Why the hell not? Weasel Boy embarrasses his species yet again.

Priceless. Just priceless. With everything else going down these days, Jinx gets all excited over an alleged story about a nine-year-old Bill Clinton. See? It really is all Bill Clinton's fault, even after all this time.

It's even funnier that the article Jinx links to for corroboration has already been pulled. Somehow, the phrase "pathetic loser" doesn't quite seem to do him justice.

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP: There's some entertainment value to the fact that Weasel Boy has a link to a non-existent page, which suggests that the right-wing "NewsBusters" blog (Apparent motto: "Down the memory hole") did in fact have such an article and, presumably, realized they were being total idiots and, rather than apologize, simply quietly deleted the page, leaving unfortunate dumbfucks like Jinx hanging high and dry with broken links and egg on their faces.

At least, it sure looks that way, doesn't it? Poor Jinx. It really has to be painful being that gullible.

EVEN MORE "DOWN THE MEMORY HOLE": This gets more entertaining by the hour, and represents a delightful lesson in how not to try to recover from making an ass of yourself.

If you have the stomach for it, re-visit that blog page of America's Dumbest Wanker™, in which he actually 'fesses up to the fact that his earlier link has now disappeared. No, don't give him any credit for it -- it's not like he had a choice since even a three-year-old would been able to click on the link and see that it went to a non-existent page.

But hang on -- where was that link, anyway? Why, it's been quietly removed from WB's page. It used to be there under the opening sentence, "Simply unbelievable. Literally!". But the link is gone now, with no record where it was or what it pointed to.

So let me help -- it originally pointed here, to what is now a missing page, something Jinx apparently couldn't wait to erase the record of. But that's not the best part.

Even after having been exposed for the gullible buffoon that he is, Jinx still tries to bluff his way out of it, writing, "The NewsBusters page is gone. I have no idea why." Here's a suggestion, Jinx, you dimwit -- why don't you email them and ask them? Since they just finished making a complete fool out of you, don't you think they owe you an explanation?

And when you get an answer from them, by all means, let us know. We'd love to hear it.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITHOUT GOOGLE? And its ability to cache pages? Like, say, this one? Since Weasel Boy seems unwilling to show you what you're missing, I guess that job falls to me.

And note how that cached page from NewsBusters credits and links to a page from the wankers at Free Republic, a page that has also, hysterically, been pulled without explanation!

So, Jinx, if you check that cached page, you can see the original author down there at the bottom: John_Armor@aya.yale.edu. Why don't you drop him a note and ask him what the fuck is going on here? I mean, come on, I'm not going to do all your work for you.

Countdown to 3,000, anyone?

Apparently, October was a particularly unpleasant month for the U.S. ... uh, sorry, "coalition" troops in Iraq, with 93 American dead. So, if this trend were to continue, the casualty count for American troops should hit 3,000 in ... let's see, divide by three, carry the one ... whoa! Less than a year from now.

I guess all of us ghoulish liberals should start booking those party halls now, right, Jinx?

Dear school board members considering Intelligent Design: Some free advice.

As a preamble to the free advice, consider this article in the series currently being published by the York Daily Record on the Dover school board ID lawsuit, and a short excerpt (emphasis added):

Heather Geesey used the word creationism.

“You can teach creationism without its being Christianity,” the Dover Area school board member wrote in a letter to the editor in the June 27, 2004, York Sunday News.

Even though Geesey chose that word, in reference to efforts that month to find a new biology textbook, she testified in U.S. Middle District Court on Friday that her letter wasn’t meant to convey the board was considering teaching creationism.

Rather, Geesey told the court, board members had been talking about intelligent design.

But before Geesey took the stand Friday afternoon, two local newspaper reporters recalled several board members using the word creationism at two June 2004 public meetings.

There's more, of course, and there are many more articles in the Daily Record covering the trial, so here comes the free advice.

If you are a member of a school board somewhere in the United States, and you are considering adding Intelligent Design to the curriculum, what you should do is get a full and unabridged transcript of this lawsuit once it's over. And you should read that transcript in its entirety.

And then you should ask yourself the question: If we were to introduce ID, and inspire a lawsuit, and have to go to court, and have to answer questions under oath, would we sound as unspeakably and indescribably stupid as those people did?

And if you have to answer "yes," then maybe you should just drop the idea and find something else to do. Because, trust me, you will sound that stupid. I guarantee it.

Do you really need the embarrassment?

IF YOU NEED MORE, start here and just follow the links to find a former school board member committing perjury. Which is, depending on your political leanings, either disgustingly unethical or perfectly all right.

And your new Supreme Court nominee is ...

Samuel Alito, come on down! Oh, man this should be fun:

Legal experts consider the 55-year-old Alito so ideologically similar to Justice Antonin Scalia that he has earned the nickname "Scalito."

In 1991, in one of his more well-known decisions, he was the only dissenting voice in a 3rd Circuit ruling striking down a Pennsylvania law that required women to notify their husbands if they planned to get an abortion.

If the Dems can't draw this line in the sand, they are well and truly useless.

HEADS UP: Commander Chimpy will undoubtedly, as he has done before, claim that he arrived at this choice after a great deal of consultation with both parties. This would be a lie, as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid makes abundantly clear in that CNN piece:

Reid said the choice of Alito "would create a lot of problems."

"That is not one of the names that I've suggested to the president," he said. "In fact, I've done the opposite."

What that means is that, the instant spokesweasel Scott McClellan tries to pull this "bi-partisan consultation" crap, he should be called on it. Instantly. If not sooner.

THE TRACK RECORD: Think Progress has the goods. I'm starting to think that the word "fascist" isn't that much of a stretch here. But that's just me.

Handing it off to LGF Watch.

It may be that I don't need to invest a whole lotta time eviscerating the nonsense over at Little Green Dumbfucks™, since these folks seem to have a handle on the situation.

I specifically like this piece, in which some of the commenters at LGD™ are treated like the lying little schoolchildren they are.

That gosh-darned Canadian, liberal media bias.

Remember this site, which doesn't seem to have changed even a little over the last several months? Which makes that final section even funnier than it might have been, what with phrases like "maximize speed" and "a regular, hopefully daily basis."

Oh, and "This will be determined by the degree of public support the Web site gets." I think we've established that already, folks.

The media is getting fed up with Dick Cheney.

Apparently, some of the mainstream media is tired of cowering in fear of Dick Cheney:

Nicholas Kristof, whose New York Times column in May 2003 helped set in motion the "Plamegate" scandal, called today for Vice President Dick Cheney to explain his role in the matter or resign.

It was an unexpected proposal from Kristof, who has long been skeptical about criminal wrongdoing in this case. In fact, he opens today's column with an apology to federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

The column E&P refers to is available here, only through Times Select, so you can pay for it if you want. E&P continues to quote from Kristof's piece:

"Since Mr. Libby is joined at the hip to Mr. Cheney, it's reasonable to ask: What did Mr. Cheney know and when did he know it? Did the vice president have any grasp of the criminal behavior allegedly happening in his office? We shouldn't assume the worst, but Mr. Cheney needs to give us a full account.

"Instead, Mr. Cheney said in a written statement: 'Because this is a pending legal proceeding, in fairness to all those involved, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the charges or on any facts relating to the proceeding.'

"Balderdash. If Mr. Cheney can't address the questions about his conduct, if he can't be forthcoming about the activities in his office that gave rise to the investigation, then he should resign. And if he won't resign, Mr. Bush should demand his resignation.

"It's not that there's a lick of evidence that Mr. Cheney is a criminal. There isn't. But the standard of the office should be higher than that: the White House should symbolize integrity, not legalistic refusals to discuss criminal cover-ups. I didn't want technical indictments of White House officials because they inflame partisanship and impede government; for just the same reason, it's unsavory when a vice president resorts to technical defenses and clams up."

No shit. When someone runs for president on the promise that he's going to bring decency and integrity back to the White House, it's kind of unseemly that your new standard for that is that, technically, you didn't actually get indicted.

Yet.

Right-wing smackdown -- the Canadian edition.

And in keeping with my recent resolution to up my Canadian content, let's take a minute or two to slap around everyone's favourite local right-wing chew toy, Pete Rempel, based on this bit of silliness. Where to even begin?

Well, there's the fact that Pete uses the Wall Street Journal as a credible, objective news source. What's the problem, Pete? Couldn't access any online Bill O'Reilly transcripts or what?

Pete then goes on to (quite erroneously) suggest that both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are now in the clear, when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has made it abundantly clear that the book is definitely not closed on Uncle Karl. Not by a long shot.

And Pete's final "point" is just plain confusing:

The previously unknown Libby has been a key figure in the administration’s foreign policy and the “war against terror,” both of which the CIA have proven obstinate over. Is it perhaps not suprising that it is Libby who has been indicted rather then other administration figures?

Um ... huh? Would anyone like to translate this from Rempelese for the rest of us?

OH, WAIT ... Now I get it. It's a conspiracy theory. Whew. For a minute there, I thought Pete had written something stupid. Imagine my relief.

AFTERSNARK: I love Pete's implied smackdown of the CIA, as if they were somehow at loggerheads with this administration. Why, of course they were, Pete. How else to explain this savage comeuppance by the administration of former CIA head George Tenet? I'll bet that showed him who was boss, yessiree. Damn right.

CC: Tell me, Pete, do you ever actually listen to yourself?
Pete: Ah, I drift in and out.

Oh, no. I've been upbraided.

However shall I handle the stinging critique? Oh, wait. It's not a problem after all since I really don't care. Whew. That was a close one.

Pajama Wankers Watch: Snark looking for a place to happen.

Given the inevitable hilarity that will ensue once Pajama Wankers LLC starts generating actual content (or, as we Canadians like to describe it, "crap"), I took several valuable seconds out of my day and created the blog Pajama Wankers Watch.

However, given that I have enough to do these days, I'd be more than happy to hand over actual writing and snark-generation duties to interested parties. Step right up, no shoving. Line forms on the right.

Oh, man ... you just cannot make this stuff up.

How to make Scottie's life miserable.

Apparently, we're down to the short list of far-right, lunatic nominees for the Supreme Court, and it strikes me that some ballsy White House Press Corps member could make Scott McClellan squirm by asking something like, "Scott, when Harriet Miers was nominated, she was described as the most highly-qualified candidate available. Now that Miers has withdrawn, the president has nominated (for example here) Samuel Alito, Jr. Can you explain why Mr. Alito was less qualified than Ms. Miers? Be concise and specific. Give examples."

Just watching the tap dancing would be worth it.

Your daily snicker.

Problem? What problem?

... some insiders say they are not sure if Mr. Bush fully grasps the degree of the political danger he faces and the strength of the forces arrayed against him.

I'm pretty sure this is one of the few times you'll see the phrases "Mr. Bush" and "fully grasps" in the same sentence.

Dear Wall Street Journal: Bite me. Seriously.

There are no words in Elvish or Entish or the tongues of men to adequately express my annoyance with this piece of shit in the Wall Street Journal, whose subtitle reads:

Libby is charged with lying about a crime that wasn't committed.

Apparently, though, if you replace "Libby" with "Clinton," everything is suddenly fine.

Wankers.

About those beheaded Christian schoolgirls ...

Apparently, some readers are taking issue with my prose, like Aaron back here who writes:

Actually, you are completely out to lunch on your analysis. :P

The fact that they are Christian is incidental to them being members of a Christian school. If they were at an Islamic, Hindu or Jewish school, the headline would reflect this fact.

Christians have been beheaded throughout history, and a beheading is the ultimate symbol of martyrdom for a Christian.

I was going to revisit this issue, anyway, so now seems like as good a time as any.

Not surprisingly, a fair number of Wankerville blogs have gone ballistic over this incident (for reasons that still escape me since most of these same bloggers have shown precious little sympathy for, say, the tens of thousands hacked to death by machete during the genocide in Rwanda -- ah, the joys of relativism.)

Consider, if you will, Canada's own Dimwit in the Great White North™, who really gets into it here and reproduces some of the original coverage of the incident (emphasis added):

Three teenage Christian girls were beheaded and a fourth was seriously wounded in a savage attack on Saturday by unidentified assailants in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi.

The girls were among a group of students from a private Christian high school who were ambushed while walking through a cocoa plantation in Poso Kota subdistrict on their way to class, police Major Riky Naldo said.

Notice anything missing? Why, yes -- any mention of the identity of the attackers, so it's impossible to tell if this was a religiously-motivated crime, or one committed entirely at random. If you don't know who the perps are, how can you possibly suggest it had anything to do with the religious affiliation of the victims? Maybe those girls were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who's to say?

And yet, if you have the stomach for it, go back and read Dimwit's article, in which he goes on and on and tediously on about Islam terrorism and slavery and "perparing this land for the expansion of Islam," all based on absolutely no evidence of religious motivation whatsoever.

You know, given that Dimwit is today's featured guest star over at Pajama Wankers LLC, I can't wait to see the kind of swill that's going to start coming out of that site November 16.

What Driftglass said.

If, by some freaking chance, you haven't been pointed to this piece yet, you should go read. Really.

Dear New York Times: Sometimes it's not about YOU, ya know?

And over at the New York Times, where the editorial board is still defending Judith Miller, columnist John Tierney demonstrates that he is still living in an alternate reality:

... Fellow columnist John Tierney, however, suggested that the administration leaks about Plame were not deliberate, nothing but an "accident."

He said journalists will suffer: "Still, the biggest losers so far in this case -- aside, of course, from Scooter Libby - are journalists.

Really, John? The biggest losers here are journalists? Gee, I would have thought that the biggest losers in this dishonest, Miller-driven fiasco were the thousands of dead and maimed coalition soldiers and their families. But what the fuck do I know?

"Mission"? What "mission"? WHAT FREAKING "MISSION"???

Once again, the neo-con puppeteers wind up robo-moron and send him out to inarticulately regurgitate the talking points:

... The best way to honor the sacrifice of our fallen troops is to complete the mission and win the war on terror. We will train Iraqi security forces and help a newly elected government meet the needs of the Iraqi people. In doing so, we will lay the foundation of peace for our children and grandchildren.

And exactly what "mission" are we talking about here? Was it the mission to rid Iraq of WMDs? I think it's safe to say that's been done, since there were never any in the first place, so that "mission" would seem to be complete, no?

Or was the "mission" regime change? Given that Saddam Hussein is safely behind bars (and has been for a while now), one would think that that "mission" is also complete. So what's left to keep the troops there?

Is the "mission" now to, as Commander Chimpy says, "train Iraqi security forces?" Funny, I don't remember that as one of the original rationales for invading Iraq. I'm not sure how well it would have gone over with the American public to have proclaimed, "We are going to invade Iraq and put your children in harm's way in order to ... uh ... train Iraq's soldiers to be better and more effective fighters." I don't think so.

"Help a newly elected government meet the needs of the Iraqi people?" I'm sure I don't remember that as being part of the rationale either.

So ... what's the mission these days? And what part of it is still unfinished? And which White House Press Corps member will have the sense God gave a urinal deodorizer disc and think to ask this of Scottie and actually press him for an answer?

And why am I not going to hold my breath?

My fellow Canadians: after Iran and Syria, we're next.

Well, I never. Apparently, after hockey players and Arctic air masses, our country's most notable export is Islamofascist terrorism, at least according to this wingnut (emphasis added):

But a little perspective would be nice because Mexico isn’t the most imminent danger the USA faces in the neighborhood. Canada is more of an immediate threat to our security by far than is Mexico.

