Tiniest violin in the world

Oh, my, I'm just so worried for the future of corporations like Exxon-Mobil under the impending Obama administration:

Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), the leading U.S. oil company, said its third-quarter net profit was $14.83 billion, or $2.86 per share, up from $9.41 billion, or $1.70, a year earlier. That profit included $1.45 billion in special items.

Exxon's prior record was $11.68 billion in the second quarter of 2008.

Lordy, how could Der Comrade Obama possibly expect these guys to pay a bit more in taxes? Why, raise the top tax rate and they'll be reduced to begging on streetcorners, eating out of garbage cans and wearing empty barrels.

ABOVE: Rex W. Tillerson, six months from now

Won't somebody please think of the CEOs?

This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move

Oct 28 4004 BC

God creates Adam and Eve five days after the rest of the universe, according to Biblical calculations by Archbishop James Ussher.

(courtesy "Today In Rotten History")

teh stupid it burns us

In a world...

...where George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Joe the Not-Plumber aspire to governmental power...

...there is a new player -

For all of his wild-man antics, the politically conservative Nugent is talking about following in the footsteps of celebrities such as actor Arnold Schwarzenegger or wrestler Jesse Ventura, who won gubernatorial races.

"That would be beautiful," Nugent said when asked if he would run for governor of Michigan in 2010. "I have threatened to do so and I was sincere."

Some of Nugent's antics make even Schwarzenegger's past outspokenness appear measured by comparison.

"Michigan was once a great state. Michigan was a state that rewarded the entrepreneur and the most productive, work-ethic families of the state. Now the pimps and the whores and the welfare brats are basically the state's babies."

Hey, that comment about "pimps and whores and welfare brats" couldn't have been racist, could it?

It certainly could:

Nugent refuses to mince words and often uses a racial epithet to describe blacks that normally would mean political suicide. He says his embrace of the word reflects his respect for the black contribution to rock and roll and has another expletive for anyone who disagrees with him.

Wheee, 'cause the deep intellectual statesmanship that only someone who refers to himself as "The Nooge" offers is just what we need more of in politics these days.

Face it, G.O.P.: Palin, J-T-N-P, and TEH NOOOOOGE - racists, idiots, and airheads - are the face of your party for the foreseeable future.

Self-inflicted wounds are always the most painful, guys. Here's to a magnificent festering.

(Oh, and BTW - Joe-The-Not-Plumber? Said something stupid. Just like I predicted he would.)

A-men, Joe

Biden treats idiotic comment from wingnut anchor like it should be treated - with contempt:

"You may recognize this famous quote," WFTV Anchor Barbara West told Biden on Thursday. "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs, that's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

Biden laughed himself out of the unusually tough interview asking in response, "are you joking? Is this a joke?"

"No," responds West.

"Is that a real question?" Biden continues.

"That's a question." West said.

Ooooh, that proves it! Obama said something kind of sort of like something Marx once said! OBAMA HOOOOOOSEEEIIN MARXIST!!11

Of course, I'm probably sure Marx once said "I think I'll go have some lunch now" as well, so forgive my Communist leanings if I find myself saying that as well.

BTW, Marx made that comment in his Critique of the Gotha Programme in which he also makes the following remark:

Freedom consists in converting the state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state".

In other words, freedom is irreconcilable with subordination to the state, which kind of sounds like something I could see McCain agreeing with.

There we go - both of them are Communists!

As Ms. West stomps off to cry on O'Reilly's shoulder, can we adults get back to reality now?

BONUS SNARK: Did you catch the HTML link for the CNN story?

politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/26/biden-laughs-off-questions-of-obamas-marxist-principles/

Hey, CNN - you might like to look up this thing we like to call "journalistic principles". Might come in handy some day.

Oh, god, please, no

Will someone knock this guy down and sit on him already?

Joe Wurzelbacher, the most famous plumber in America thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin, told conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham Friday he's considering a run for Congress in 2010.

