would give them a job?

The nation slumped to these depths once before, when it chose the empty pandering and slippery excuses of a pathological liar by the election of Bill Clinton. It was during his eight years as president that the mortal enemies of America saw their opportunity to metastasize, striking on an ever-increasing scale with impunity prior to 9-11.

Hooray! It’s Clinton’s fault!

The calamitous “hay” being made by the Kerry campaign over the concocted story of missing explosives shows once again (as if any new evidence is needed) Kerry’s willingness to say anything, whether stirringly patriotic or blatantly treasonous, for the expediency of the moment.

The calamitous “hay” being made by the Bush administration over the concocted story of weapons of mass destruction shows once again (as if any new evidence is needed) Bush’s willingness to say anything, whether stirringly patriotic (mission accomplished!) or blatantly treasonous, for the expediency of the moment.

Next up is Sadly, No! favorite (and Yosef’s arch enemy,) Justin Darr:

The John Kerry Campaign would like to have us think that the right to vote is the same as the right to sleep in late on a Saturday morning, or choosing the brand of soft drink you prefer.

Sons of bitches!

However, it is not.

Go Justin, you show ’em!

It is your civic duty not just to show up and pull a lever, but take the time to research the views of the candidates and make the decisions you feel will best serve not just yourself, but the society as a whole. It is what defines us as Americans[.]

Voting defines us you as Americans? Guess there aren’t as many Americans as we thought.

Edward Daley finishes our The Rant trifecta. Edward argues that the media were wrong to conclude that the US Army allowed an ammunitions dump, which he knows for a fact is wrong:

If the story should inevitably prove to be true beyond all reasonable doubt, I will be more than happy to admit that my assertion that “the story wasn’t true” was incorrect.

Oh, we didn’t know that you didn’t know.

To conclude such a thing without any real proof at one’s disposal is simply asinine, and to state publicly that such unsupported opinions amount to fact, especially so close to the presidential election, is nothing short of despicable.

Des-picable! You can’t just go around claiming things about weapons without irrefutable proof! Unless the presidential election is two years away anyway!

This concludes your Rant Review. We hope it was informative. Now go back out there and vote.

What better proof could there be, after all, than the following headlines from CNN’s homepage:

Let’s see what we got here: bin (Dead or Alive) Laden making videotapes, Baghdad car bomb, Iran telling the US oh yeah, you and what army?, North “we got the powa’!” Korea, all is well in the Sudan, plutonium stuff, a beheading, and a killing. Oh yeah — four more years, baby!

For this special bulletin:

Is the President eligible to vote? Did he honestly fill out his voter registration in 2000 to vote in Crawford? Newly released TANG records and recent reports that mischaracterized the nature of his “volunteer work” at a drug rehab program (PULL in Houston) suggest that he didn’t. If he didn’t declare unfulfilled criminal penalties on his voter registration, he’s guilty of an election crime.

Time for a Seinfeld quote!

George: Alright, I’ll tell you what you do. You call her back and give her the “it’s me”, heh? Pull the old switcheroo.
Jerry: I think that’s a “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”.
George: What the hell is a gander, anyway?

Living in “Germany” is making some people sehr grumpy. Trying to Grok, who lives in Germany but on an American base, (i.e. pretend Germany,) offers this “share the love” moment about kids coming trick or treating on base:

Some of the German kids didn’t even bother to wear costumes, and they gave me a danke sch?n when they left, which almost made me want to snatch the candy back. When I’m in your country, I speak German; when you’re in my country, taking my free candy, please attempt a thank you. With or without the difficult -th- sound.

Just go out there and vote, people!

A friend sent us this summary of things he’s seen on Fox News in the last few days. Good thing Fox isn’t part of our cable programming:

1. “public service announcements” supposedly about “civic lessons” and “the role of the president” — GWB talking about what a great job he’s doing. Also a “public service announcements” about how important it is to go out and vote.

2. O’Reilly emphatically saying he won’t say who he’s voting for, and
flashing a big logo that says “no ideology zone.”

3. O’Reilly reading a reader letter that accuses him of being biased for
liberals, and using this as an opportunity to say that he gives equal
airtime to both sides.

4. A report that high times magazine is endorsing Kerry.

5. Big text-over: “GANGSTER RAPPERS COME OUT IN FAVOR OF KERRY”…. a few seconds later, a shot of kerry speaking to NAACP

6. A “debate” about whether it should be in the media’s right to be left-biased.

7. An anti-Kerry ad (from the NRA, i think) saying that kerry “supports a
UN-style gun ban” with video showing lots of european flags

8. A “review of political advertising” that consisted of re-airing three
Bush ads, then having some talking head talk about them.

9. A local candidate’s ad describing his opponent, who used to be a
newspaper columnist, as “a card-carrying member of the liberal media” and
mentioning that the opponent “is from New York, the land of Hillary Clinton
and gay marriage.”