It is true, perhaps, that Mexico is a long-term problem, one measured in decades. But the GWOT is an immediate problem and Canada poses the gravest threat to further attacks on American soil.

Hint to Mr. Huston: if you see us as your biggest threat to national security, then I suggest that the last thing you should be doing is pissing us the fuck off with respect to softwood lumber!!!

If you catch my drift.

(Credit to e-mailer "JPV", who shall remain nameless 'cuz Canadians understand the concept of "covert operative", ya know?)

Pop quiz.

From the perspective of the right-wing wankersphere, which of these two examples of crushing dissent and disagreement demands gibbering outrage?

• This one, or
• This one.

Think hard, the answer will come to you.

It's only bad when Christians get beheaded, you know.

Our gal Michelle, very carefully rationing her outrage:

Meanwhile, in Indonesia:

Three teenage Christian girls were beheaded and a fourth was seriously wounded in a savage attack on Saturday by unidentified assailants in the Indonesian province of Central Sulawesi.

Michelle's upset 'cuz, you see, Christians are worth more than the rest of us. Don't make Michelle have to explain this to you, OK?

Conservatives bemoan lack of civility in discourse. No, seriously.

And over here, James Wolcott takes senility-addled Victor Davis Hanson out to the woodshed, after Vic has the audacity to write something this stupid:

"George Bush also should begin addressing his most venomous critics at home, by condemning their current extremism. He must explain to the nation how a radical, vicious Left has more or less gotten a free pass in its rhetoric of hate, and has now passed the limits of accepted debate."

Oh, yeah, that's us leftists -- completely unhinged in defense of our principles of stuff like, you know, universal rights and all that.

Mind you, this is the same Victor Davis Hanson who, in that very article, suggests that the best way for Commander Chimpy to respond to his critics is to " bare his fangs and like some cornered carnivore start slashing back."

Now that's discourse.

Pajama Wankers LLC adds a touch of Canadian class.

If you have a low nausea threshold, you might not want to read this.

BY THE WAY, I just can't wait for the first, the very first actual news piece over at Pajama Wankers, in which the collective braintrust there will link to something at MSNBC, misrepresent it completely, then give a hat tip to Michelle Malkin.

It'll be just like the good old days, but with an editorial board.

OK, I don't get this one.

What is the deal with this post over at LGD™ (reproduced in its entirety):

Miss Mabrouk reports that our friends in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are going to execute a 14-year old boy.

Um ... OK ... and your point is? What? That you're outraged? When did that start?

Remember, readers, these are the same folks who were all gung-ho for the invasion of Iraq and, consequently, the killing of tens of thousands of its civilians (which, need I point out, included more than a few children).

So ... what's the point of this piece? Are they criticizing the Saudis? The liberals? The kid? What? The Saudis are your friends, remember?

I'm so confused.

BY THE WAY, for those who might not have twigged to the point I was making, it seems a bit out of place for anyone in the right-wing wankersphere to be getting all cranked up about the execution of a juvenile in Saudi Arabia when the U.S. itself has a long and sordid history of executing juveniles, and we didn't hear a lot of complaint from those very same wankers about that, did we?

In fact, it was just this year that the U.S. Supreme Court made it unacceptable to execute juveniles. Better late than never, I guess.

The mainstream media still has a sense of humour.

From over at MSNBC:

(Pilfered shamelessly from Shakespeare's sister.)

BONUS TRACK: More fun with graphics.

A confederacy of scumbags.

Oh, man. Karl Rove is so not out of the woods yet. If things really get ugly for him, he could always do the GOP thing and betray one of his own.

Uh oh ... am I prescient or what?

In a sign of the trouble lingering for the Bush administration, the indictment handed up Friday in the CIA leak probe refers to someone at the White House known as "Official A."

The unidentified official could become a courtroom witness against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who left his job as vice presidential aide shortly after his indictment on charges of obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.

And? And?

Late Friday, three people close to the investigation, each asking to remain unidentified because of grand jury secrecy, identified Rove as Official A.

Yahtzee!

And the 1984-ification of Scootergate continues.

I'm not sure how I missed this over at Little Green Dumbfucks™:

The criminalization of politics continues apace: Cheney Adviser Resigns After Indictment.

Perjury? What perjury? Treason? What treason? Threatening national security by exposing a covert agent? Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?

And if you have the stomach for it (and I don't make this warning lightly), try reading the comments until you just want to slit your wrists out of embarrassment for being a member of the same species as these people.

Oh ... God, ... must ... resist ... AAAARRGGGHHHH ...

Shorter Weasel Boy: If everyone were as breathtakingly ignorant and apathetic as I am, we'd all be so much happier.

OK, technically, that wasn't really shorter. But it was still worth it.

So much for the GOP and that "personal responsibility" thing.

I'm reading the following:

Lewis Libby, who resigned on Friday as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, said he believed he would be found innocent of the charges against him in the CIA leak investigation.

"I am confident that at the end of this process I will be completely and totally exonerated," Libby said in a statement issued by his lawyer, Joseph Tate.

I'm curious -- has any member of this administration accepted any responsibility for the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame? Every public pronouncement regarding Libby has been along the lines that he's a noble and tireless worker for the American public, that he will be missed, etc., etc. Not a hint that he's a sleazy traitor that deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life.

And, keep in mind, this has nothing to do with "innocent until proven guilty." He is guilty -- it's been established beyond any doubt, based on his statements under oath, that he lied to federal investigators. That's not even part of the debate any more.

So where's the personal responsibility? Where's the accountability? Is there a single right-wing blog that has accepted that Libby broke the law and should go to jail?

This really is the administration that, in the eyes of its adoring groupies, can do no wrong, isn't it? Well, except for that Harriet Miers thing.

All casualties are dead, but some casualties are more dead than others.

Shorter Crazy-Assed Bitch™: If you died believing the lies, then your death doesn't count.

MORE BREAKING NEWS: Right-wing blog posts complete crap.

And over at Little Green Dumbfucks™, we again have a gratuitous re-interpretation of the facts:

At MSNBC, an AP wire story notes a simple fact, buried amidst heaps of hyperbole. (Hat tip: ciaospirit.)

In the end, Fitzgerald accused Libby of lying about his conversations with reporters, not outing a spy.

Um ... yes, that's right. He lied about those conversations, as that very AP article points out, "under oath, repeatedly." Yeah, it's that "under oath" part that kind of makes all the difference, doesn't it? Wankers.

Then, unbelievably, we have this:

They spent two years and millions of dollars to come up with this.

Holy fucking shit! This is from the same bunch of dickwads who spent six years and $50 million chasing a no-account land deal in Arkansas that ended up with nothing. Where the fuck do these people get their gall?

THE NEW TALKING POINT: If you have the stomach to read the drivel in the comments section of that LGF piece, you can see the rapidly-developing talking point, like this one in comment #16:

2 years, millions of tax payers dollars, one fancy special prosecutor's web site - we get charges of political aide lying to media in washington - news at 11!

Dear dumbfuck #16: He wasn't indicted for lying to the media; he was indicted for lying to federal investigators about his conversations with the media.

Jesus, some of these people are dumber than Weasel Boy, and I didn't think that was physically possible.

Stop it! The irony is killing me!

Now here's an interesting development:

Cheney said in a statement he accepted Libby's resignation "with deep regret" and said Libby must be "presumed innocent" before he is proven guilty.

I'm sorry -- when did you guys stumble over that principle?

Liberals, start your keyboards ...

Here, TBogg has a little fun with the upcoming launch (dare we call it a "countdown"?) of Pajama Wankers LLC, where we read how PJ Media is going to revolutionize how you get your fair and balanced, right-wing spin:

In every way, readers will be intimately involved with the site, from commenting and correcting, to submitting content, ...

Really? Readers can submit content? Wow. Apparently, Pajama Wankers sees this as a cutting edge development in information dissemination. I see it as the comments section on my blog.

And so it begins ...

First, it was Harriet Miers, garroted by Commander Chimpy's own right-wing, fundamentalist base for not being enough of a lunatic. And now, we have Scooter, indicted on 5 counts in the Plamegate scandal and resigning because of it. What could be worse?

Quick, Jinx! Over there! People mourning dead soldiers!

It's all a matter of priorities, isn't it?

BY THE WAY ... "Mr. Libby maintains his innocence and we want to emphasize that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and we can all agree that everyone is entitled to due process under the law and will all you people just fuck off and leave me alone, you bunch of media vultures?!?!"

Blowjob.

BREAKING NEWS: Dick Cheney is lying, sleazy sack of crap. Video at 11.

It's not like this stuff is even news anymore, is it?

Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

Now, if you had a choice, what would you find more upsetting: people throwing a memorial for 2,000 dead soldiers, or the lies that sent them to their deaths in the first place?

Never mind; I'm sorry I asked.

The "who's the next Supreme Court nominee?" office pool.

What with the spectacular right-wing lynching of Harriet Miers, we can, of course, begin the speculation on which far right, lunatic wackjob will now be presented as absolutely the "best qualified" human being in the entire United States for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.

Man, I can't wait. Really.

Uh oh ...

Why you really need to follow the links.

One of the more annoying properties of so many right-wing wanker blogs is that they have this grating tendency to promote their own splashy headline, which doesn't always reflect what they've linked to accurately.

Take, for instance, this short piece over at Instawanker:

LIBBY TO BE CHARGED, BUT NOT ROVE: And for False Statements Act violations, not any underlying misconduct. That's what the New York Times says, anyway. Make of it what you will.

Really? Is that what the New York Times says? Gee, why don't we follow that link and actually read what the New York Times says (emphasis added):

Cheney Aide Appears Likely to Be Indicted; Rove Under Scrutiny...

Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday...

Among the many unresolved mysteries is whether anyone in addition to Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove might be charged and in particular whether Mr. Fitzgerald would name the source who first provided the identity of a covert C.I.A. officer to Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist. Mr. Novak identified the officer in a column published July 14, 2003...

The apparent delay in a decision about whether to charge Mr. Rove, and the continuation of the criminal inquiry, is a mixed outcome for the administration. It leaves open the possibility that Mr. Rove, Mr. Bush's closest and most trusted adviser, could avoid indictment altogether, an outcome that would be not just a legal victory but also the best political outcome the White House could hope for under the circumstances.

Yet, in apparently leaving Mr. Rove in legal limbo for now, Mr. Fitzgerald has left him and Mr. Bush to twist in the uncertainty of a case that has delved deep into the innermost workings of the White House and provided Democrats an opportunity to attack the administration's honesty and the way it justified the war to the American people.

No, I don't think Karl is out of the woods yet. And now you see why only total morons get their news from Instawanker.

Your daily eye-rolling moment of utter surrealism.

Say what?

[Condoleezza] Rice bristled when asked how the U.S. could be trusted when it doesn't live up to its international agreements.

"Well, I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and its agreements," she snapped.

No, really. She said that. Really.

Sorry, what was that about a "litmus test"?

Litmus test? What litmus test?

As the White House turns its attention to finding a new Supreme Court nominee, conservative activists relieved at Harriet Miers' withdrawal Thursday vowed to oppose President Bush's next nominee unless the candidate has solid conservative credentials.

Oh. That litmus test.

At least I can say I knew him when.

Yes, it seems so long ago when I gave an off-the cuff recommendation to a then-obscure little blog. And look where he is now: two CBA nominations, for "Best New Blog" and "Best Personal Blog."

Dude, don't forget all us little people. Dude? Hey! Oh, well ...

Well, kiss mah grits -- another CBA nomination.

And the nominations threaten to turn into a veritable tidal wave ... OK, there's a second one for "Best Blog Post", for this piece from way back, of which I am more than a little proud.

I guess that means I should get to work on Part 2. Sigh. Sometimes, you people are so needy ...

The GOP way: betraying your own to the enemy.

It sure saves time when those wackjob Republicans betray their own colleagues. The big news is, of course, the Harriet Miers' withdrawal, with the alleged excuse that, since she was the President's personal counsel, she couldn't turn over a number of policy documents requested by the Judiciary Committee because that would violate attorney-client privilege and prevent the preznit from freely getting the atrociously, hideously, unspeakably horrendous advice that has for so long been offered to him by his coterie of right-wing, lunatic, neo-con sycophants.

Well, it might have been a plausible excuse if it hadn't been so thoroughly exposed as a sham by none other than high-profile wingnut Charles Krauthammer:

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, suggested in a column in last Friday's Washington Post that the White House press the documents issue as a face-saving way to withdraw the nomination.

"That creates a classic conflict, not of personality, not of competence, not of ideology, but of simple constitutional prerogatives: The Senate cannot confirm her unless it has this information. And the White House cannot allow release of this information lest it jeopardize executive privilege," he wrote.

Conveniently, he wasn't the only wanker who saw through that lame excuse:

In a statement issued by the White House, Bush said, "It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House -- disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel."

But Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownbeck suggested the line could have been drawn somewhere else to avoid the impasse.

"We were not asking for documents regarding attorney-client privilege -- or privileged communications," he said. We were saying 'show us documents of policy issues discussions,' so we could get some framework of her policy views."

Man, it's gotta hurt when your own drinking buddies hang you out to dry. Ouch.

The future of Canadian conservatism?

Robert over at My Blahg seems to be channeling some of my recent ponderings, as he gives Canadian conservatives a few examples of what sort of loons they might become if they keep emulating their American counterparts.

If you're a conservative, feel free to promote your favourite conservative ideas. Get involved in the debate, defend your positions, go wild.

But know where to stop. The instant you start promoting Intelligent Design in public schools, or condemning gay marriage, or defending the rights of pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control, well, you've just crossed that line into pure idiocy and irrelevancy.

I'd like to thank the academy ...

Well, isn't this special? A nomination for "Best Liberal Blog" at the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards. You shouldn't have. No, really. I guess I feel just a smidge guilty since, as many people can tell, I spend an inordinate amount of time obsessed with things Americana but I'm trying to recover. I'm thinking of smacking around Pete Rempel on a regular basis now.

It's a start.

BY THE WAY, no disrespect to the candidates in the other categories but I figure I might as well start figuring out who I'd vote for and, in the category of "Best Blog Post Series," I'm thinking that this choice is a no-brainer. I've always had a soft spot for single-minded, maniacal obsession.

A veritable plethora of penguins.

And being a Linux devotee, I can assure you that there's no such thing as too many penguins.

Bye, bye, Harriet.

Well, what a completely, totally, breathtakingly unexpected development. And to think she was absolutely the best-qualified person for the position. Damn shame that.

And now that the conservative wingnutosphere has made it clear they're driving this particular bus, any bets on which complete fucking loon is next in line? Come on, feel free to speculate. Alberto Gonzales? Priscilla Owen? Charles Pickering? Janice Rogers Brown? Michael McConnell? Ex-FEMA director Michael Brown? Karl Rove? Jenna Bush? Ann Coulter? Bernie Kerik? Private Lynndie England?

The lines are open.

UPDATE: At this point, out of sheer self-preservation, the Dems should make some kind of announcement before the next nomination that they're going to have some minimum requirements for that nominee.

It doesn't really matter what those requirements are but they should draw some kind of line in the sand -- fire a warning shot, as it were. At the very least (and as I've mentioned before), they should take the position that they will absolutely not even consider a nominee who has publicly advocated the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Another requirement might be that they will want all of the possible documentation on that nominee, and that they won't tolerate the administration withholding that kind of information. You get the idea.

Any other requirements you think would fit here?

FOX News, historically speaking.

Snicker. (Link credit to Kos.)

What do you mean you don't know?