Oh, isn't THAT friggin' lovely, just what we need thank you very much.

Qualifications? Why, who needs crazy non-mavericky crap like being qualified when you're all popular and stuff?

But Wurzelbacher, who gained fame after he challenged Barack Obama on his tax plan earlier this month, has attained a certain rock-star status in the Republican Party and his entrance into the race would likely be greeted with instant excitement and media coverage.

Ingraham herself said she would immediately volunteer for his campaign and help him with campaign advertising and PR. Meanwhile, the National Republican Congressional Committee said they would welcome Wurzelbacher's candidacy with "open arms.”

Oh, good, guys, lots of luck with that grand plan. Only, when he opens his ignorant piehole and pops off something Bachmannian in its stupidity, don't start whining that the liberal media's being mean to you. You asked for it. You started it.

And who are the great minds behind "Joe the Unlicensed Non-Taxpaying Plumber Goes To Washington"?

The usual stooges:

Wurzelbacher's comments come a week after a group of college Republicans launched a Web site with the hope of drafting him for a congressional run.

“Washington, DC is broken and it needs to be fixed. Joe Wurzelbacher has a real-world perspective and the right attitude to clean up the mess on Capitol Hill,” says the group’s Web site, which carries the slogan, “Plunge the crap out of Washington.”

(emphasis added)

America's youth in action, folks.

And trust me - this isn't the last time we're going to see mavericky maverickness like this. After all, just think - if he does somehow manage to get his butt-crack into Congress, he'll have enough experience to run as Palin's VP in 2012! Wheee!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go throw up.

I am just SO surprised, I don't think

Today's big foofaraw is over, and I don't mean the stock market:

(CNN) -- A Republican campaign worker who told police she was assaulted by a man angered by a John McCain sticker on her car admitted she made up the report, the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, assistant police chief said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20, of College Station, Texas, has been charged with filing a false police report, a misdemeanor, and may face more charges, said Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richard at a news conference.

Color me amazingly shocked at this revelation.

And on top of it, we had the McCain campaign in Pennsylvania talking it up to the press:

The McCain spokesperson's claims -- which came in the midst of extraordinary and heated conversations late yesterday between the McCain campaign, local TV stations, and the Obama camp, as the early version of the story rocketed around the political world -- is significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time.

Aaaaaaaand on top of that, FAUX brought the stupid with not only speculation that the "attack" was a mere taste of what we can expect on Election Day, but this informative headline:


Clicketh and thou wilst embiggen

"Why" indeed. Like the man said - "if you gotta ask, you ain't never gonna know".

Um.

What, he's still around?

(CNN) -- Former presidential candidate Ron Paul was interviewed Friday morning by CNN anchor John Roberts on "American Morning."

Well, I suppose when the McCain/Palin axis has shut off almost all access to their ticket, you have to do something to fill the "crazy conservative" requirement necessary to keep up with FAUX these days.

He doesn't come off too bad, though - no screaming about returning to the gold standard or "free silver" or how the U.N. is going to send British Ghurkas to take our guns away from us. No, pretty much all he comments on, other than the dismal prospects for the Republicans in November, is the present economic crisis.

And of course Cap'n Ron blames it all on the usual suspects:

Well, if you're a true free market person it isn't the lack of regulations. Trying to regulate and improve on the conditions that the government creates. I mean we created this problem. The Federal Reserve created this. The Community Reinvestment Act created it. The FDIC created it. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created it.

That's right - it was all the fault of Fannie and Freddie.

Regardless of, you know, what people with infinitely more experience in the federal monetary system than Cap'n Ron has, like former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, SEC chairman Christopher Cox, and former Treasury secretary John Snow, believe.

But hey, at least he didn't talk about the New World Order the Satanic lizard people who live in the tunnels underneath Salt Lake City will impose on us, so I suppose he gets a mulligan on this one.

FAUX News: Festival of Stupid

Oh, where to start the show this fine evening, where to start?

