How many of you were aware that you could not substitute dish soap with dishwasher detergent, and that if you did, you would have six inches of suds across the entire kitchen floor?
Because I sure as hell didn’t.
by John Cole| 72 Comments
This post is in: General Stupidity
How many of you were aware that you could not substitute dish soap with dishwasher detergent, and that if you did, you would have six inches of suds across the entire kitchen floor?
Because I sure as hell didn’t.
by Tim F| 8 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads
Apparently we need one. Jcricket.
by Tim F| 9 Comments
This post is in: Science & Technology
At long last, science has discovered a purpose for the appendix! Apparently it cultures gut bacteria that help us digest food.
If the appendix exists for a reason, there’s hope yet for Hugh Hewitt.
by John Cole| 32 Comments
This post is in: Media, Republican Stupidity
The NY Post:
So, should viewers of Tuesday’s Re publican presidential debate expect an exchange of views between the candidates – or between the candidates and one of the event’s moderators?
It’s a fair question, given the jaw-dropping comments Thursday evening from MSNBC blowhard – and scheduled debate moderator – Chris Matthews.
Matthews was celebrating the 10th anniversary of his “Hardball” program at a Washington event, when he let loose a broadside at the White House.
Bush & Co., he declared, had “finally been caught in their criminality.”
He compared this White House’s behavior with another one, saying, “Spiro Agnew was not an American hero.”
Of the vice president, Matthews said, “God help us if we had Cheney during the Cuban missile crisis. We’d all be under a parking lot.”
Now, “Hardball” is an opinion show, and Matthews is certainly entitled to his opinions – however offensively he chooses to express them.
But why should any Republican candidate expect fairness from Matthews now?
So many things in this piece are delightful- is the Post contending that Spiro Agnew, driven from office for bribery, is in fact an American hero? You can guarantee this piece will be viral on right wing blogs. At any rate, I agree with the Post. No one outside the insular inner circle of the conservative media fluffersphere can be trusted to be fair. Let an outsider in, and all sorts of facts and truth might break out. Some possible replacements for Matthews:
Rush Limbaugh- We could make the debate a twofer- celebrate the candidacy of these fine republicans while marking the end of Rush’s probation!
Sean Hannity- After all, he is fair AND balanced! What is not to like?
And, if all else fails, we could see is John Hinderaker is busy.
*** Update ****
From the comments, some past performances from obviously hateful liberal and sufferer of BDS, Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here’s a president who’s really nonverbal. He’s like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was [that] the best picture in the 2000 campaign?
[…]MATTHEWS: Ann Coulter, you’re the first to speak tonight on the buzz. The president’s performance tonight, redolent of the best of Reagan — what do you think?
COULTER: It’s stunning. It’s amazing. I think it’s huge. I mean, he’s landing on a boat at 150 miles per hour. It’s tremendous. It’s hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn’t matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It’s stunning, and it speaks for itself.
Let The Wagon Circling Continue in EarnestPost + Comments (32)
by Tim F| 12 Comments
This post is in: Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, General Stupidity
Cap’n Ed today:
Patriotic doesn’t mean correct, nor does it mean incorrect. Patriots have defended this country in its every crisis. Just because Barack Obama disagrees with people or think them foolish doesn’t mean that they have committed unpatriotic acts, which is why he began to back away from his foolish statement afterwards; he undoubtedly did not want to have to start naming names, because he had none.
[…] We should hold the hyperbole, and assume the best motives whenever possible.
Cap’n Ed yesterday, as noted by John:
Selective Leaking At The New York Times: Another War At Home?
On Wednesday, I received a proof copy of Kenneth Timmerman’s new book, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, which tells the tale of the alleged war against the Bush administration within the CIA and State Department.
[…] Timmerman’s quote from the preface seems apt today:
Many of the shadow warriors involved in this extraordinary campaign to impeach the truth have succeeded until now in keeping their role in these events hidden. They are professional bureaucrats, staff directors, intelligence operatives, National Security Council professionals, former ambassadors, and career diplomats. I will name many of them in this book for the first time, so Americans can judge their actions by the light of day.
Others — such as Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), Senator John D “Jay” Rockefeller (D-WVa), Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and General Brent Scowcroft — are public personalities. Until now they have managed to obscure their role in subverting the US-led war against the terrorists who attacked us on September 11 through political subterfuge, outright lies, and a complaisant media [formatting mine].
This book will correct the record and expose their maneuvering.
Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Given Rockefeller’s lead role in this story, I find the timing of the book very propitious. It goes to the top of the pile this weekend.
Do two or more people really write the works of Shakespeare Ed Morrissey? Will the “real” Captain Ed wake up on Monday with no memory of the weekend? Solving this mystery could provide crucial clues towards unraveling the Glenn Reynolds conundrum.
by John Cole| 73 Comments
This post is in: Foreign Affairs, Humorous, Military, Politics, Previous Site Maintenance, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
We’ll just do a quick links, because I have to clean the whole house and I want to get started early.
1.) Jim Hoagland at the WaPo delivers a well-earned rimshot:
Two big questions hang over the new agreement to contain North Korea’s nuclear weapons program at its current level — whatever that level is.
Why has a secretive government addicted to power politics and flexing its military muscles abruptly turned to negotiations and peaceful compromise?
And why is North Korea doing the same?
Heh. I will go on record and state that is ‘teh funny.’
2.) You know how the right-wing blabosphere spends every day comparing Iraq to WWII? It’s silly and overstated, of course, but they like to make the comparison to Hussein and Nazis and so forth. At any rate, some vets speak up on how we treated Nazis and how we interrogated:
When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.
Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.
“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.
Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria. Across the river, President Bush defended his administration’s methods of detaining and questioning terrorism suspects during an Oval Office appearance.
***“We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice,” said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.
The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.
“During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”
Oops. Throw the thrusters in reverse at Torture Apology HQ! We didn’t torture Nazis! Shift to alternate meme! For the time being, spread the word that these are old men who don’t understand the existential threat we are facing.
In fairness to the wingnuts, there was a scene in Saving Private Ryan where some Nazi soldiers surrendered but were shot on the spot.
3.) It appears we have a traitor at Fox News. Sean Hannity, who is on record stating that we wear lapel pins because we were attacked, apparently refuses to wear a lapel pin himself.
Off to Gitmo with the bastard.
4.) Speaking of Gitmo, it is Groundhog Day there – more career lawyers are quitting because of the politicization of the process by hand-picked officers:
People involved in the prosecutions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, have said that General Hartmann challenged Colonel Davis’s authority in August and pressed the prosecutors who worked for Colonel Davis to produce new charges against detainees quickly.
They said he also pushed the prosecutors to frame cases with bold terrorism accusations that would draw public attention to the military commission process, which has been one of the central legal strategies of the Bush administration. In some cases the prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty.
Through a spokeswoman, General Hartmann declined comment yesterday.
Colonel Davis filed a complaint against General Hartmann with Pentagon officials this fall saying that the general had exceeded his authority and created a conflict of interest by asserting control over the prosecutor’s office. Colonel Davis said it would be improper for General Hartmann to assess the adequacy of cases filed by prosecutors if the general had been involved in the decision to file those cases.
I am sure you are all shocked at this information.
5.) The Guardian tells us what to expect in the next few months as the Bush Admin tries to sell war with Iran:
What is becoming clearer is that the likely pretext for aggression against Iran has shifted from the possibility that Tehran might develop nuclear weapons to its role in supporting and allegedly arming the resistance in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration is increasingly convinced that it will be far easier to convince the American public of the case for war on Iran if it’s seen as being about the protection of US troops rather than nuclear scaremongering from the people who brought you Saddam Hussein’s WMD. So the focus of the military plans has changed accordingly: from a wide-ranging bombing assault on Iran’s known and suspected nuclear sites to “surgical” strikes on the Revolutionary Guards, who the US claims are backing armed attacks on its occupation forces.
For my money, it would not surprise if Iran were interested in keeping Iraq, their border enemy, in chaos for a s long as possible. Makes sense to me. However, I have not seen any credible evidence that Iran actually is involved, and no detailed information to what level they are involved. All I have seen is anonymous military officers asserting that Iran is involved, and I have seen it become accepted conventional wisdom among some of the media elite and the wingnut blogosphere right. Clearly it is time to invade.
6.) ‘Eers v. ‘Cuse- 12 pm. Go ‘Eers!
7.) Marion Jones fessed up to using steroids (something that was apparently common knowledge), and faces the loss of her medals, financial ruin, and jailtime. I watched her tearful apology yesterday, and I feel bad for her. I don’t know why we are spending all this money and time and energy investigating steroid use in sports, but, the real crime is to her teammates on the relay who will also lose their medals. Such a shame.
8.) Don’t forget our game from yesterday – the competition started at midnight last night. Who will be the big winner? NRO? Red State?
by John Cole| 47 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Assholes, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, General Stupidity
Tim im’d me this link to Captain Ed:
On Wednesday, I received a proof copy of Kenneth Timmerman’s new book, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, which tells the tale of the alleged war against the Bush administration within the CIA and State Department. Timmerman is always a fascinating read, but I just haven’t had the chance to get to the book yet.
Traitors? Saboteurs? Party of Surrender? I wonder which party that is about? At any rate, I bet this book is a real objective telling of history- might even have some links to conservapedia and the Washington Times as references. Better run right out and get that, Ed, so you can share the wisdom contained within, although I can save you some time:
“President Bush was acting legally, and doing everything he could to protect us all form being over-run by the Islamofascist masses, who want to come here and make us wear Burkha’s and ass-rape us, but the democrats, the Clinton and Carter hangovers at State, and Valerie Plame’s buddies at the CIA did everything they could to get in the way of defending this nation because they have BUSH DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
There. I just saved you 20 bucks and a few hours.
For the rest of you, a game. Below is a list of prominent right-wing bloggers. Starting tomorrow, let’s see who can, in the course of their normal daily blogging, go the longest without:
a.) Calling Democrats traitors, defeatocrats, cheese-eating surrender monkeys, or some variation of the sort.
b.) Linking to someone doing the above.
c.) Linking to an Instapundit link, in which the Instapundit links to someone doing the above but doesn’t discuss it so when called on it, he can claim he was not endorsing it, just throwing it out there.
Hugh Hewitt and Dean Barnett
Michelle Malkin
Ace
Instapundit
The NRO
The Weekly Standard
Captain Ed
Hot Air
The Powerline
Red State
Dan Riehl
The Gateway Pundit
My bet is Captain Ed, and I give him five days. Although he has proven himself to be susceptible to this sort of hackery, I think he isn’t completely gone. That, and the weekend starts tomorrow, so blogging will probably be lighter than usual. My guess for shortest is a tie between the Powerline, Malkin, and Hewitt, although NRO, with the multiple posters and the double dumb duo of Levin and Lopez, might run away with the prize. Since I have to guess, though, I am going to go with the Powerline, and I bet they will snap by 4 pm tomorrow.
Place your bets!
*** Update ***
The competition starts tomorrow, nubs.