Not to harp on Scootergate overly, but there's one defense that White House spokesweasel Scott McClellan has been using lately that really gripes my wagger:

Q Scott, with what looks like indictments pending in the CIA leak investigation, what's the anxiety level like here at the White House? What's the atmosphere in the hallways?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, there's a lot of speculation going around, and I think there are a lot of facts that simply are not known at this point.

Not to take issue or anything but how exactly is that possible? What do you mean there's stuff you don't know?

Earth to Scott: the people under investigation are your colleagues; they work for your administration and are answerable to your president. If your Commander Chimpy sincerely wanted to know stuff, he could have simply called in his people and asked them. How much simpler can this get?

The only way these people can, at this point, not know stuff is because they don't want to and they're stonewalling. There is absolutely nothing legally that is stopping Scott's preznit from finding out what he wants. Nothing. Got that? Nothing. All he has to do is ask the questions and demand the answers.

The fact that he hasn't done so has nothing to do with that "ongoing investigation." It has everything to do with an administration that is trying to hide its crimes.

Have I made all this perfectly clear?

AFTERSNARK: Does anyone seriously believe that Commander Chimpy really doesn't know all the facts by now? Just asking.

Your handy-dandy, left-wing guide to "Scootergate".

When the next unspeakably ignorant wanker tries to tell you how this whole Valerie Plame/CIA thing is no big deal and is just a partisan smear witch hunt, you can show them this.

Or, better yet, you can print it off, wrap it around a brick and beat said wanker to death with it. Either way works for me.

All right, NOW we have photography-related ethics.

Well, apparently, the thought of doctoring someone's photo to make it less flattering is just another example of "Condi hatred" and outrageous demonization.

Why, yes, yes, it is.

I've seen this play before.

Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice, well, OK, I'm just an idiot. Any of this sound familiar?

Amid escalating frustration over dwindling supplies of gasoline, ice and water, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Wednesday acknowledged shortcomings in the relief effort for Hurricane Wilma.

So, whose fault is this? Ah, I see:

At a news conference in Tallahassee, Chertoff urged patience while Bush said Floridians should have done more to prepare for the storm.

Dude, it's not nice to blame the natives. After all, most of them are mentally retarded -- they voted for you.

Harriet Miers and Canadian content.

All right, fine, let's see what the Canadian wankerhood is saying about Harriet Miers, and it appears to be that, if you keep digging, you'll find that pony in there somewhere:

In today’s WSJ, Thomas Griesa, a trial judge in New York, defends Harriet Miers on the basis of her extensive litigation experience, something I’ve noted in the past that has been overlooked by her critics and that the SC needs.

Um ... dude? Even the Republicans have turned on Miers with a vengeance. Why are you still defending her? Don't you have loftier ambitions than to look even dumber than American wingnuts?

Jesus, have some pride.

I am not making this up.

Say what?

Because the scientific community is a monolith, impenetrable and often hostile to new theories, intelligent design proponents have to turn to the public schools to recruit support, a witness said Monday.

So the proper response to the scientific community panning ID for the pathetic, pseudo-scientific crap that it is is to ... inflict it on students.

Mom would be so proud.

I guess when you're an official citation, you've made the big time. I'm thinking royalties.

Apparently, body counts are sometimes good things.

Let's summarize -- it's incredibly tacky, unpatriotic and meaningless to be obsessing on this 2000-dead-in-Iraq "milestone" because, um, it's just a meaningless number and it's not about body counts because the number of dead shouldn't be used as any sort of scale against which to measure failure and ... Hello. What's this?

Enemy Body Counts Revived

U.S. Is Citing Tolls to Show Success in Iraq

Eager to demonstrate success in Iraq, the U.S. military has abandoned its previous refusal to publicize enemy body counts and now cites such numbers periodically to show the impact of some counterinsurgency operations.

So, to sum up, presenting the enemy's death toll is a perfectly acceptable way to demonstrate the success of one's military operations while, conversely, presenting one's own casualty figures is ... uh ... is ... shut up! Just shut up, OK?

Damn ... that guy looks familiar.

"When you can read this without thinking of Jonah Goldberg, my son, it will be time for you to leave."

Mainstream media to Wankerville: Piss off.

Apparently, the mainstream media is just not interested in all that whining from the Bush administration or the citizens of Wankerville:

Going against the expressed wishes of the Pentagon, several top U.S. newspapers today treated the tragic arrival of the 2,000th American military death in Iraq as a major milestone. The New York Times even used that officially disapproved phrase in a headline at the top of a page. USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post all carried special features.

And the dam begins to leak just a little more ...

BY THE WAY, it's not like the Bush administration is opposed to the abstract concept of "milestones":

President George W. Bush said Iraq's Oct. 15 constitutional vote is a milestone for democracy in the region and the U.S. is making ``progress toward peace.''...

Apparently, there are good milestones, and there are not so good milestones.

"... but we wish her well in her future endeavours."

Your future FOX News military affairs analyst. I think it's safe to say those two truly deserve one another. (Link credit to the folks at Raw Story.)

Somehow, the word "childish" would give this too much dignity.

Oh, dear ... apparently, someone's run home to tell Daddy on me.

Another scary "milestone" coming up.

Not quite the milestone of 2,000 folks who died for Halliburton, the Carlyle Group and various neo-con fantasies, but sitemeter tells me I'm coming up fast on 50,000 visits to the blog. Who woulda thunk it? Now, finish your coffee and get back to work.

All those dead U.S. military in Iraq? Fuck 'em.

At least, that's the apparent message from one "Major Chaz," who receives a favourable link from the dimwits over at Little Green Dumbfucks™. Writes Major Chaz, in an effort to discredit the Left's protests over those very deaths:

The MSM is starting to gear up (and the anti-war left has been ready for a while) to present us with the story of "the milestone of 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq".

Which is, as I'm sure you can appreciate, quite the milestone given Commander Chimpy's historical claim of "Mission Accomplished." (Man, that seems like such a long time ago, doesn't it?) Anyway, to continue with Major Chaz (sadly, verbatim):

Unfortunately, this story is bogus for a few different reasons. Please keep in mind I am military, and none of that which follows is to make light of any of the deaths not matter what column they fall into, but rather to point out that those that make hay about this milestone, and actually celebrating it to further their own cause.

Good, good ... Major Chaz is being totally predictable in accusing the Left of "celebrating" this milestone, despite the fact that it's a total lie. And make sure you understand that Major Chaz is telling you that in no way is he going to make light of these deaths, despite the fact that he proceeds to do just that:

First, being in the military is a high-risk enterprise, even when you are not in combat. Humvees roll over, helicopters crash, people commit suicide, people get hit by vehicles. People die.

Ah, so shit happens, that's how it works, so can you all please just chill out a little bit and not get quite so cranked up over this? Besides (emphasis added):

But only slightly more than 1500 have actually died from hostile fire. More than 400 military members have died due to non-combat causes. And not all of the almost 2000 total deaths have actually happened in Iraq. It is not well known that if a military member dies anywhere in the AOR, on orders for OIF, his/her death is counted towards "the milestone of 2,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq".

And there you have it. Unless you actually took a bullet on-site, or had your head blown off by an IED somewhere in Iraq proper, your death doesn't count. I mean, all this yapping about 2,000 deaths and, really, it's barely more than 1500 if you count them correctly, so can all you whiners please just take a pill and get some perspective? I mean, really.

P.S. You know it's just a matter of time before some complete wank blogs something like, "Did you see what that Canadian Cynic guy wrote? That he just doesn't give a shit about the American troops killed in Iraq. 'Fuck em,' he said!"

Give it time. You know it's coming.

You're going straight to hell.

OK, this is pretty funny.

Back when a Presidential Medal of Freedom was something to be proud of.

Once upon a time, the Presidential Medal of Freedom used to mean something. Times sure have changed, haven't they?

America's Dumbest Wanker™ celebrates death of Rosa Parks.

And over here, Weasel Boy is throwing a party to celebrate the passing away of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.

Well, sure, I realize he doesn't actually use the word "party" but we know better 'cuz, you see, like him and his Wankerville neighbours, we can read between the lines. Even if he doesn't admit it, it's obvious that the death of Rosa Parks couldn't "come fast enough" for Jinx and his racist, conservative friends, and we all "have little doubt" about what they really think and that, while Jinx might not have actually written it out, well, come on, "we already know what to expect," don't we?

Wow. Is this a great game or what -- inventing words and motivations for people you've never met to paint them in an unflattering light. How does it feel, Jinx, to be exposed as gleefully celebrating the death of an American civil rights heroine?

Oh, come on, Jinx, you're not going to tell us I'm misrepresenting your position, are you? That would be irony of the highest order, wouldn't it?

UH OH ... THERE'S MORE: Oh, look. All those fine folks over at Little Green Dumbfucks™ are also celebrating Park's demise. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure they'd argue that it's just a memorial but, again, we know better, don't we? It's always "party" time over at Wankerville Central when there's one less uppity darkie, isn't it?

And a "party" wouldn't be a "party" without Crazy-Assed Bitch™ joining in the festivities, would it? Man, this is fun. I never realized how effortless blogging could be if I simply discarded every scruple I ever had and just made shit up. I'm starting to see the appeal.

HOLY SMOKES, THEY'RE EVERYWHERE! Conservative wingnut La Shawn Barber links to a veritable menagerie of wankers, all clapping their little paws with glee that that troublemaking Parks has finally snuffed it.

Yes, I'm sure all of them would tell you that they're honouring her memory or some such rubbish, but we all know better, don't we? We recognize a "party" when we see one.

SOME DELIGHTFUL SATIRE: Dr. Dawg gives this whole brouhaha the treatment it deserves. I think I just wet myself again.

I'm dreaming of a White Fitzmas ...

Hello. Life at the top just got a lot more interesting:

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war.

Ouch. It's that "previously undisclosed" part that really pisses off a federal prosecutor. And now, cue the entire right-wing wankersphere, dismissing it all as a partisan witch hunt. If they choose to talk it about it at all.

Man, it can't be much fun being Weasel Boy these days, can it?

Li'l Scottie getting testier by the day.

Oooooooh ... White House Press Lizard Scott McClellan is gittin' downright snippy with folks these days. You have to love this exchange, where he tries to put some poor journalist in his place:

Q Okay. Well, let me just ask one more question, a little narrower than what David was asking. What are the President's views of Patrick Fitzgerald as a prosecutor?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he's previously spoken to that issue and I'll leave it where he left it.

Q Could you just remind me?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, he spoke about that recently and nothing has changed.

Q Because, you know, I have a memory like a sieve and I just tend to forget things from day to day.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't think anything has changed, in terms of his views. And he's already expressed that.

How much longer before Scottie is just beaten senseless late one night on the way to his car?

Hmmmm ... apparently, it's not a "party" anymore.

Well, this is precious -- apparently, the whiz kids over at Little Green Dumbfucks have backed down on their lunatic claims of the Left getting to "party" upon the death of the 2,000th U.S. military person in Iraq.

See, back here, they referred to these events (hideously dishonestly, of course) as "parties."

In the face of mounting criticism and in defiance of, well, anything resembling logic, they stuck to their guns about those gosh-darned "death parties."

A more recent post there, however, has curiously dropped the word "parties" and now uses only the word "events".

And, finally, the word "party" seems to have been banished entirely, as the collective imbecility over at LGF has settled on the catchphrase "grim milestone," for what that's worth.

Perhaps even the dimwits over at LGF can recognize when they've crossed the line. One can only hope.

When you've lost Crazy-Assed Bitch™, you've lost America.

It's quite the sight when even psychotic wingnut Michelle Malkin turns on her ideological teammates, as she does here, where she lays a pasting on Republican senator Kay Bailey Hutchison:

The Left had a field day over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's remarks on NBC's Meet the Press this morning in which she downplayed possible perjury and obstruction of justice indictments this week in the Rove/Plame/Miller/Libby/God-knows-who-else leak case. I watched the rebroadcast of the show tonight and have to say that I found Hutchison's pooh-poohing more than a bit disturbing.

Note first how the Left has "a field day" over this. See, when the Right goes totally freaking ballistic over, say, some obscure, former academic saying vile things, well, no amount of coverage is too much, since it's necessary to flog that baby until it lies on the ground in bleeding strips. And that issue must be dragged back out on a regular basis to be re-flogged, as proof that all black people hate whites and want to kill them all.

On the other hand, when the Left gets its groove on regarding some issue, well, they're just having a "field day," almost certainly over-reacting, taking things out of context and, in general, blowing things totally out of proportion, if not making this shit up entirely. See how that works?

Anyway, feel free to return to Malkin's piece, in which Hutchison is suddenly a big believer in "innocent until proven guilty" and due process and all that good shit, the impeachment of Bill Clinton notwithstanding.

Man, if the hypocrisy around here were any thicker, you could cut off a piece and club someone to death with it.

AFTERSNARK: It really is breathtaking hypocrisy for anyone in the GOP to be cautioning against legal witch hunts being "a waste of time and taxpayer dollars." How do these cretins live with themselves? Seriously.

Your latest Weasel Boy/wanker idiocy.

Sorry, folks, but the delightful timing here is just too delicious to pass up. Witness my very recent piece here, in which I explain how the right wing likes to leave out salient details in their sputtering outrage.

So what's got Jinx stroking himself under his bathrobe this morning? This:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - An angry mob of insurgents attacked a convoy of American contractors last month when they got lost in a town north of Baghdad, killing four and wounding two, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

...

The Telegraph reported that two of the contractors not killed in the initial attack were dragged alive from their vehicle, which had been badly shot up. They were forced to kneel in the road before being killed.

"Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight," the paper reported.

"Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames."

The crowd then "dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-U.S. slogans," the report said.

Say, I know -- let's go to the original article and see what was so carefully excised by those ellipses, shall we (emphasis added)?

An angry mob of insurgents attacked a convoy of American contractors last month when they got lost in a town north of Baghdad, killing four and wounding two, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

The Sept. 20 attack in the mostly Sunni Arab town of Duluiyah, about 45 miles north of Baghdad, was reported for the first time on Saturday by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph and confirmed by the military on Sunday.

The convoy, which included U.S. military guards riding in Humvees, made a wrong turn into Duluiyah and insurgents opened fire with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for Task Force Liberty in north-central Iraq, told The Associated Press.

I'm sorry -- the convoy included U.S. military guards riding in Humvees? What the fuck were they doing the whole time? Gee, you'd think it's their job to, you know, take care of contractors under their protection, no?

And what else did Jinx so delicately remove from that article? Oh ...

The Telegraph reported the contractors killed and wounded were employees of the Halliburton Co. subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, the biggest U.S. military contractor in Iraq. But Goldenberg could not confirm that.

And suddenly, your sympathy vanishes like fog in the early morning sun. Sorry, folks, but if you fake data to justify invading a helpless country, killing its civilians, stealing its resources and remaking its political structure entirely, you have to expect that some of them are going to take it badly and are going to fight back, sometimes in very nasty ways.

It's called "war," as you so frequently keep reminding us. And, frankly, the last people I plan on feeling sorry for is military contractors from Halliburton, if you catch my drift.

See what you can learn when you take the time to follow the links?

BY THE WAY, a couple more observations on the level of dishonesty in the reporting and careful editing of the news by certain members of the wankersphere, which applies to many right-wing wanks, not just Weasel Boy.

First, re-read Jinx's selective quotation here once again. Note carefully that he does not reproduce anything which suggests that there was a military component to that convoy. Check that again to make sure you see what I mean. So why does that matter?