How about po' po' lil' beaten-up on John McCain:

Study Shows McCain Media Coverage Mostly Negative

Oh my heart bleeds. Karma in action, Senator.

Then there's John "Heh, he said 'boner'" Bohner trying to cut off federal funding for ACORN:

"It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law," Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote Bush, saying that funds should be blocked until all federal investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are completed.

Wheee, let's get the influence of the federal government into elections now! Way to keep that heavy hand of The State off our backs, Republicans!

And if being "incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law" is a reason to cut off funding, hell, the entire Bush Administration should have been running on fumes years ago.

Next up on FAUX - people who have been lied to tend to believe lies:

Most Americans think there will be extensive voter fraud in the upcoming presidential election. A FOX News poll released Wednesday shows 60 percent think it is either "very" likely, 28 percent, or "somewhat" likely, 32 percent, there will be widespread fraud in voting this year, and 35 percent think it is unlikely.

Furthermore, nearly half, 47 percent, think if there is fraud it is more likely to favor Democrats, while just over a third thinks it will favor Republicans, 35 percent.

Imagine that - FAUX repeats over and over that ACORN and the Democrats are trying to commit election fraud, and FAUX viewers when polled say they expect election fraud! Who'da thunk it?

Meanwhile keep away from those college campuses if you don't want to get brainwashed - "More Than 3,000 Academics Sign Pro-Ayers Petition":

More than 3,200 supporters -- most of them educators -- have signed a petition protesting what they say is the "demonization of Professor William Ayers," asserting that his violent actions as the co-founder of the Weather Underground were just "history."

Oh, those evil academics - willing to let the past lie in the past, and standing up for awful Commie socialist secular Bolshevik crap like "freedom of speech"!

And of course rely on the good patriots at FAUX to winkle out the Islamobolshivofascist weevil in the batter:

Khalidi, a Palestinian activist, was a director of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's press agency in 1982, according to The New York Times, when the PLO was still designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

And worse yet?

Obama spent time with Khalidi when the two were professors in Chicago, and paid him a special tribute during a farewell dinner for the firebrand professor in 2003, reminiscing about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, according to the LA Times.

OMFG!!111 HOW COULD WE BE SO BLIND??? Y'SEE? Y'SEE? YOUR STUPID MINDS! STUPID! STUPID!

Except, of course, y'know, as usual, none of it is true:

Klein penned two stories in late February wildly distorting Obama's links, from his days in Chicago, to pro-Palestinian activists like Rashid Khalidi, a respected professor of Middle East studies at Columbia University who previously taught at the University of Chicago (hardly a bastion of left-wing activism). Klein's story goes something like this: Obama sat on the board of a foundation in Chicago that gave a grant to the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), run by Khalidi's wife, which supposedly rejects Israel's existence; and Khalidi directed the PLO's Beirut press office and is a supporter "for Palestinian terror." (In fact, the AAAN focuses solely on social service work in Chicago and takes no position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Khalidi says he was never employed by the PLO; he has been a harsh critic of Palestinian suicide bombings and a longtime supporter of a two-state solution, and he has never been an adviser to Obama. As for Obama's past statements, at least in Chicago, being pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian is not a contradiction in terms.)

Oops. Never mind.

And finally, this way to the egress and the piece de resistance of our Circus of Conservativism, our Festival Of Fauxian Flummery, la magnifique:

Report: Iranian Officials Recommend Preemptive Strike Against Israel

Except, OF FRICKIN' COURSE, the article says something totally different:

Senior Tehran official Dr. Seyed G. Safavi said at a recent briefing in London that the proposal followed threats by Israeli authorities, but a possible preemptive strike against Israel has not yet been incorporated into Iranian policy.

[snip]

Safavi told the paper that Tehran recently drafted a new policy for responding to an Israeli or American attack on its nuke facilities. While the country previously called for attacks against Israel and American interests in the Middle East and beyond, the new policy is to target Israel alone.