Bartholomew (yes, the one from Bartholomew’s Notes on Religions) elaborates on Katherine Harris’ L’Abri connections (click here or scroll down,) and adds many interesting details about Katherine and her former “school:”

So, back to Katherine Harris. According to an interview in World magazine, Harris attends a Calvary Chapel church in Tallahassee. Calvary Chapel is a Charismatic church, founded at Costa Mesa by Chuck Smith in the 1960s (and attracting the same kind of “Jesus Freaks” who also went to L’Abri during the same era). Smith is a Christian Zionist in the Hal Lindsey mode, although whether those Christian Zionist ideas are actively promoted at Harris?s particular church is another matter. But Harris is certainly connected to David Barton, with whom she shared a panel on the subject “God in Government” at Doug Giles’s April conference (the cached pdf I found on this has since disappeared).

And The Rant has the one, the only, … Scott Gray!:

Republicans believe in traditional values. We believe in right and wrong and having a strong moral compass. From the Civil War, we have not flip-flopped on issues that are dear to us. Republicans are strong people, and we have a deep desire to protect our future generations. Homosexuality is a bad decision, and it is not something that should ever be promoted in society. When a government promotes behavior that is harmful to a majority of citizens, this problem trumps other problems. [Emphasis added; homophobia in the original.]

Have you been harmed by homosexuality? Call our professional attorneys to see if they can work for you!

Affirmative action is a negative step because it keeps America thinking on a racial scale. It is time for America to move beyond this pitiful bickering. We believe that African-Americans need to go to college to get a step up in life, but they should never be shown a preference. This denies the equality that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once stated when he dreamed of all races being able to one day sit equally together at the table of life.

The table of life — is that located next to the chair of asinine metaphors by any chance? Or is it closer to the toaster of straw men? What about the microwave of logical fallacies? The blender of desperate pleas?

We have increased education spending by 49% in four years.

Don’t forget to mention the word “federal” in there, big Scott! Which sort of matters a little:

In the 2003-04 school year, 83 cents out of every dollar spent on education came from the state and local levels (46 percent from state funds and 37 percent from local governments). The federal government’s share was 8.2 percent. [Emphasis added.]

Might wanna think that one over, Scooby.

Remember just a few seconds ago when Scott was telling us how bad affirmative action was for college admission? You know, Dr. King not liking it and stuff? Well, it turns out that sometimes it’s cool:

Other [tax] breaks have specifically been promoted toward minority business ownership.

Get to college on your own! But run your business with the help of a special tax break! It’s all part of the Republican party’s plan to level the playing field through a commitment to principles and values.

President Bush wants dangerous criminals to stay behind bars, and he has worked with Attorney General John Ashcroft to lower gun crimes, something that he calls a perfect alternative to gun control.

Yet Senator Kerry wants to force you to be a guest family to dangerous, foreign, criminals!

Republicans do not harm civil rights, but we have always looked to promote them. We do not want to hold minorities down. We have instead spent more than ever in attempts to raise them up, not through preferences, but through society.

Head spinning, must control head spinning, oxygen, need oxygen… aaarrrrggh!

Government must see the social unrest, and it can only be rectified by encouraging moral behavior, not dissuading it with things such as same-sex marriage, encouragement of abortion, and the continuance of large and uneffective social programs. Wake up, African-Americans. Republicans have a plan, and you ARE a part of it!

Wake up you bunch of dumb asses! You don’t have to put up with the uneffective policies of the Democrats! And don’t forget to get Scott a drink and wash his car when you get a chance, ok?

Old Fashioned Patriot’s George has this delightful little nugget:

“French officials say 20 percent of the $3 billion of “French contracts” flagged in the Duelfer report in fact went to French subsidiaries of U.S. firms, notably General Electric ($445 million) and Halliburton ($127 million).”

In other words, France to Cheney: “Va te faire enculer!”

Talk dirty to us, George!

Unrelated — Triumph The Insult Comic Dog to Karl Rove: “You’re Bush’s Brain, Karl? I was expecting a much smaller man!” (14MB clip)

We’re just wonderin’!

101st Airborne veteran Ken Shapiro Dixon, making the rounds of various radio shows this week:

“When we walked into the bunkers that apparently nobody [else] went into, there is no way there were 380 tons of explosives in those bunkers,” […] When the 101st arrived on April 10, 2003, the Al-Qaqaa bunkers were “wide open,” he told Gill, as if somebody had already been there and broken the seals placed on the high explosives by the U.N.

According to the DOD:

Dixon, of Hinesville, Ga., was a passenger in a vehicle that rolled over March 28 during a night mission about 20 kilometers from Baghdad. At the time, his wife, Allesais, was an Army sergeant stationed in Pakistan.

“My vehicle rolled over into a ravine, upside down,” he said. “There were about six soldiers with me in the back. It was dark, visibility wasn’t that good.”

Dixon said he suffered a broken spinal cord in the accident.

Dixon suffered a broken spinal cord but kept serving with his unit so that he was at the Al-Qaqaa training camp 2 weeks later? At which point did his injury confine him to a wheelchair?

His spine snapped, resulting in a spinal cord injury and paraplegia. He underwent rehabilitation at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., and later the Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia VA Medical Centers.

Are we missing something? There may well be two Ken Dixons.