Because if you get the impression that this was a convoy of nothing but civilian contractors, you're probably going to be outraged. But once you learn that there were U.S. soldiers and Humvees in the procession, well, that makes it a military target under the rules of engagement, doesn't it? And if the blowhards on the right keep yapping on about the "War" on "Terror," then they have no right to complain when that war happens to descend on them like a million pound shithammer, do they?

The next bit of sleazy journalism had to do with omitting the contractors' affiliation with Halliburton. And why does that matter? Because it's guaranteed to reduce the sympathy you feel for those folks.

Make no mistake -- if those contractors had been from the U.N., or CARE, or OXFAM, or the Red Cross, their affiliation would have been splashed front and center across Weasel Boy's blog. But Halliburton? Hmmmmm ... maybe just leave out that detail, readers don't really need to know that, it's just extraneous detail, nothing to see here folks, come on, move along.

Finally, of course, there's the complete myth that Jinx is "sickened" by the thought of someone being pulled from a vehicle and burned to death. And yet, where is the outrage for a "coalition" airstrike that hit a Baghdad neighborhood, killing dozens and wounding dozens more?

Make sure you prepare yourselves for the right-wing wankfest that's going to surround this story of the contractors' deaths. Four dead contractors? "Sickening." Dozens of Iraqi civilians killed in an arbitrary airstrike on a populated Baghdad neighborhood? Hey, shit happens, ya know? We call that "collateral damage."

This is war, remember?

What part of "Shut up and stay out of trouble" is giving you difficulty?

Ooooooh ... you have to enjoy it when some high-profile, egotistical, Christian wackjob can't keep from shooting off his mouth, which ends up getting him in big trouble:

The Senate Judiciary Committee is likely to summon a leading conservative Christian to explain the private assurances he says he received from the White House about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, the committee's chairman said yesterday.

Testimony by Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson would heighten the political and religious overtones of the already-high-stakes confirmation hearing for Miers, scheduled to start two weeks from today.

And what is it that so firmly painted the bulls-eye on Dobson's back (emphasis added)?

Dobson is among several evangelical leaders enlisted by the White House to vouch for Miers's conservative credentials among right-leaning groups unhappy with her nomination. He spoke with Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove shortly before President Bush announced the nomination, and later hinted he had received privileged information. "When you know some of the things that I know -- that I probably shouldn't know -- you will understand why I have said, with fear and trepidation, that Harriet Miers will be a good justice," Dobson said told his national radio audience Oct. 5.

You know, with the howling shitstorm swirling around top-level Bush administration officials regarding the Valerie Plame exposure, it's hard to believe that anyone -- anyone -- these days would be so fucking dumb as to go on national media and brag about having been slipped some confidential information by Karl Rove.

Apparently, the religious right in the U.S. is now officially being run by the mentally retarded.

Judith Miller: "Woman of Mass Destruction."

Since you have to pay money these days to read the Times' Maureen Dowd, well, you'll just have to go here to get it for free. Maureen Dowd, that is.

A picture is worth a thousand wanker idiocies.

Lifted shamelessly from the entire collection here, doesn't this cartoon pretty much sum up the entirety of Wankerville? (Just the top one, that is.)

And, sure, you know that everyone in Wankerville has been touting the alleged existence of WMDs for years, hanging on the New York Times' Judith Miller's every word, worshipping every bit of journalistic nonsense with her name on it.

And now, as she goes down in total disgrace, those same folks are going to use Miller's dishonesty to howl about how that gosh-darned liberal media has no integrity.

Wait for it. You know it's coming.

Great minds think alike.

I said it here. I'm not the only one thinking that way. Oh ... him, too. A veritable groundswell of liberal outrage.

Lies Pete Rempel told me, and the evil that is Michelle Malkin.

Not so much lies Pete told me, but a discussion of what constitutes a "lie," of which Pete accuses me of back here. (In other words, I'm not actually accusing Pete of lying -- I was just joking, ya know. Apparently, that gets me off the hook. But ... onward.)

When it comes to dissecting the writings of the conservative wankersphere, what constitutes a "lie"? Sure, deliberately saying something that isn't true qualifies as a lie, but what about significant omissions that change the tenor of a story completely? Are those lies, if what you've said is technically true but what you've explicitly left out is at least as crucial?

Consider crazy-assed bitch Michelle Malkin back here, when she was misrepresenting a bunch of folks who wanted to honour the military dead in Iraq, and she passed it off as a "party." Is that technically a lie? We can debate that one, but let's look at the other link at that article of hers, where she bitches and whines about Kos' lack of sympathy for four civilian contractors killed in Fallujah back in 2004:

A year ago today, left-wing blogger and Democratic strategist Markos Moulitsos Zuniga of the Daily Kos cheered the brutal murders of four American civilian contractors in Fallujah--all of them war veterans with distinguished records, three of them fathers--with the following infamous words:

"Screw them."

I'm sure you remember that incident -- it got a lot of airplay. Now, my only nitpick with Kos is that he really shouldn't have said "Screw them." He should have said, "Fuck 'em and the Humvee they rode in on." Let me explain.

See, if you got your information only from lying wankers like Michelle, you'd probably think that those four murdered contractors were innocent civilians, war veterans with families, over there nobly helping to spread democracy or some such bullshit.

You'd probably never have learned that they were, in fact, heavily-armed "security" contractors, employees of Blackwater Security Consulting and the closest thing you'll find to modern-day mercenaries these days, whose only motivation was to kick ass and make, in some cases, $1000/day. Whoops. I guess Michelle forgot to mention that, didn't she?

Respected war veterans with families? Well, OK. But let's not forget the other good stuff, shall we?

But the Blackwater employees do share one thing in common with their murderers, and with the men languishing in the cages of Guantanamo Bay: They were illegal combatants.

This is because the Blackwater "security guards" do not wear uniforms clearly identifying them as combatants. They instead wear civilian clothes while engaging in combat. The photograph leading this story [Paine's], of a Blackwater USA security guard serving in L. Paul Bremer's bodyguard force, makes this clear. The man is carrying an assault rifle while wearing civilian clothes.

He is, therefore, an illegal combatant just like the un-uniformed Afghans and Arabs "detained" at Gitmo.

Noble civilian contractors, indeed. In fact, it's not even clear if these men were entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions:

The status of those killed in Fallujah is extremely important. It is illegal to employ mercenaries in combat, and it is also illegal to work as a mercenary. Further, mercenaries enjoy none of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They are not entitled to prisoner of war status, and are "not entitled to be a combatant".

Yeah, that kind of changes the whole picture, doesn't it? Which is precisely why crazy-assed bitch Malkin wasn't going to point it out. And why is it that the regular army boys don't much care for the Blackwater dudes? Quite simply, because the mercs had a bad habit of swaggering around, pissing people off, then leaving it to the regulars to clean up the mess they left behind:

Blackwater was founded in 1996 by a former US Navy Special Forces veteran. Since then it has trained more than 50,000 military and law enforcement personnel at its 2,400 hectare facility in North Carolina. “The facility boasts several target ranges and a simulated town for urban warfare training. It is so advanced that some of the US military’s active duty special ops troops have trained there” (Time, 12/4/04; “When Private Armies Take To The Front Lines”; Micahel Duffy). It is located near the major military base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and recruits extensively from the Special Forces units based there. Iraq is where Blackwater has hit the headlines.

“…Locals often mistake the guards for Special Forces or CIA personnel, which makes active duty military troops a bit edgy. ‘Those Blackwater guys’, says an intelligence officer in Iraq, ‘they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks’. Adds an Army officer, who just returned from Baghdad, ‘They are a subculture’.

Yeah, just imagine what the locals might start to think, getting more pissed off by these idiot cowboys by the day and just waiting for the chance to string them up from a bridge.

If you want more, you can also read this piece by Phillip Carter in Slate, at which point you should finally appreciate why people who genuinely support the troops shouldn't give a shit what happens to these trigger-happy yokels who are only in it for the money. Everything one reads about them makes it clear that they're not militarily accountable for their actions (being civilians has its benefits), and they just make everyone else's life more difficult.

And, to recap, how exactly did Michelle describe them? Oh, right:

... four American civilian contractors in Fallujah--all of them war veterans with distinguished records, three of them fathers ...

What a delightfully sanitized description. Does that make it a "lie?" The lines are open.

Poor Judy is downright radioactive by now.

And the Judith Miller smackdown continues. Man, that's gotta hurt.

THAT "CONTEXT" THING AGAIN: That article has so many delightful gems, but I particularly like this one:

The apparent deference to Ms. Miller by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, and top editors of The Times, going back several years, needs to be addressed more openly, especially in view of the ethics issues that have come to light.

The freedom Ms. Miller was given to shape the legal strategy may have stemmed in part from the failure of top editors to dig into the case earlier in the battle.

Last Sunday's article raised this issue: "This car had her hand on the wheel because she was the one at risk," Mr. Sulzberger said. When I asked him this week if the integrity of The Times and the First Amendment weren't also at risk, he stressed that his assertion had to be read in the proper context.

Oh, yes. Whenever you've really screwed the pooch, just blame it all on "context."

Crazy-assed bitch and little green dumbfucks. A whole new low.

Just when you think the blowhards on the right can't get any more vile and reprehensible, well ... that's just what happens.

Consider the plans of a group called the "American Friends Service Committee" who, when the U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 2000, plan to hold a number of memorials and services across the country to remember them.

Let's let AFSC describe it themselves, shall we (with proper emphasis on how the AFSC views this milestone):

Soon we’ll be reaching another horrific milestone in the war in Iraq – the death of the 2,000th U.S. service member. AFSC, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, and Iraq Veterans Against the War are calling for people across the U.S. to stand up and say that the needless killing of U.S. troops and Iraqis must stop and that the resources funding this war are needed for other things.

Events to mark the 2,000th reported U.S. military death will range from candlelight vigils to public actions that illustrate the size of the death toll. Here in our “Not One More Death. Not One More Dollar.” campaign center, you will find supporting materials and suggestions for designing an event that meets the needs of your community.

And how does Michelle describe this when linking to the description of this at LGF?

THE GHOULS OF THE LEFT

They support the troops...by partying over their deaths.

MEA CULPA: In a fit of anger, I referred to Michelle Malkin in an unacceptably crude way, and that wasn't called for. My apologies. But, man, she pisses me off in a big way. Argh.

Judy Judy Judy ...

Uh oh ... apparently, it's every man for himself at the Times as well, as Queen of Iraq Judith "I was proved fucking right!" Miller gets tossed overboard:

Judith Miller’s boss says the New York Times reporter appears to have misled the newspaper about her role in the CIA leak controversy.

In an e-mail memo Friday to the newspaper’s staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller said that until Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenaed Miller in the criminal probe, “I didn’t know that Judy had been one of the reporters on the receiving end” of leaks aimed at Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson.

“Judy seems to have misled” Times Washington bureau chief Bill Taubman about the extent of her involvement, Keller wrote.

And once Miller gets tossed, Keller should be right behind her for pure stupidity.

AND THE PISSING CONTEST IS ON! Oh, boy. (I'm sure any snarky comparisons of journalistic credibility at this point would be utterly superfluous.)

Poor Scooter.

You so don't want James Wolcott lowering a load of snark on you.

(Article link is broken, so the link above is just to the home page. I'm sure you can take it from there.)

Intelligent Design -- and the lies keep on coming.

Oops ... busted:

Dover Area School District Supt. Richard Nilsen said he did not believe his high school principal when she wrote that a school board member wanted to require that creationism be taught equally alongside evolution.

So Nilsen would have no reason -- no reason at all -- to think that creationism could possibly be an issue in his school district. No reason whatsoever.

He also acknowledged in court that he attended a school board retreat a week earlier at which creationism was discussed.

Nope. No reason at all. Let's check that timeline again:

Because Nilsen thought then-Principal Trudy Peterman “exaggerated constantly,” he was skeptical when he read a memo from her about her concern, Nilsen testified Friday in U.S. Middle District Court.

During cross-examination, plaintiffs’ attorney Eric Rothschild asked if Peterman’s memo was written five days after the March 26, 2003, board retreat.

Nilsen agreed it had been.

Creationism? Never heard of it. And pay no attention to that retreat expense form. An explanation, Supt. Nilsen?

According to Nilsen’s own notes from the retreat, board member Alan Bonsell had listed “creationism” as a potential school board issue. Nilsen testified he could recall no details of the discussion and later said he had no memory of creationism ever being discussed in any setting.

Ah ... the Judith Miller defense. Very good. A classic.

AND THIS IS PRECIOUSSSSSS ...

[The Thomas More Law Center], which is representing [the Dover Area School District], agreed to work for the district for free, but [Thomas More's Richard] Thompson told [district solicitor Steve] Russell it would not cover the other side’s legal costs should the plaintiffs win the case and, as is the practice, try to recoup their legal expenses.

That's generally a good sign that one does not think highly of one's chances.

Oh oh ... here comes a "hypothetical."

Given that White House Press Reptile Scott McClellan will dismiss almost any question as a "hypothetical," this story has to be giving him some grief:

The White House has begun making contingency plans for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers as President Bush's choice to fill a seat on the Supreme Court, conservative sources said yesterday.

"White House senior staff are starting to ask outside people, saying, 'We're not discussing pulling out her nomination, but if we were to, do you have any advice as to how we should do it?' " a conservative Republican with ties to the White House told The Washington Times.

And what is a hypothetical but the consideration of a contingency plan if things don't go according to schedule? So how can the White House respond to this?

If they admit to beginning the search for a replacement, they have as much as admitted that, yes, they do engage in hypothetical thinking.

If they don't admit it, well, the history of this administration is pretty much one of never thinking about what might happen down the road, isn't it?

"Mr. President, what if the Iraqis don't welcome the American troops as liberators and heroes?

"Can't happen, no sir. Not even going to consider the possibility. Heh heh heh."

And we've already seen the kind of shit you can get into with that kind of thinking.

HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING: If the Miers nomination is withdrawn, how will it be spun? Will it be presented as Miers voluntarily stepping aside? How will she explain it, after having been so staunchly defended by the White House?

Will it be presented as the White House itself withdrawing the nomination? Given that Commander Chimpy described Miers as the absolutely best-qualified person he could find, how the heck will that be defended?

No matter what happens, if Miers' nomination goes down, someone's gonna have some serious 'splainin' to do.

Crazy-assed bitch Malkin inventing her own reality again.

Gosh darn it, Michelle has the goods on us lefties again:

Here we go again. Australian moonbat journalists accuse American soldiers of abusing corpses in Afghanistan.

Yeah. And, by the way, ignore the fact that there's a video.

HISTORY LESSON TIME: Anyone remember this?

Top U.S. officials in Baghdad Thursday decried the killings of four U.S. security contractors in Fallujah, vowed to hunt down the perpetrators and promised to pacify the restive anti-U.S. hotbed...

The four -- employees of a security company that has provided security for Bremer -- "were attacked and their bodies subjected to barbarous maltreatment," Bremer said. "The acts we have seen were despicable and inexcusable. They violate the tenets of all religions including Islam as well as the foundations of civilized society.

I'm sure there's a "context" issue we're supposed to appreciate here.

Apparently, Scottie needs a break.

"Please don't make me go back out there."

America's Dumbest Wanker™: The gift that keeps on giving.

Only after you read the original piece should you continue this descent into right-wing stupidity, as Jinx doesn't even bother to remove one foot before firmly inserting the other.

He writes:

Well, it looks like some people actually can admit that this guy is racist, ...