In addition, Safavi said that Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards would respond to a U.S. attack on Iranian soil by attacking Israel, which they believe would be a part of any American military action.

And there's the slight problem that "Dr. Seyed G. Safavi" doesn't seem to be a "senior Tehran official" at all, but a professor at the London Academy of Iranian Studies. Um.

Just too frickin' easy

God, it's a shame I don't get paid to do this.

CNN.com headline:

Chimp takes Segway for ride, then bails



Thankyew folks, I'll be here all week! Don't forget to tip the veal and try your waitress!

Quick thought for the moment

Boy, the GOP really do love them some workin' class folks, don't they?

Until Joe the Plumber or Tito the Builder look to join a union, or are part of one already.

'Cause you see, we all love the workin' man. As long as he shuts the hell up and does his job at minimum wage and doesn't get any funny ideas about work safety or pay raises or Commie socialist crap like that.

Working overtime to quell the masses

I see once again as soon as the media looked the other way ("oooh! shiny thing!") the McCain/Palin rallies went right back to their high level of rhetoric - McCain in Virginia:

“I’ve got to give you some straight talk. Let me give you the state of the race today,” McCain told the crowd. “We have 17 days to go. We're 6 points down. The national media has written us off…. But my friends in all this planning they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we've got them just where we want them.”

The line has become a familiar one – and drew a now-familiar reaction from the strongly-Republican crowd, which began booing and chanting “Liberal media!” One woman threw a pack of gum at CNN Correspondent Ed Henry.

Right outside the entrance to the outdoor venue, a sign urging voters to "stop Barack Obama" featured the Soviet hammer and sickle, and the Muslim crescent.

(emphasis added)

I didn't even mention the McCain aide's comment about the "real Virginia", coming right on the heels of Palin's comment about "pro-America areas". Yeah, GOP, it's really the Dems who're dividing this country, isn't it?

And throwing stuff at the press? Why, how mature.

These are your supporters, Senator McCain. Hope you're happy with them.

Worth 1000 words

Post-debate:


And what did I tell you - calls for "transparency" and "accountability" in Washington from the GOP - the same "transparency" and "accountability" that they've defended the lack of for the last eight years. No "unitary executive" for you, President Obama!

I have to bow to Dday at Hullaballoo on evaluation of McCain's lowest moments, though:

And staying focused like a laser on the issues about which Americans clearly care the most helped as well. This is the anti-smear campaign no matter how much the fever swamps want it. The Ayers question in this debate - which I rightly called as Bob Schieffer's wet kiss to McCain - was a microcosm of the campaign. McCain wanted to simultaneously take the high road and the low road. He tried some ju-jitsu by forcing Obama to distance himself from John Lewis' remarks. No sale, Obama rightly brought up the impetus for the remarks - the hateful rhetoric coming from McCain/Palin rallies. Then McCain shifted into a backlash-type defense of his supporters. Obama flicked it off, and was finishing up the question, and McCain sensed he was losing his moment, and cut off Obama mid-sentence to get in his licks about Bill Ayers and ACORN, in kind of an erratic way. It was a meandering exchange, was highly negative and misleading, and it ended with Obama saying that making Bill Ayers the centerpiece of his campaign says a lot more about McCain than anyone else.

So much for all the effort

All that fearmongering and sliming from the Repugs about ACORN is really paying off, evidently:

On Saturday, when a three-judge panel of the appeals court ruled against the Ohio Republicans, state GOP Chairman Bob Bennett accused Brunner of concealing fraudulent voter registrations in hopes of swinging the state to Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee.

"Jennifer Brunner continues to do everything she can to help her candidate," Bennett had said. "Her efforts to fight transparency and accountability in the voting process are shameful, and her actions to conceal fraudulent activity only serve to cast doubt on the integrity of this election. "

So, you see, if when Obama wins, it'll be fraudulent! Supreme Court challenges, court cases, recounts etc. etc. 'cause we can't POSSIBLY let the election be stolen by fradulent voter registrations!