Why, yes, Jinx, we can. What part of my article where I wrote:

... is Kambon racist? In a word, fuck, yes. Of course he's racist, fer Chrissake. What kind of stupid question is that? Who the hell would even think of denying that?

is so difficult for you to understand?

So ... Jinx snidely challenges us on the left to own up to Kambon's racism, I do precisely that, at which point the ever so appropriately named Weasel Boy moves the goalposts so as to not give me any credit for doing exactly what he challenged me to do in the first place. There's a word for this: predictable. But (and you knew this was coming) it gets better, as Jinx writes:

"But," they say, "this man does not represent the left like Bill Bennett represents the right." (Or words to that effect.) To that I say, "Hardly." Ask yourselves this, liberals: what was Bill Bennett doing before this controversy? You don't know, do you?

To that I say, you are so full of shit, Jinx, it's a wonder you don't spontaneously explode. We on the left knew very well what Bennett was doing, as we are very aware of his history as a pompous, sanctimonious blowhard who gets his jollies telling everyone else how to be moral and virtuous while quietly satisfying his gambling addiction.

On the other hand, Jinx, let me ask you a simple question: Had you ever heard of Kamau Kambon before this recent controversy? Be honest. As difficult and as unprecedented as it may be for you, tell us the truth. Then we can talk about bogus equivalence again.

BY THE WAY, it should be obvious to regular readers that there is no example of conservative speech or writing that is so vile that Weasel Boy would actually condemn it. From his perspective, there's always a different interpretation or contextual perspective that makes it somehow acceptable. See, Bennett wasn't actually calling for the abortion of black babies, he was just pointing out how doing that would be good for society in terms of the crime rate. No racism there, no sirree.

It's sort of like when someone says, "Hey, I'm not a racist, I just don't really like niggers." Or, "No way am I an anti-Semite, but I just can't stand kikes, know what I mean?" Sound familiar? And with a little tweaking, you get, "I'm not promoting the abortion of all black babies, no way. I'm just demonstrating how it would be a benefit for society. But that doesn't make me racist."

Is there any conservative hate speech that Jinx would actually condemn? How about something like this:

Fresno residents and community leaders, outraged by an e-mail message in which City Council Member Jerry Duncan wished he had a "dirty bomb" to kill every liberal in Fresno, called Thursday for his resignation, recall or reprimand.

No doubt he was just joking, right, Jinx? I'll bet there was some important context we missed there, right? Or how about just collecting countless examples of right-wing hate speech in one place, like here?

And who can forget everyone's favourite bloviating, right-wing talk show host and Oxy Contin addict Rush Limbaugh when he said:

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus — living fossils — so we will never forget what these people stood for."

Or conservative screech harpy Ann Coulter:

"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."

But don't worry. Give Jinx some time, and he'll start explaining how it all has to do with context: "Killing all the whites? Oh, man, that's so racist. Killing all the liberals? Oh, man, that's ... that's ... hey, let's talk about context, OK?"

AND WHILE I'M HERE, you'll notice that Weasel Boy quietly failed to address any of the other points I raised in my original post -- that Kambon was only a sessional faculty member at NC State, that he isn't even there anymore, and that NC State emphatically condemned Kambon for his remarks. And WB's reaction? Just quietly move on -- no clarification, no retraction, no update -- and hope no one notices. How utterly typical.

(By way of contrast, one can read the coverage of this incident at The Locker Room, and note how that site clarifies Kambon's status at NC State, which is what any moderately responsible site should do. Unlike Weasel Boy's.)

The lies, of course, don't stop there. WB suggests I'm trying to qualify my opinion of Kambon when he (WB) writes:

Well, it looks like some people actually can admit that this guy is racist, yet they add a "but," of course. "But," they say, "this man does not represent the left like Bill Bennett represents the right."

There was no "but" involved in my description of Kambon as a racist. He's a racist. Period. No qualification. No "but" involved -- WB is flat-out lying here. The "but" had to do with bringing Bennett back into the conversation, it had nothing to do with Kambon. Another Weasel Boy lie. It's a good thing I'm a mathematician, otherwise I'd have trouble counting them all.

And there is, of course, one more (sort of) lie where WB writes:

Kambon unquestioningly and unapologetically called for the deaths of whites - and people clapped for it!

Did they? Let's go to the Locker Room's coverage and see what they wrote about that:

And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem. *tepid applause*

"Tepid?" The applause was "tepid?" That's kind of an important qualifier as it makes it clear that Kambon didn't have what you'd call rousing support. But you can see the pattern here -- WB will howl incessantly about how you have to take context into account and, if he doesn't like the context, well ... he'll just change it.

So, so predictable.

HOW THE RULES WORK: If you condense this dialogue into its essence, it went something like this:

WB: So which liberal is going to admit Kambon is a racist, huh? Go ahead, admit it. I dare you. No, I double dog dare you. Come on, admit it!

Me: No problem. He's a racist. Absolutely. Unequivocally.

WB: Well, ... no fair, that doesn't count! Because ... you didn't stand on one foot and close one eye and touch your nose when you said it. So it doesn't count. Nyah nyah nyah.

That's pretty much the recipe for any attempt at dicussion with your basic wanker, which invariably goes something like this:

1. Wanker makes claim.
2. Liberal responds with total and devastating smackdown of wanker claim.
3. Wanker suddenly and arbitrarily changes the basis of the argument, then criticizes liberal for not responding to redefined argument in earlier reply.
   

Seriously, if you're going to engage in an argument with a wanker, you might want to familiarize yourself with the rules first. It saves time.

Bill Bennett, racism, Weasel Boy and a total lack of logic.

Yes, America's Dumbest Wanker™ needs another good figurative boot to the nads and, yes, I'm going to deliver it. Deal with it, since this will actually show one of the standard weaselly (pun oh so intended) debating techniques used by the citizens of Wankerville. I'm sure you've seen it before.

Over here, Jinx gets all frothy and sanctimonious about an African-American speaker at some conference who (if we are to believe the coverage and I see no reason not to) actually calls for the killing of all white people. Jinx then gets all uppity, writing:

Now, who will be the first liberal reading this post to call this man a racist as he so richly deserves? CC? TNO? Brandon?

How can I eviscerate Weasel Boy? Oh, man, let me count the ways. First, we have the really sleazy strategy of bogus equivalence -- the attempt to equate two things which are in no meaningful way equivalent.

On the one hand, we have Bill Bennett -- self-proclaimed conservative morals czar, GOP superstar, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities under Reagan, drug czar under George Bush I and so on. Just read the biography -- you don't get a lot more high profile than that in the GOP wankersphere, so when someone like Bennett starts even muttering about aborting all black babies, that's news and that's racist. And it's a big deal because of the weight Bennett throws around in conservative circles.

And, on the other hand, we are given someone who is allegedly Bennett's equal, so that equally offensive statements are supposed to be equally shocking and reprehensible. We are given ... Kamau Kambon? Who the fuck is Kamau Kambon, other than a black man who was recorded making some vile comments 3:41 into a four-hour presentation? How many of you had even heard of Kamau Kambon before reading this article? And yet, we are supposed to somehow accept that Kambon's statements are, on a global scale, equivalent to Bennett's in influence and persuasive power. Oh, please. But wait -- it gets better.

Read the article referenced by Weasel Boy here -- what do you notice? It's pretty clear that there have been some updates since its original publication, with someone having to edit to point out that Kambon is now only a former NC State visiting professor, of whom even NC State writes:

The remarks recently attributed to one of our former employees do not in any way represent the values and standards of the university. This type of speech is counter to any reasoned discussion on the issue of race relations, and is absolutely unacceptable in the NC State community.

Isn't that special? In order to find a liberal racist comparable to Bill Bennett, apparently the conservative wankersphere can't do much better than a former, sessional, visiting professor whose views have been disavowed by that very institution. Wow! Talk about controversy! Oh, yawn. Seriously, it doesn't get much more pathetic than that. And, no, we're not done yet.

So, having established that Weasel Boy is trying to defend his own racist beliefs and defense of Bennett by dragging a no-name like Kambon out of obscurity, we can still ask the question -- is Kambon racist? In a word, fuck, yes. Of course he's racist, fer Chrissake. What kind of stupid question is that? Who the hell would even think of denying that? But that's not the important thing.

It's not that Kambon is racist that's relevant so much as that he's just a certifiable dingbat. Kambon is clearly far beyond anything resembling reason -- he's just a loon. And yet, this is the man that wanks like Weasel Boy are now parading before us to defend Bennett. It would be like criticizing Christianity by forever using known nutbar Pat Robertson as the comparative standard. And I'll bet Wankerville would be all over that comparison in a second, complaining about how unfair it was. And yet, hard to believe, that's still not the best part.

Once again, we have Weasel Boy, thinking himself far more clever than he really is, writing:

Remember Bill Bennett's "racist" comment that the left was moaning about? How much do you want to bet that these comments don't garner as much of their attention (in fact, they'll most likely sweep them under the carpet):

Note the implication here -- unless we on the left similarly condemn Kambon, we are clearly two-faced hypocrites. And (surprise, surprise), WB is right -- which is why I absolutely agree that Kambon is a racist. But notice what didn't just happen here.

While Jinx was challenging those of us on the left to condemn Kambon, he still doesn't make any similar admission with respect to Bennett. Isn't that delightful? Jinx puts all of the burden on us not to be hypocrites, demanding that we recognize Kambon's racism, while Jinx himself still continues to give Bennett a pass.

Oh, yes, there's still some world-class hypocrisy going down here. And I'm betting you can see where it's coming from now.

JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR, I accept whole-heartedly that Kambon is a racist. So, Jinx ... let's hear a similar, unequivocal condemnation of Bennett. Come on, dude ... you opened this door, it's your turn to walk through it.

MORE WINGNUTTERY: Wouldn't you know crazy-assed bitch Michelle Malkin would be all over this story, too, since I suspect that's where Jinx gets most of his howling gibberish. Go read, then come back for a pop quiz. I'll wait. Dum de dum dum ...

And now, what was missing from Malkin's hyper-ventilating coverage? Well, there was the fact that Kambon is only a former instructor at NC State, while Malkin describes him as "an affiliated faculty instructor," totally neglecting the "former" part. Naughty, naughty, Michelle -- you're getting almost as bad at bearing false witness as Weasel Boy, aren't you?

And what else is missing from her missive? Why, not only that Kambon isn't even there anymore, but that NC State has (as I so graciously pointed out above) repudiated his comments, so Michelle's suggestion to e-mail NC State and complain will get you absolutely nowhere and will only piss off the folks at NC State because you're such an ignorant goober.

Jesus, but Malkin is a journalistic slut. As are her sycophantic groupies.

AFTERSNARK: I love the fact that Malkin refers to Kambon, then links to the Africana Studies faculty list at NC State, which doesn't even list Kambon. Dishonest or stupid? We report, you decide.

BY THE WAY, make sure you soak up the irony of someone who wrote a book in defense of internment complaining about racism.

OH, LOOK: Someone else taking an axe handle to Bill Bennett. Talk about your excellent timing, dude.

Goodbye, Jones.

This morning kind of sucks. I just had my oldest cat put to sleep. She was a sweetheart who'd been with me for 20 years and, I swear, she was ornery and tenacious enough to perhaps have stuck it out for another 20. But it was time, and I'll miss her.

Sometimes, an exorcism is a good thing.

Slate's Jack Shafer really takes it to Judith Miller. Good. Because it's obvious the Times itself never will.

Even the lies are starting to have entertainment value.

So, Harriet Miers was the best of the best, was she?

In the face of criticism from the left and right, President Bush insisted Tuesday that Harriet Miers is the best-qualified candidate for the Supreme Court and assured skeptical conservatives that his lawyer-turned-nominee shares his judicial philosophy and always will.

Ehhhhhh ... maybe not so much:

... several constitutional law scholars said they were surprised and puzzled by Miers's response to the committee's request for information on cases she has handled dealing with constitutional issues. In describing one matter on the Dallas City Council, Miers referred to "the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause" as it relates to the Voting Rights Act.

"There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause," said Cass R. Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. He and several other scholars said it appeared that Miers was confusing proportional representation -- which typically deals with ethnic groups having members on elected bodies -- with the one-man, one-vote Supreme Court ruling that requires, for example, legislative districts to have equal populations.

In other words, she's an idiot and ridiculously unqualified to be a Supreme Court justice. I'm sure you're shocked.

You're a conservative? OK, that explains it.

An oldie but a goodie:

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.

And, as if to prove the very point that the study purported to show:

Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Yeah, dammit. When we all know that it was a much better investment spending $70 million investigating Bill Clinton. Man, some people and their priorities.

This explains so much, doesn't it?

FOLLOWUP over at Buridan's Ass.

AND MORE FOLLOWUP over here.

Oh, you mean THAT meeting with Scooter Libby.

It's amazing what a potential charge of perjury or obstruction of justice can do for your memory:

New York Times reporter Judith Miller told the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case that she might have met with I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby on June 23, 2003 only after prosecutors showed her Secret Service logs that indicated she and Libby had indeed met that day in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, according to attorneys familiar with her testimony...

When a prosecutor presented Miller with copies of the White House-complex visitation logs, she said such a meeting was possible.

I really hope they've been keeping her cell warm.

The Internets never forget.

Boy, from back in 2002, I'll bet this guy is some kinda embarrassed these days (emphasis added slowly and lovingly):

... In a pledge to America, George W. Bush vowed to restore integrity and dignity to the White House after the Clinton years.

Say what you want regarding his policies, but Bush has restored grace and dignity to the highest office in the land. Our country has suffered through a recession, and we are currently engaged in the war against terrorism, but the public is not distracted by a scandal plagued Administration. To date, not one Cabinet member has resigned nor are there any ongoing Congressional investigations into Bush officials regarding improper conduct...

[Bush] appears to understand that the office of the President is an honor, and to disgrace it is to disgrace our country. So far, his integrity is intact and we can be proud of the decency that has been restored to the highest office in the land.

I wonder what Mr. Archibald is thinking these days. Hey, I know -- let's ask him, if he's still available at that JCArch@msn.com e-mail address. Let's all send him a friendly hello and see what he's up to these days. If he's not too ashamed to come out of his cave.

WHOA ... Apparently, Mr. Archibald is pretty much the total hack. But you saw that coming, didn't you?

Mmmmmmm ... indictments.

This just gets better and better, doesn't it?

Prosecutors have gathered evidence that top White House aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby exchanged information about their contacts with reporters regarding Valerie Plame in the days just before the CIA officer's cover was blown.

Rove told grand jurors it was even possible he first learned inside the White House from Libby that Bush administration critic Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, according to people directly familiar with the testimony of President Bush's closest political adviser.

The disclosure is the first known intersection between two central figures in the criminal investigation into the leak of Plame's identity.

Quick, Jinx! Over there! Someone paddling a canoe in shallow water!

Wankerville class and sophistication, Canadian style.

Hey, don't you be getting all high-brow around here, dude:

From an MSN conservation:

Peter: Did you hear that Brison is getting married?
Peter’s friend: Brison is getting married? To who? Rick Borotsik?

So who’s the top?

Feel free to revel in the irony that I won the award for "Mouthiest LIttle Shit" for a Canadian blogger. Really.

The utter vacuity of the wankersphere.

If you (God forbid) needed any more proof of the absolute worthlessness of the right-wing echo chamber, how about this one from Instawanker Glenn Reynolds:

RUSSERT, ROVE, AND PLAME: Perhaps we should just indict everyone in Washington for talking to one another. . . .