Of course, there's the teeny little issue that voter registrations aren't votes, and that there absolutely no evidence that voter fraud is any big problem:

"There's a lot more rhetoric than reality when it comes to actual voter fraud," said Dan Tokaji, an elections law expert at Ohio State University. "There's this public perception that voter fraud is common when the reality is that it's quite rare."

A 2005 report by the League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio found that of about 9 million votes cast in the state from 2002-2004, there were four fraudulent ballots. The data was collected from interviews with all 88 county boards of elections.

But hey, why spoil a good excuse with the truth?

Hypocrisy in action

So the big tsimmis (or at least one of the big tsimmiches (Tsimmisizes?)) over at FAUX is T-shirts using a vulgar term for the female anatomy to refer to Bible Spice.

Oh, lordy, lordy, Hazel, get the sal volatile out again. As you can see from the link, FAUX refers to this as "crossing the line".

How low. How despicable.

Hey, would this be the same FAUX News who brought on Roger Stone as a respected guest this past June to talk about his made-up smears of Michelle Obama? The same Roger Stone who's made money off of using the same vulgarity to refer to Hillary Clinton?

Why, yes, and yes.

Quod erat demonstrandum, as they say.

THE TRUTH

John McCain knows what he wants, and it's a President who's truthful:

"The fact is that Senator Obama was not truthful in telling the American people about his relationship. Very frankly, Dana, I don't give a damn about an old unrepentant terrorist, but what I do care is telling the truth to the American people," the Arizona senator said in response to a question from CNN correspondent Dana Bash.

Yep, nothing John McCain likes more than someone who tells the truth to the American people.

Boozy Islamophobic warmongers for Obama!

It's an endorsement, if maybe not exactly ringing:

Vote for Obama
McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.
By Christopher Hitchens

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience.

Um, yay?

But his evaluation of Palin isn't bad, so there must be spots the alcohol hasn't gotten to yet:

Moreover, given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama's position on Afghanistan, she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses.

"Bad guys"

Shyeah, they're dialing back the rhetoric, all right:

“Help me, Ohio, to help put John McCain in the White House,” she[Palin] said. “He understands. He understands you. We understand how important it is that this team be elected. For one thing, we know who the bad guys are, OK?”

That statement elicited scattered shouts of “Obama!” throughout the crowd.

Besides, McSame could play "good cop" from now until Election Day, and it wouldn't really matter. What he and his running mate have encouraged has now metastisized into the talk radio world, where it'll get played over and over. CNN, MSNBC and FAUX aren't keeping an eye on them (other than paying their salaries, of course), and, except for sources like Media Matters, they aren't accountable to anyone, much less political campaigns; right-wing talk radio has been the echo chamber where the initial whispers of "Obama is a Muslim" became the shouts we've seen at McCain rallies, after all.

I'm sure we can rely on elder statesmen like Oliver North, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Boortz and Hewitt to take the high road for the next three weeks. And if not - well, we can always blame it on the callers, or maybe even the liberals like they did last time.

EDIT: Southern Beale in comment reminds me of something that's so obvious I forgot it - the right-wing blogosphere we didn't have in 1995. Lies can now also bounce around sites like "Free" Republic, LGF, Malkin/Hot Air, Lucianne, TownHall, The Corner etc. and gain additional strength that way as well.

Again - it hardly matters now what the McCain campaign does. By not doing anything before this, they've de facto tied themselves to the crawly things you find when you turn over the rock of American culture, protestations of equivalency between the campaigns notwithstanding.

They're the party of Strom Thurmond, of Jesse Helms, of Tom DeLay, of casual use of racism in campaigns, of "Macaca" and the "Hands" ad and "the little brown ones". They're the ones who for almost eight years now have been calling the political opposition "terrorist sympathizers" and "traitors", and doing it not in Web ads but from the floor of the Congress and the campaign trail.

They OWN the fear and paranoia and rage that they've worked so hard to build up since 9/11 over people who "aren't like us", over Islam, and over whoever "the terrorists" might be this week (Iran? Iraq? Pakistan? Saudi? Venezuela? Generic "Muslims"?). And all the "Obama is an honorable man" weaseling NOW isn't going to change things.

Playing with fire

WaPo, again:

"It is absolutely vital that you take it to Obama, that you hit him where it hits, there's a soft spot," said James T. Harris, a local radio talk show host, who urged the Republican nominee to use Barack Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and others against him.

"We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger. We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him," Harris bellowed. "We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you. Take it to him."

and at a McGrumpy/WolfKilla rally:

"I'm mad! I'm really mad!" another man said, taking the microphone and refusing to surrender it easily, even when McCain tried to agree with him.

"I'm not done. Lemme finish, please," he said after a standing ovation. "When you have Obama, [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and the rest of the hooligans up there going to run the country, we have to have our head examined.

"It's time that you two represent the rest of us. So go get 'em."

The crowd burst into loud chants of "U-S-A! U-S-A!"

Standing at the center of the crowd, McCain and Palin drew on the crowd's energy as they repeatedly trained their fire on Obama.

"Senator Obama has a clear radical, far-left, pro-abortion record," McCain said after being asked about the issue.

Yes, I know they did this "far-left radical" routine with every Presidential candidate since Dukakis. Yes, I know they attacked Clinton and Kerry as treasonous left-wing anti-war drug users who would establish a Stalinist welfare state in America.

But when have we seen a frickin' Presidential campaign encourage and feed off of such rhetoric in such an active way? They're standing up there like they're about to hand out torches and pitchforks and march on the windmill the monster's hiding out in. They do nothing to denounce or discourage it.

This is all they have. This is evidently what McCain's going to run on for the next three weeks. And they don't give a rat's ass about the toxic foundation they're laying for the future. It's like a political Sherman's March - if he can't be President, well, let's poison the well, tie the railroad tracks into knots and burn the farms as we go through town.

Many are cold, but few are frozen

You know, for a guy who claims he doesn't want to start, and doesn't see the possibility of, another Cold War with Russia, McCain's two for two in stirring up Cold-War-esque paranoia about The Bear.

from 9/29:

So, this is a very difficult situation. We want to work with the Russians. But we also have every right to expect the Russians to behave in a fashion and keeping with a -- with a -- with a country who respects international boundaries and the norms of international behavior.

And watch Ukraine. This whole thing has got a lot to do with Ukraine, Crimea, the base of the Russian fleet in Sevastopol. And the breakdown of the political process in Ukraine between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko is a very serious problem.

So watch Ukraine, and let's make sure that we -- that the Ukrainians understand that we are their friend and ally.

from 10/7:

Now, long ago, I warned about Vladimir Putin. I said I looked into his eyes and saw three letters, a K, a G and a B. He has surrounded himself with former KGB apparatchiks. He has gradually repressed most of the liberties that we would expect for nations to observe, and he has exhibited most aggressive behavior, obviously, in Georgia.

I said before, watch Ukraine. Ukraine, right now, is in the sights of Vladimir Putin, those that want to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

So according to McCain, what countries SHOULDN'T we be paranoid about?

I swear, he'd spend his entire term trying to pry open The Football with his teeth so he could nuke someone, anyone.

Quick thought after the melee

Sen. McCain has a plan.

Yes, he does.

For all the ills of the country.

A plan. A really good plan.

He won't tell anyone what the hell his plan is, but he's got one.

Yeppers.

Kinda reminds me of someone.

Quick thought before the melee

Christ, I hope McCain doesn't decide to wink at us like Caribou Barbie did.

I just ate.

I'll take "things you don't say" for $100, Alex

WaPo:

In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

You DON'T say that in the South.