Sure. It's not like there's any meaningful distinction between having a chat over coffee and, say, exposing a covert CIA operative, then lying about it to a federal prosecutor and grand jury afterwards.

Those left wingers. Ever the hair splitters, aren't we?

P.S. Remember, Reynolds is considered one of Wankerville's leading lights. The rest are allegedly much dumber. If that's physically possible.

AND SPEAKING OF WORTHLESS WANKERS, given that the absolute biggest story inside the Beltway these days is Plamegate, what topic do you think is completely and utterly unaddressed at Michelle Malkin's site right this very minute, which goes back to some time on Oct 17?

Go on. Guess. You'll never guess.

Uh oh ... seems like Scottie may have "known" some of this stuff after all.

After allowing Scott McClellan to dance away as you can read here, is it possible that the White House Press Corps won't be able to do something with this?

White House adviser Karl Rove told the grand jury in the CIA leak case that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, may have told him that CIA operative Valerie Plame worked for the intelligence agency before her identity was revealed, a source familiar with Rove's account said yesterday...

The account is the first time a person familiar with Rove's testimony has provided clues about where the deputy chief of staff learned about Plame, and confirmed that Rove and Libby were involved in a conversation about her before her identity became public. The disclosure seemed to further undermine the White House's contention early in the case that neither man was in any way involved in unmasking Plame.

A serious question here for you journalistic types (and I may ask this in more detail later): At what point is "No comment" no longer an acceptable response, if someone is already on the public record? Seriously.

You had to know this was coming.

Any bets that Li'l Scottie was up late polishing his tap dancing?

Q Scott, did the President talk to Karl Rove two years ago about the leak?

MR. McCLELLAN: Steve, I appreciate the question. That's a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and I'm just not going to have further comment while that investigation is underway.

Q Because The New York Daily News says the President rebuked Rove two years ago.

MR. McCLELLAN: There are a lot of news reports out there and I've seen a lot of conflicting news reports, and we're just not going to comment any further on an ongoing investigation.

Q It behooves you to.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there's a special prosecutor doing his work, Helen, and we want him to come to a successful conclusion. And that's what we're doing, is cooperating --

Q This is a question that directly affects the President, and --

MR. McCLELLAN: -- cooperating with the ongoing investigation.

Q -- you should say it's true, or not true.

MR. McCLELLAN: As you have known for sometime now, we've been saying that while this is an ongoing investigation what we're going to do from the White House is cooperate fully with that investigation and let the special prosecutor do his work. We're not going to speculate or prejudge the outcome.

Q We're not asking you to speculate. We're asking you, is this report true or not.

MR. McCLELLAN: And I've already answered that.

Go ahead, Kelly.

Q Scott, a couple of things. You indicated that you hope that this investigation would come to a successful conclusion and that the American people would be told about the facts. If the special prosecutor decides not to issue a report, would the White House hope that in some way, shape, or form, the facts would be made public?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, it's up to the special prosecutor to determine how he's going to proceed. What -- again, what we are doing from here is cooperating fully with that investigation at the direction of the President. And in terms of how he is going to proceed, I'm not going to try to speculate about that, or prejudge it. We all would like to know what the facts are. We don't know what all the facts are. And I think all of us would like to know what they are and get to the bottom of this investigation.

Q Can you tell us if any White House staff members, or people who work for the Vice President, or anyone who works for this administration has received a target or a subject letter from the prosecutor?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, a couple of things. That's questions relating to an ongoing investigation. Those are questions you need to direct to the investigator. We're just not going to comment further.

Someone should have pointed out that it was a bit too late for a "No comment" since McClellan had already taken a position on this:

At the time, spokesman McClellan was so adamant in his denials that he told reporters the president himself knew that Rove wasn't involved in the leak.

Your White House Press Corps. Dropping the ball yet again.

AFTERSNARK: I'm a bit surprised that no one jumped all over this statement of Scottie's:

We all would like to know what the facts are. We don't know what all the facts are. And I think all of us would like to know what they are and get to the bottom of this investigation.

I'm sorry -- they don't know what the facts are but would dearly like to know?

First, someone should have pointed out that, once upon a time, Scottie was pretty adamant that he knew the facts related to Karl Rove. Now, investigation or no investigation, is he now claiming that he doesn't know them aymore? Scottie once knew something, but he doesn't know it anymore? Just how does that work?

Even better is the claim that they would like to know the facts. Well, Scott, you could have figured them out in short order if your simian president had just called in all of his senior people a couple of years ago and asked them point blank if any of them were responsible for the leak. That's all it would have taken.

And yet, here we are, two years later, with the administration having backtracked on previously unambiguous claims of innocence and Scottie hiding behind a ridiculously inappropriate "No comment." Surely the above could have inspired a direct question along the lines of, "I'm sorry, Scott ... are you saying the the president doesn't know if Karl Rove was the leaker? Are you actually suggesting he never asked him? Even though, two years ago, you were absolutely adamant that the president knew Karl wasn't involved? How is that possible?"

Or, maybe, even simpler, "Scott, if the president truly wanted to know all the facts, why didn't he just ask the people who worked for him?"

So many land mines, so few journalists with the ability to point them out. Pity.

"But George, you PROMISED I could treat them with complete contempt."

Apparently, SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers is already pissing off the wrong people:

The Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers suffered another setback on Wednesday when the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked her to resubmit parts of her judicial questionnaire, saying various members had found her responses "inadequate," "insufficient" and "insulting."

Harriet, sweetie, a word of advice -- you're not in charge yet. Keep that in mind.

Sure, but what have you done for me LATELY?

It's always fun to watch high-profile members of the right-wing wankerhood eat their own, as in this delightful piece by conservative, former Supreme Court nominee and certifiable lunatic Robert Bork:

With a single stroke--the nomination of Harriet Miers--the president has damaged the prospects for reform of a left-leaning and imperialistic Supreme Court, ...

Yeah, Bob. That would be the same "left-leaning" court that has seven Republican appointees and only two Democratic appointees.

That would be the same "imperialistic" court that, giving the finger to a history of judicial precedence, decided 5-4 to simply hand the presidency to George W. Dumbass back in 2000. It's funny, Bob ... I don't remember you complaining all that loudly at the time.

Ah, well, this is the Wall Street Journal we're talking about here. Any rag that publishes Peggy Noonan certainly isn't trying to seize the journalistic high ground, is it?

You want Canadian content? HERE'S your Canadian content.

No, I definitely don't need to go south of the border when I can find overwhelming wankeritude up here. Welcome back, Pete:

Alot of silly people are currently in the process of soaking their tighty-whities over the prospect of Dick Cheney being implicated in and stepping down as a result of the ongoing investigation into the leak of a CIA agent’s identity.

“Sparked by today’s Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney’s office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.”

Don’t forget that all of the speculation currently surrounding Cheney is due to a single CIA leak to the media. So let’s step back for a moment.

Sure, Pete, let's do that. It'll give you a second or two to pull total fantasy and delusion out of your ass. Ah, here we go ...

The democratically-elected vice-president is now facing being forced from office over the questionable actions of a non-accountable coercive government agency.

So much wankeritude, so little time. Um ... Pete? Would Cheney be "stepping down" or would he be "forced from office"? Outside of your little echo chamber, there's generally a difference. You should get yourself a good copy editor, I hear they make a world of difference.

And there's no end of irony in someone from Wankerville describing the CIA as "a non-accountable coercive government agency." Sure seems like the CIA were the good guys when they were drumming up bogus WMD data. Talk about fairweather friends.

In Latin America, it’s generally recognized as bad for democracy when the coercive arm of the state threatens the democratically-elected arm of the state. So why are people cheering on the CIA’s vengeful attempts to subvert democracy in the US?

It's called "crime," Pete. Here, look it up. Kind of like the way your ideological buddies couldn't wait to kick that democratically-elected Bill Clinton out of office and "subvert democracy", remember? Man, talk about a selective memory.

BONUS: You have to love Pete's unintentional hilarity in the comments section there, where he writes:

Alot of people just love to hate Bush, period. Well sorry, but I’m not OK with that sort of blind ideological thinking.

Pete, sweetie ... you're not OK with the concept of thinking in general.

DOUBLE PLUS GOOD BONUS: And at no extra charge, we have Pete taking a blunt instrument to logic and critical thinking in the comments section here:

For example: It would demonstrate that Texas Democrats in general are so corrupt that even Earle couldn’t put off prosecuting them.

See how that works? First, Earle is just a Democrat engaged in a hopelessly partisan witch hunt and smear of Tom DeLay. Then, when one points out that Earle has prosecuted four times as many Democrats as Republicans, well, that just proves how corrupt Democrats are.

And, yes, that nagging ache in your neck is whiplash, Pete Rempel-style.

Where journalists come from.

More than once, I've taken a swipe at the eye-rolling incompetence of journalists in general and the unspeakably awful (but slowly waking from their slumber) White House Press Corps and wondered, where did these cretins come from?

Well, thanks to a link from PZ Myers, now we know.

Oh, dear. Apparently, you don't ALL like me.

Well ... someone has their dick in a serious knot. Over here, some annoying non-entity has decided to inflict his subjective wisdom of blogging quality on the rest of us.

I think it's sufficient to note that someone who considers me the "Mouthiest Little Shit" in the Canadian blogosphere actually named his awards "The Anals." That's just way too Freudian for me, if you catch my drift.

BY THE WAY, Anon, about that "little shit" stuff. Fact is, I'm 6'1", 200 lbs, and I work out. Just sayin', ya know.

Hey, Michelle, did you know the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

Remember this guy, who turned out to be just another pro-administration plant in that thoroughly contrived Iraq press event? Well, apparently, you really can fool some of the people all of the time.

A public apology to America's Dumbest Wanker™.

I find myself in the position of having to apologize to none other than Weasel Boy. In the midst of all the bad craziness and corruption-induced meltdown of the GOP, I suggested he was still horrendously obsessed with the implications of someone getting a blowjob.

I was wrong.

Instead, he's horrendously obsessed with someone getting an abortion. Apparently, it's a real head-up-ass news day in Wankerville.

Just give them all adjoining cells ...

... starting with her. And how could James Wolcott not weigh in on this one?

Dear U.S. troops: Just shoot yourself now ...

... and save the terrorists the trouble.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday refused to rule out U.S. troops still being in Iraq in 10 years ...

Gosh, what a surprise. I can see the recruiting posters now: "An army of one. For a fuck of a long time." Well, at least they have some specific goals, right?

... or the possibility that the United States could use military force against neighboring Syria and Iran.

Come on, Condi. Lay some smackdown on North Korea while you're at it. You know you want to.

Bush. Rove. Plamegate. Obstruction of justice.

Just go read.

P.S. Hey, Jinx, look! Someone getting a blowjob. The horror, the horror ...

AFTERSNARK: From the NY Daily News article, you have to love this bit:

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."

Sure, he committed treason, exposed a covert operative and jeopardized the national security of the country, then tried to cover it all up afterwards. But, hey, his heart was in the right place. That's gotta count for something, right?

BONUS TRACK: Regarding this general theme from that same article:

An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.

I can't wait to read the transcript of the next White House press gaggle to see whether the press corps rips Li'l Scottie a new one over his having lied to them for two years. Will this be the day that the few journalists left in that pack of swine finally storm the stage and beat McClellan bloody for being such a dick?

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE: Over here, John finishes a recent post with the suggestion, "The White House press corps needs to demand a specific date."

No shit, they do. It remains to be seen whether those so-called journalists actually take the time to dig into what's been published already and frame some serious, specific, non-dodgeable questions, or whether they blow it all off and ask something mind-numbingly stupid like, "Scott, recent news reports claim that Karl Rove told the president back in 2003 that he was involved in the leak. Care to comment on that?"

Sorry ... what was all that about "fair and balanced"?

Wankerville's favourite crazy-assed bitch Michelle Malkin slaps a few folks around for not supporting the troops or honouring the veterans. Funny, she seems to have missed this story entirely. How utterly ... predictable.

It doesn't get much better than this, does it?

Commander Chimpy's ratings in the toilet, Dick Cheney rumoured to be considering resigning, Cheney's chief of staff "Scooter" Libby in deep, deep shit, Judith Miller's reputation as a journalist in absolute tatters, SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers being pounded on by just about everyone, Tom DeLay under indictment ...

Quick, Jinx, remind us all about the horrific ethical lapses involved in lying about a blowjob. We all so need to be returned to reality.

BY THE WAY: It's worth appreciating that this shitstorm is descending on all of those fine, Christian folks in the GOP when they're running the place. Remember, at the moment, they control the White House, the judiciary, both houses of Congress and a vast swath of the media. And they still can't keep the sleaze under wraps. That should tell you something about just how vile they've become, no?

MAN, THAT NET IS GETTING BIGGER, ISN'T IT? A better question might be, who isn't going to be indicted?

A senior aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is cooperating with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, sources close to the investigation say.

Individuals familiar with Fitzgerald’s case tell RAW STORY that John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe.

John fucking Bolton. Wouldn't you know he'd have his tentacles in this somehow? Blowjobs, Jinx. Tell us about blowjobs.

The golden bike raises almost $30,000 for Katrina relief.

Velonews has the details:

The online auction of Roberto Heras's winning bike from the 2005 Vuelta a España has netted 24,600 euros (about $29,400) to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Heras made history this year by taking a record fourth Vuelta title after a dramatic battle in the Cantabria Mountains of northern Spain.

It turns out the winning bid was made by Liberty Seguros-Würth team manager Manolo Saiz, who said he will display the bicycle in a museum at the headquarters of team co-sponsor Würth.

"The idea wasn't to get Roberto's bike at any price, but I had the idea I was only going to leave it to someone else at a very high price," Saiz said. "The most important thing is that we raised money for the hurricane victims and that we're going to keep the bike for sentimental reasons for everyone at the team."

And now that that's over, all of you patriotic, flag-waving Wankervillians can now go back to dissing the Spaniards as a bunch of paella-eating, terrorist-appeasing, gay marriage-tolerating foreigners.

Evidence? What evidence?

It's always fun to watch White House Press Reptile Scott McClellan twisting in the wind these days. For instance, pay no attention to that actual evidence:

Q Scott, the material that the White House sent to the Senate today about Harriet Miers' nomination included a 1989 questionnaire that said that she supported a constitutional amendment to ban abortion except to -- when the life of a mother is at stake. Do you take that 1989 statement to be a conclusive statement of her position on abortion?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, what we take that to be is a candidate expressing her views during the course of a campaign. The role of a judge is very different from the role of a candidate or a political office holder. And what she was doing in that questionnaire was expressing her views during the course of a campaign. The role of a judge is to apply the law in a fair and open-minded way. That means looking at the facts, and then applying the law.

In other words, what she actually said is of no import since, well, that was then and this is now. Right, Scottie?

MR. McCLELLAN: I would also -- I think Senator Schumer indicated to you all yesterday that Harriet Miers said that no one knows how she would view on any particular case.

Actual signed questionnaire supporting a constitutional amendment notwithstanding, of course. And gaze in awe on how Scottie can chew up minutes saying, well, nothing, in response to a fairly direct question:

Q Scott, what did Harriet Miers tell Arlen Specter yesterday about the right to privacy?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, they had a lengthy discussion yesterday. This was the second time that she sat down and visited with Senator Specter in person about her nomination. And as a general rule, just like Chief Justice Roberts, Harriet does not get into talking about specific cases, if that's what you're asking. But these are --

Q I'm asking more about the generalized constitutional right to privacy.