Not to a black man. You DO NOT call him "boy", unless you're willing to get the snot kicked out of you. Obviously the sound guy was mature & restrained (more so than Palin's supporters), but I wouldn't expect that kind of restraint to continue.

How long until the racism in her speeches becomes explicit? How long until some fine upstanding citizen decides to act on the hate and vitriol she's peddling? Earlier in her Clearwater speech she mentions William Ayers and someone yells out "Kill him!", and as Josh Marshall points out, it's not clear who was needing of being killed, and it's not clear anyone in the McCain/Palin campaign cares who it's associated with.

I'm sure this kind of thing is getting massive airplay on radio shows like Beck and Hannity and Hewitt and the Pigman and their ilk. And you'll recall what happened last time they went to a similar point in their rhetoric; someone acted on it:



What ever happened to "words have meaning" and all that B.S.?

They are playing with fire. Someone's going to get burned. And I wouldn't guarantee the term "burned" being metaphorical.

Straining at the gnat

Evidently one of the big whining points (I would say "talking points", but let's be honest here) from the Right about the bailout, other than the fact that THE GUMMINT is going to have new powers (see, there's a danger a Democrat could get elected, so they're going all "limited government checks-and-balances the President isn't a king" once again), is the tax breaks that have been added to the legislation - one of the primary ones being for an Oregon company that makes wooden arrows.

Talk about straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel.

From the London Times:

It is an extraordinary sub-plot in the scramble to save the US financial sector from collapse. Inserted into the modified Bill by two Oregon senators on Wednesday night was a provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on children’s wooden arrows, which would save Rose City Archery, a company in Myrtle Point, Oregon, that makes the toys. Three House members from the state voted against the Bill on Monday, but the new clause could change their minds.

Also in the revised Bill is $128 million of tax relief for the manufacturers of car racing tracks, aimed at congressmen in Nascar states, such as Virginia and North Carolina. A provision to give $10 million in tax breaks to small television and film producers could convert a congressman from Los Angeles.

So, far from being pointless pork, you could look at this as a move to save American jobs. After all, didn't Caribou Barbie do a whole lot of yapping about jobs Thursday night? Gotta save jobs, y'know. And NASCAR! What true red-blooded patriot doesn't love NASCAR? Why do the conservatives who'd object to that hate America so much as to deny the hard-working Joe Sixpacks who build the tracks without which NASCAR wouldn't exist?

After all, between the four examples in the Times article (plus $223 million for Alaska fishermen) you've got a whole .00052 of the entire cost, in other words one half of one-tenth of one percent of the $700 billion cost. And it's actually going to the small businesses Palin was yammering about the other night.

Why do conservatives hate the American entrepreneur?

Interesting tailor you've got there, Ms. Palin

Odd choice of a cut for your suit there, Ms. Governor. Maybe it's just bunching up between the shoulder blades, but it sure looks familiar somehow... like I've seen it before...

I joked about this last month. Looks like they went ahead and did it. It'd definitely explain a lot.

Original screencaps are here, from intrepid Blah3 blogger Monkeyfister.

Impression on the debate

Biden stood there and talked to the American people as if they were intelligent adults.

Bible Spice stood there and talked to the American people as if we were a classroom of rather dim high school students, but she's the new teacher and she's just so HIP and talks like we do donchaknow and she's on our side and just think of her as a friend now!

Or maybe like a new manager for a bunch of minimum-wage drones and there's been some tough times but she's ready to start workin' and everyone's full of energy and let's go out there an' stock those shelves and do our best yay hurrah! (Meanwhile the employees - oh, I'm sorry, team members - are all making retching gestures behind her back.)

And when you announce from the outset that you're not going to answer the questions, in a formal debate, well, it's all pretty much downhill from there on in.

But, of course, she didn't fall on the floor and start babbling in tongues, so expect The Usual Suspects (i.e. the right-wing blobbosphere) to spend tomorrow babbling about how well she did. When you start at zero expectations, it's not hard to exceed them.