MR. McCLELLAN: These are courtesy visits that she's having with members of the United States Senate. As I said, she's -- by the end of the day will have visited with some 18 to 20 members of the United States Senate. She will be having confirmation hearings in a few weeks. I know people in this room would like to get on with those confirmation hearings, but this is a process that is moving along. And there will be many issues that come up during the time of the confirmation hearing --

Q It would be helpful to us in writing a story, actually, if we could get a clearer understanding of what, exactly, it was she said. Arlen Specter said, "She believes there is a right to privacy in the Constitution." Dan Coats was quoted in The Washington Post saying that she cited the liberty clause as implying the right to privacy in the Constitution. And White House spokesman Jim Dyke, who was briefed about this meeting, said that she was asked about privacy and she cited the Constitution's liberty clause.

So we have two White House people saying that she spoke to the liberty clause with respect to privacy. We have a senator, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, saying that she thought there was a right to privacy. What did she say?

MR. McCLELLAN: Okay, Bill, let me respond to your question, because I was coming to the answer to that question. I appreciate that you want to write stories and there will be plenty of opportunity to write stories about Harriet Miers' views and her experience and her judicial philosophy as the confirmation process moves forward. These are courtesy visits. As I said, as a general rule, Harriet has not gotten into discussing specific cases. Now, there will be confirmation hearings that will be taking place. These are issues that I fully expect will come up during the course of those confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Harriet looks forward to answering the questions that they bring up and talking about these matters, and let's let those confirmation hearings take place.

Why no one in the White House Press Corps hasn't bludgeoned Scott to death with a tire iron by now is a pure mystery.

Supporting ... I mean, fucking over the troops.

If this is your idea of supporting the troops, one can only imagine what you must think constitutes doing them wrong:

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon has reneged on its offer to pay a $15,000 bonus to members of the National Guard and Army Reserve who agree to extend their enlistments by six years, according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Seattle).

The bonuses were offered in January to Active Guard and Reserve and military technician soldiers who were serving overseas. In April, the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs ordered the bonuses stopped, Murray said.

“This is outrageous,” the senator said in a telephone interview. “It makes me angry that this administration has broken another promise to our troops.”

Angry, but totally unsurprised, I'm guessing. (Credit to Atrios for the pointer.)

There are times when your imagination starts to do naughty things.

"Condi, I'd like you to meet a standard bearer for morals and virtues within the GOP, Bill Bennett, who once suggested that aborting all black babies would lower the crime rate. Bill, this is the new vice-president of the United States, Condi Rice. I'll just leave the two of you alone, I'm sure you have plenty to talk about."

Goodbye, Dick; hello, Condi?

Say what?

Sparked by today's Washington Post story that suggests Vice President Cheney's office is involved in the Plame-CIA spy link investigation, government officials and advisers passed around rumors that the vice president might step aside and that President Bush would elevate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"It's certainly an interesting but I still think highly doubtful scenario," said a Bush insider. "And if that should happen," added the official, "there will undoubtedly be those who believe the whole thing was orchestrated – another brilliant Machiavellian move by the VP."

But here's the best part:

Said another Bush associate of the rumor, "Yes. This is not good." The rumor spread so fast that some Republicans by late morning were already drawing up reasons why Rice couldn't get the job or run for president in 2008.

"Isn't she pro-choice?" asked a key Senate Republican aide.

You mean she couldn't get the job if she was pro-choice? Wow, that almost sounds like a litmus test, but we all know the GOP would never stoop to the level of a litmus test. Just ask them.

Oh, sorry, that was just for the Supreme Court. Apparently, when it comes to litmus tests, it's all a matter of context, isn't it?

Oh, yes, that oughta win hearts and minds.

Whoops. Apparently, we have a difference of opinion:

Iraqis Say Civilians Killed in U.S. Raids

Military Asserts Fatalities in West Were Insurgents

A U.S. fighter jet bombed a crowd gathered around a burned Humvee on the edge of a provincial capital in western Iraq, killing 25 people, including 18 children, hospital officials and family members said Monday. The military said the Sunday raid targeted insurgents planting a bomb for new attacks...

The U.S. military said it killed a total of 70 insurgents in Sunday's airstrikes and, in a statement, said it knew of no civilian deaths.

That's because, as we all know, those weren't children -- just very, very short insurgents. Or insurgents in training. Or something.

Anyway, we don't call them "children." We prefer the term "collateral damage."

Hey! Michelle Malkin has her own stalker. Cool.

Following referrals backwards from CC HQ, we find -- oh frabjous day! -- a blog devoted solely to slapping around Michelle "Crazy Assed Bitch" Malkin. And, without reading any further than the opening paragraphs of this post, poor Michelle is apparently not happy about being held accountable for her irresponsible, pulled straight out of her ass, fear-mongering:

Last week, I received a media inquiry from Wall Street Journal media reporter Joe Hagan. He wanted to talk about blogs and the University of Oklahoma bomber story. Although I was dismayed to learn the only coverage of the incident from the august WSJ would be a story about the coverage, rather than an original investigative report, I thought it would be better than nothing.

I was wrong: Nothing would have been better.

And why would the WSJ want to write about only the coverage of that incident and not the incident ltself? Perhaps because it wasn't the incident itself that was so newsworthy, but the way the right-wing wankerhood blew it all so grotesquely out of proportion. And now poor Michelle is a bit bent that they're being called on it.

Poor baby. It's such a heavy burden, having to write sensationalist rubbish every day. And then to have someone actually call you on it every so often? That's just downright outrageous, isn't it?

IRONY IS OFFICIALLY DEAD: Follow the link to Michelle's whining to read her opening sentence:

File this under "How the MSM ignores facts, smears blogs, and publishes snit fits disguised as responsible journalism.

I think I just wet myself.

FUNNIER AND FUNNIER: I love the way the right-wing wankersphere gets in up to their elbows into salacious and sensationalistic rumour-mongering, then denies accountability by saying, "Hey, we never said X happened, we were just, like, asking the question, ya know?"

Witness Michelle pointing over to Little Green Dumbfucks, where serious dumbfuck Charles Johnson writes:

Here’s the LGF post cited by the Journal: Jihad at the University of Oklahoma? The question mark is, of course, intended to signify that the story is questionable.

Ah, so it's the question mark that makes the most outrageous rumour mongering and speculation acceptable. Which means I can, in good conscience, ask, Does Charles Johnson molest Catholic altar boys? I'm not saying he does, I'm just, you know, asking.

Or, perhaps, does Michelle Malkin occasionally like some serious horse cock? I mean, when dating within her species just won't satisfy her cravings, does she need a trip out to the farm to get herself a little something something from Secretariat and the boys?

I'm not saying it's true, of course. I have no evidence whatsoever for this but, hey, I'm just asking. That's all right, isn't it?

Apparently, blacks are equivalent to the mentally retarded. Who knew?

Just another data point in the Washington Post's long, slow decline into total craphood, we have this comment, which (indirectly) defends sanctimonious morals czar Bill Bennett's rasicm by equating blacks with Down's syndrome children:

The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have

By Patricia E. Bauer

If it's unacceptable for William Bennett to link abortion even conversationally with a whole class of people (and, of course, it is), why then do we as a society view abortion as justified and unremarkable in the case of another class of people: children with disabilities?

Gee, Patricia, maybe it's because it's unspeakably classless to draw an analogy between African Americans and the mentally handicapped? Could that be it?

What would you like to die from first?

You have your impending avian flu epidemic or, if you live in Idaho, you might have the choice of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD):

From the moment Joan Kingsford first saw her husband stagger in his welding shop, she wanted two things: His recovery and to know what made him sick.

She got neither. Alvin Kingsford, 72, died recently of suspected sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal brain-wasting illness. The disease can be conclusively diagnosed only with an autopsy, which did not take place.

State and federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year. Sporadic, or naturally occurring, CJD differs from the permutation dubbed variant CJD, which is caused by eating mad-cow-tainted beef and has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe since the 1990s.

Apparently, that tedious embargo on Canadian beef didn't quite protect the Americans the way they were hoping, did it?

But that's OK: if you support Canadian softwood lumber, you're with the terrorists. Or something.

Michael Behe and that "argument from authority" thing.

The next time someone tries to legitimize Intelligent Design by pointing out that one of it leading lights, Michael Behe, is a tenured professor at a respectable American university, one should respond by mentioning that his own department thinks his stuff is crap:

Marginalized by his university colleagues, ridiculed as a quack by the scientific establishment, Michael Behe is thankful for the one thing that allows him to continue his work in relative peace: tenure...

But Behe's own biology department recently distanced itself from him. In August, the department posted a statement on its Web site that says intelligent design "has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific." The faculty, the statement adds, "are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory."

Neal Simon, the department's chairman, said the intelligent design issue had become sufficiently public that the faculty felt the need to "actively and forcefully" condemn Behe's work.

"For us, Dr. Behe's position is simply not science. It is not grounded in science and should not be treated as science," Simon said.

But here's the funniest part:

While life on the academic fringes can be lonely, Behe finds community in an e-mail discussion group that he said has 500 members and includes like-minded faculty from universities around the nation. Most keep their views to themselves, Behe said, because "it's dangerous to your career to be identified as an ID proponent."

Well, yeah, you should kind of expect that trying to participate in the scientific community while publicly embracing ridiculous, fundamentalist, anti-science crap might put a crimp in your long-term career plans. Go figure, eh?

An open road open thread.

About to drive 700+ miles to Chapel Hill again, be there for the rest of the week. And, yes, if you're in the area, you can certainly buy me a beer. I thought you'd never ask.

Your daily Weasel Boy thumping. You know you waaaaaaaant it.

Apparently, theatrics and over-dramatization are bad:

Today Show reporter paddles a canoe in a flood that was inches deep ... Ridiculous! Why was she in the canoe? Why, to give the illusion that the flooding was much worse that it was, of course. It's not very dramatic when you're standing in inches of water.

Although, sometimes, really silly exaggeration is the way to go:

Republican National Committee

THE BIBLE ... BANNED.
Gay marriage ... ALLOWED.

This will be Arkansas ... if you don't vote.

Liberals want to impose their values on Arkansas.

Yeah, the liberals are going to be the death of the high-brow, sophisticated culture that is Arkansas. God could only hope.

P.S. Still bearing false witness, I see. You know, if you used only Weasel Boy as your metric, you'd swear that all Christians were a bunch of ignorant, badly-educated, inarticulate, lying sacks of crap. Luckily, those of us who actually get out know better. Good thing that.

Dear Judith Miller fans: this is just not your day.

Some pretty devastating stuff on the New York Times' Judith "I was proved fucking right" Miller over at Editor & Publisher, including stuff like this:

After 'NY Times' Probe: Keller Must Fire Miller, and Apologize to Readers

As the devastating Times article, and her own first-person account, make clear, Miller should be promptly dismissed for crimes against journalism -- and her own paper. And her editor, who has not taken responsibility, should apologize to readers.

Yeah, if you're a Judith Miller defender, you're not going to be a happy camper. Of course, if you're a Judith Miller defender, you deserve to be unhappy right about now.

WHAT THE HELL??? Judith Miller: Secret Squirrel?

Uh oh ... yet ANOTHER plant in the Iraq press event.

Man, this really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? If it wasn't bad enough to uncover press flack Corine Lombardo and presidential deep throat specialist Sgt. Ron Long at Commander Chimpy's allegedly off the cuff, just getting' down with the troops gaggle, well, it turns out there was yet another plant.

Go read.

P.S. I love the fact that Lt. Murphy played dumb, telling Channel 3 that "he has no idea why he was selected to speak with the President."

Don't worry, Lt. Murphy -- the rest of us have a pretty good idea.

P.P.S. TBogg does Sgt. Long as only TBogg can.

America's Dumbest Wanker™ meets Daffy Duck. Hilarity ensues.

We've all seen the clip from the Bugs Bunny cartoon, in which Bugs (working strictly from memory here) confuses Daffy Duck to the point where Daffy starts to argue against himself, something like this:

Daffy: It's rabbit season!

Bugs: Ooooh, no, it's not, it duck season.

Daffy: It's rabbit!

Bugs: It's duck.

Daffy: Rabbit!

Bugs: Once and for all, it's rabbit season.

Daffy: No, it's not, it's duck!

Bugs: Have it your way, then. It's duck season.

And we all know what happens next.

Which, sadly, brings us yet again (and, man, this is getting tedious) to America's Dumbest Wanker™, who finds himself in the role of poor, deluded Daffy.

Consider the controversy over whether the recent Bush press event in Iraq was "staged," or "scripted". Note well that those aren't the same things, are they? Many events are "staged," and there's nothing particularly wrong with that. To be "staged" normally means that there was some pre-event preparation or agreement on general events or sequence. OK, no big deal.

But "scripted" -- that's a whole 'nother story. To be "scripted" is generally a more serious undertaking; it normally involves a careful preparation of actual words that participants are going to say (hence, the word "script"). Are you with me so far?

What this means is that to admit that something was "staged" is, perhaps, only mildly annoying, while to admit that it was "scripted" generally means that it was a complete setup from beginning to end, much more of a total fake in its entirety. So far, so good?

How, then, to explain, this example of howling stupidity from ... you know who:

CanadianCynic and other liberals seem to think "orchestration" (i.e. practice to make sure things like passing the microphone so you don't strangle someone don't happen), having "scripted" (i.e. prepared) questions from President Bush and running through who you are and what you are doing in Iraq means "staged." You know, as I said, that would make lots of what the MSM does "staged," too: interviews, reports, etc.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In short, Weasel Boy now clearly accepts that the Bush event was "orchestrated" and "scripted," while somehow denying that this implies that it was "staged."

Dear Jinx: It's duck season ...

AFTERSNARK: I love the thought that the trogs of Wankerville have now been reduced to arguing semantics: "Well, OK, it was scripted but it wasn't staged. And, sure, it was orchestrated, but that doesn't mean it was scripted. No, wait, I didn't mean to say scripted, I meant to say staged, even if it was scripted. But not if it was orchestrated. Wait a minute ..."

Stay tuned for imminent redefinition of the word "is."

Soldier in Iraq press event admits it was staged.

Apparently, a number of Wankerville bloggers (such as everyone's favourite Crazy-Assed Bitch Michelle Malkin) are pointing at the online writings of one of the soldiers in the Commander Chimpy Iraq press event as proof that it was in no way scripted.

OK, fine, let's see what Sgt. Ron Long has to say, shall we, keeping in mind that, if he's looking to make a case, his best approach is to be as dispassionate and methodical as possible, and just lay out the facts with a minimum of flag waving and cock sucking. (Whoops, did I say that last part out loud?)

Take it away, Sgt. Long:

... The interview went well, but I would like to respond to what most of the mass-media has dubbed as, "A Staged Event."

You do that.

First of all, we were told that we would be speaking with the President of the United States, our Commander-in-Chief, President Bush, ...

Ignore, if you will, the slightly nauseating hero worship here, and let's continue:

... so I believe that it would have been totally irresponsible for us NOT to prepare some ideas, facts or comments that we wanted to share with the President.

Um ... OK. This little get-together was in no way scripted or staged, we just, you know, got together ahead of time to discuss, like, stuff that might come up in conversation.

We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it's the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.

Uh ... sure, we wanted to keep it light and breezy but, you know, having an idea of the topics beforehand does help things flow a little more smoothly. If you catch my drift. (And pay no attention to the deification of George W. McFlightSuit with the capitalized reference to "He" in mid-sentence -- I'm sure that's just a typo.)