Afore I forget

FAUXNews last week did one of their breathless headlines on a ship captured by Somali pirates who got a bit more than they bargained for:

On Aug. 21, the pirates, armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades, stole onto the decks of the merchant vessel Iran Deyanat.

They ransacked the ship and searched the containers. But in the days following the hijacking, a number of them fell ill and died, suffering skin burns and hair loss, according to reports.

The pirates were sickened because of their contact with the seized cargo, according to Hassan Osman, the Somali minister of Minerals and Oil, who met with the pirates to facilitate negotiations.

Of course, being good Party comrades, FAUX decides it's WMDS:

Chemical experts say the reports sound inconsistent with chemical poisoning, but may reflect the effects of exposure to radiation.

"It's baffling," said Jonathan Tucker, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "I'm not aware of any chemical agent that produces loss of hair within a few days. That's more suggestive of high levels of radioactive waste."

OOOH SOMALI PIRATES SNIFF OUT IRAN NUKES - DEVELOPING...

Of course, there's an alternate explanation. Earlier in the article there's a comment from the U.S. Department of Treasury about the alleged links of the company that owns the vessel the pirates seized as being used "to facilitate the shipment of weapons and chemicals for use in Iran's missile program".

The Iranian missile, the Shahab, uses a fuel mixture of nitric acid and a chemical called UDMH, which is a derivative of the classic rocket fuel hydrazine. All three chemicals, nitric acid, UDMH, and hydrazine, are highly toxic and damaging to human skin.

My guess? The pirates got into a shipment of either nitric acid or UDMH, not knowing what they were dealing with, and ended up badly burned. End of story, no speculation about secret shipments of radioactive materials necessary.

(And guys? Iran isn't Iraq. They haven't been under 13 years of sanctions, and there's no U.N. inspection regime combing the country. Iran does indeed have a well-established chemical weapons program; they don't need to be sneaking it in overseas.)

Makin' stuff up

Unfortunately I was listening to the Glenn Beck show yesterday (not willingly - my boss is a bit of a winger) and had to turn it off when someone - I can't remember if it was Beck or a caller - claimed that McCain had suspended his campaign at the request of the Democrats to go back to D.C. and work on the failbailout. The story, I guess, being that McGrumpy had been sucked into the Democrat's vortex of evil, a mere pawn of Obama and Pelosi.

Funny, that's not what teh Beckster was claiming, oh, just last week - then, it was an expression of McCain's heroic manly manliness:

I said two days ago and again yesterday, I said when I find out that neither one of these guys were planning on going back to the Senate and take a vote, I said where is the leadership out of these two. You guys don't even have -- you don't have the spine to go stand in the well of the Senate and help put this thing together and then say this is where I stand and I'm going on the record, if you don't have the spine to do that, you don't have the spine to be the President of the United States. And here is John McCain doing just that. I will tell you that it is typical John McCain. He is willing to go down with the ship to do what he believes is right and honorable, and there is something to be said about that.

And it doesn't square with the news from last week:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican White House hopeful John McCain threw the U.S. campaign into turmoil on Wednesday by calling for a delay in the first presidential debate to try to forge a Wall Street rescue plan -- a surprise move promptly rejected by Democrat Barack Obama.

The political stunner came as some polls showed McCain falling behind Obama in their race for the November 4 election. Republicans and the White House welcomed McCain's move as a needed appeal for both parties to work together, while Democrats suspected a publicity stunt ahead of Friday's scheduled debate

Or even with what McCain himself was saying yesterday:

“I know that many of you have noticed, but it’s not my style to simply ‘phone it in.’ I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I believe our leaders belong ‘in the arena’ when our country faces a challenge,” said the Republican nominee. “I’ve never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I’m not going to stop now."

I suppose this is the new version of the "government forced banks to give loans to minorities" lie; in other words, if McCain takes a political hit from being associated with this piece of drek (as it appears he has), it's not his fault - the Dems forced him to get involved!