We practiced passing the microphone around to one another, so we wouldn't choke someone on live TV.

That makes sense; it's only natural that crack combat troops -- walking that fine line, ever alert to the slightest danger or terrorist threat, part of the finest fighting force the world has ever seen -- would be so breathtakingly incompetent that they need to make a dry run at handing a microphone around without strangling one another. Sure, I'll buy that. (Hint: consider wireless.)

We had an idea as to who we thought should answer what types of questions, unless President Bush called on one of us specifically.

And assigning types of questions to particular people was in no way an attempt at staging or scripting. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Note to Sgt. Long: The next time you want to suck someone's dick in public, you might as well call this guy. He probably wouldn't say no.

NOT TO PILE ON BUT ... the good sergeant is clearly a blatant liar about the lack of scripting, as we have already established. That sort of lessens the impact of his presidential fellatio as well.

Democracy on the march over there, oh yeah.

I hope all you American troops over there in Iraq are enjoying yourselves because it seems you might be there a while:

A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials.

The firefight, between Army Rangers and Syrian troops along the border with Iraq, was the most serious of the conflicts with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to American and Syrian officials.

It illustrated the dangers facing American troops as Washington tries to apply more political and military pressure on a country that President Bush last week labeled one of the "allies of convenience" with Islamic extremists.

OK, deep breath ... we can handle this. Just one extra front, no problem.

He also named Iran.

Oh, fuck.

And the dumbfuckitude continues.

At no extra charge, some bonus snark added to the end back here. What a wanker.

America's Dumbest Wanker™ -- wrong again. Quelle surprise.

What must it be like going through life, knowing that almost everything you say is a total lie? Let's just let John take Weasel Boy out to the woodshed, shall we?

Conservative bloggers are in an uproar that the "liberal media" has put out "fake story" claiming "incorrectly" that Bush's chat with the troops yesterday morning was a pre-scripted fake event.

Sure sounds like John's met America's Dumbest Wanker™, doesn't it? Just read the rest of John's piece, including delicious excerpts from that event like this (emphasis gleefully added):

Deputy Asst. Defense Secretary Allison BARBER, prepping the troops: If he gives us a question that's not something that we've scripted, Captain Kennedy you're gonna have that mic and that's your chance to impress us all.

CAPT KENNEDY: Okay.

BARBER: Which won't be a problem for you. Alright here we go.

Make sure you read the whole thing to appreciate the pure scriptitudeness of it all.

In addition, AP writer Deb Riechmann lays it all out in glorious detail:

A brief rehearsal ensued.

"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"

"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.

"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.

"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.

And so it went.

"If the question comes up about partnering — how often do we train with the Iraqi military — who does he go to?" Barber asked.

"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.

"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit — the hometown — and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.

Some pretty serious choreography there. Bob Fosse would be proud. But just when you figure it can't get any sillier, well, it does, as apparently the Bush folks used one of their own military press people as one of the "combat soldiers".

It's annoying enough that the Bush handlers are padding combat soldiers with some of their own flacks. It's more irritating when they lie:

SERGEANT LOMBARDO: I can tell you over the past 10 months we've seen a tremendous increase in the capabilities and the confidences of our Iraqi security force partners. We've been working side-by-side, training and equipping 18 Iraqi army battalions. Since we began our partnership, they have improved greatly, and they continue to develop and grow into sustainable forces. Over the next month, we anticipate seeing at least one-third of those Iraqi forces conducting independent operations.

"Tremendous increase in the capabilities?" "They have improved greatly?" Are these the same Iraqi forces for whom the number of battle-ready battalions has dropped from three to one?

The news is not that the Bush administration is putting on the same dog-and-pony shows that they have for years. The news is that the MSM is finally starting to write about it. Better late than never, I guess.

And yes, Weasel Boy is still as wankerific as ever.

BONUS TRACK: After you read all of the above, take the time to appreciate White House Press Lizard Scott McClellan here:

Q And regarding yesterday's event with the President and the soldiers in Tikrit, has there been any adjustment in the administration's position about whether or not it was scripted or rehearsed, and what sort of protocols will be followed in the future?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you heard from the troops. The troops that were participating in that event said that they were expressing their own thoughts. So you heard directly from the troops. And these are troops that are on the ground in Iraq, who were giving the President and the American people a firsthand account of the progress that is being made on the ground.

Note the very careful wording of this non-denial denial. Scottie never explicitly denied it was "scripted," did he? Rather, he claimed that "you heard from the troops" which, technically, is totally accurate since those troops physically generated the sounds coming out of their own mouths. No one's questioning that.

Scottie also said they were "expressing their own thoughts," which still doesn't address the scripting issue. Regardless of whether they were the troops' own thoughts, there's no question that those answers were supplied to them, so whether the troops actually believed what they were saying is beside the point.

Give Scottie credit -- he knows how to chew up time while avoiding the question entirely. Then again, that's what he's paid the big bucks for, isn't it?

BY THE WAY, make sure you understand something -- there is no longer any debate as to whether the above event was "scripted" -- that debate ended the instant Deputy Asst. Defense Secretary Allison Barber (assuming this was transcribed correctly) said the following:

Deputy Asst. Defense Secretary Allison BARBER, prepping the troops: If he gives us a question that's not something that we've scripted, Captain Kennedy you're gonna have that mic and that's your chance to impress us all.

Once that sentence was out of her mouth, this argument was over and can't be re-introduced with bullshit like "Well, you have to look at the context" or similar idiocy. As the saying goes, stick a fork in this debate -- it's done. Anyone who keeps trying to resurrect it is simply lying to you.

Oh, yeah ...

Antonia finds the good stuff.

The air pollution fiasco -- the methodology.

I'm going to follow up on The Jurist's post over here, where he jumps on the important point that the oh-so-suspicious pollution data we've been talking about is presented "as reported by facilities," which makes its value questionable at best.

In fact, if you check out the CEC's page here, this paragraph says pretty much the same thing (emphasis added):

Taking Stock analyzes comparable data from industrial facilities in Canada and the United States that report their releases and transfers of toxic chemicals to the air, land and water. Mexico has previously announced a mandatory and publicly accessible pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR) and has recently confirmed a list of 104 chemicals and will begin reporting data publicly in 2006.

Yeah -- "that report their releases." At this point, I don't know that there's much more research you can do into this and still come up with meaningful conclusions.

(Feel free to check out the CEC's main page here that leads into the page above as well, if you're feeling ambitious.)

P.S. Shall we all check in occasionally on America's Dumbest Wanker™ to see if he ever stops bearing false witness? I mean, it's not like he hasn't figured it out by now.

P.P.S. Nope, false witness continues:

Cue CanadianCynic to attempt to dismiss this by liberal use of swears and the word "wanker." BTW, CC, here's lots more people you need to call "wankers:" lots of Canadians reporting failure of Canada's pollution reduction.

Of course, none of my several posts questioned Canada's record on pollution. The issue, as most sentient people would have noticed, was the bogus comparison to America's alleged massive reduction of pollution emissions.

(In fact, if I wanted to be truly snarky, I could simply refer back to this post of mine, in which I'm not even trying to dispute the Canadian data:

As a starting point, let's review the Yahoo article in question, which claims that Canadian air pollution dropped by 2 per cent (OK, let's just accept that for the sake of argument), while the American drop was a whopping 45 per cent!

If we take this claim at face value, we can, for the sake of argument, just accept the Canadian figure -- I don't even want to argue about it. Let's just accept it as accurate, ...

Now, who among you is so fucking stupid that you don't understand that I'm agreeing to the Canadian data just for the sake of argument? Yeah, I thought as much.)

I doubt any of this is worth it. Trying to explain something to Weasel Boy is like trying to teach a mentally retarded cocker spaniel not to piss on the expensive carpet. It doesn't matter what approach you take -- nothing's going to sink in, is it?

BY THE WAY, just so you recognize the next time it happens anywhere, WB's dodging and weaving is what those of us who have functioning brain stems refer to as "moving the goalposts", to wit:

Weasel Boy: Canads's record on pollution reductions fucking sucks compared to the United States.

Response: Um, that figure of a 45% reduction for the U.S. is highly questionable, and appears nowhere in the very web site you mentioned.

Weasel Boy: Yeah, well ... Canada's record on pollution reduction sucks.

Response: Um ... but I wasn't arguing that point.

Weasel Boy: Shut up! Just shut up! You're a dirty, stinking liar and a big meanie and I hate you!

Needless to say, this goalpost moving occurred without a single attempt to address any of the issues raised in my earlier five posts on the subject. I'm sure you're just shocked.

Open thread and intelligent design.

OK, I'm all typed out, it's your turn. And while we're all watching the ID proceedings south of the border, what's the deal on that same stupidity up here? Any Canadian activity? I should probably pay attention closer to home, but things seem awfully quiet for the moment.

Newsweek likes me! They really like me!

Well, OK, I'm sure it's just an automated webcrawler but I'm amused that, over here (at least as we speak), there a list of "what bloggers are saying about the following Newsweek article", and your humble scribe's site is number one on that list. (This will, I'm sure, last for no longer than the time it takes me to type this, so I better enjoy it while I can.)

Mom would be so proud.

The Harriet Miers religion litmus test?

Numerous bloggers (like Justin) have been pointing out the raging inconsistency in Bush's defense of the Harriet Miers SCOTUS pick based on her religious beliefs.

Not surprisingly, John at AmericaBlog links to a piece that ups the ante -- is it possible that the Miers nomination is downright unconstitutional? It's an interesting thought.

The air pollution and dumbfuckitude series. Collect the entire set.

A few outstanding issues and clarifications here and it's time to move on. If you want to start at the beginning, feel free to read the preceding four parts:

Part 1: Air pollution and how stupid is Weasel Boy?
Part 2: Air pollution and Weasel Boy's dumbfuckitude.
Part 3: Air pollution and ongoing dumbfuckitude.
Part 4: Tying up those loose ends. And dumbfuckitude.

(I should first apologize for the somewhat disjointed writing in the above posts as I bobbed, weaved, ducked, parried, thrusted, feinted left, backtracked, retracted and clarified as I really was writing all of that in real time, tracking down the facts as I went. Very Joycian, stream-of-consciousness of me, I'm sure you understand.)

So ... what's left to deal with? First, let's make sure you understand what started this whole fiasco -- the original Yahoo article, which contained the hideously misleading snippet:

Between 1995 and 2002, Canada cut its air pollution by 1.8 per cent while the United States achieved a cut of 45 per cent, says the report by Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

As we have already established, part of that claim was simply rubbish as the report eventually referenced dealt solely with Canadian pollution data. Neither of those two groups said anything about American data and, based on my phone conversation with one of their members, it seems I wasn't the first one contacting them, trying to make sense of this.

Next, I should apologize for not recognizing the Canadian groups Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Since it seemed (based on the Yahoo article) that they were playing fast and loose with the data, I made some snarky comments in their direction when, in fact, they were innocent victims of a badly-written article. So ... mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Having said that, however, I'm still a bit put off by Environmental Defence's Rick Smith, if the following is indeed true:

"In many ways George Bush's America is doing a much better job cleaning up its pollution than our own country," Rick Smith of Environmental Defence told a news conference.

If he really and truly said that, he's a bit of a dick, not only because the time frame in question covered the Clinton years more than the Bush years, but because he clearly didn't even take the time to check the data to find out how bogus it was. But I'm not going to spend a lot more time pursuing this angle.

Finally, I'm still a bit unclear on the discrepancy in the amount of air pollution reduction between Canada and the U.S. here. According to Environmental Defence's Jennifer Foulds:

The CEC numbers are:

(1) National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) Facilities (Canada) VS Toxic Release Inventory Facilities (TRI) (U.S.)

NPRI facilities are lagging behind TRI facilities in reducing air emissions

• From 1995 to 2002 NPRI facilities reported a decrease of 2% in air emissions vs. TRI facilities that reported a decrease of 45% (based on CEC’s Taking Stock core chemicals that match NPRI and TRI pollutants and reporting facilities over time).

• Taking Stock also shows that the same trend holds true for a more recent time period. From 1998- 2002 NPRI facilities increased their air emissions by 8% compared to a decrease of 21% for TRI facilities

which would seem to suggest that those two values aren't quite comparing the same thing so if someone wants to clarify that, that would be just delightful. In any event, if you read the whole table, you'll notice that there are numerous other categories where Canada is kicking the U.S.'s ass anyway. So there.

And, finally, this guy is still a dick but let's see if he finally decides to correct his bullshit or whether, like the mealy-mouthed Christian that he is, he continues to bear false witness. My money's on the false witness thing.

Um ... apparently I'm back on Prog Blog. Who knew?

For reasons that had nothing to do with PB.ca, I turned back on my RSS feed, only to find out that it had never been de-activated over there. Go figure. At the moment, I'm just too tired to worry about it one way or the other. Maybe tomorrow.

Canada v. Dover Board of Education.

It's gotta be embarrassing when you start letting foreigners beat up on your wingnuts.

AFTERSNARK: And follow the links at the bottom, particularly to this article where we learn how intelligent design contributes to academic freedom and a more robust exchange of ideas meant to help students develop intellectually:

In addition to the statement, students are told that their teachers will not answer any questions about intelligent design and if they, or their parents, have any questions they should contact Supt. Richard Nilsen, Asst. Supt. Michael Baksa or Joel Riedel, the high school principal.

Yeah, that kind of approach is sure to produce the next generation of world-class scientists, isn't it?

Air pollution, Weasel Boy and dumbfuckitude. Tying up the loose ends.

OK, barring any stunning new developments, I'm going to summarize what we've learned so far and move on. (Read the three previous installments to get up to speed.)

First, we've learned that this guy is a dumb fuck. How else can you describe someone who reads a single, highly implausible Yahoo article, accepts it as gospel without even following the link to read the actual report, then blogs about it from a position of overwhelming ignorance?

Recall that the original Yahoo article contained the following claim:

Between 1995 and 2002, Canada cut its air pollution by 1.8 per cent while the United States achieved a cut of 45 per cent, says the report by Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

However, if you follow the link at the bottom of the page to Pollution Watch, you immediately see that there is no reference whatsoever to any data to support the claim of a massive decrease in American air pollution -- that web site contains strictly Canadian data, so anyone with an ounce of sense would have been very reluctant to make sweeping claims based on that.

Only if one puts in a little effort does one learn that the American data actually came from here, and a careful examination shows how selective that claim is. Note that only the first category of that table, "On-site air emissions," shows that massive discrepancy in reduction of air pollution and, according to a member of Pollution Watch, those figures aren't even measuring the same thing. But keep reading the table.

The category of "On-site surface water discharges" shows a 49.9% decrease for Canada, with a 16% increase for the U.S. Man, are those losers pathetic. And keep reading, through the remaining categories, which seem to show Canada leading the way in almost every one of them, with a final value of "Total releases and transfers" for Canada of -8.7%, and for the U.S. of -6.8%

Well, how about that? I am so fucking humbled. And this is the data on which Weasel Boy based his blog entry, writing "Stupid Canada. Bunch of hosers."

That insult so does not need any final smackdown from me, does it? Fucking wanker. And you just know he's not going to retract a word of it, don't you?

Air pollution, Weasel Boy and dumbfuckitude. The conclusion.

(Go read the first two parts so that this makes sense.)

OK, here's the email I received from one Jennifer Foulds at Pollution Watch, which I might need some time to digest so anyone who's an expert here, feel free to jump in. From Ms. Foulds, explaining where those values came from:

The data comes from the Taking Stock report from the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC).

The CEC numbers are:

(1) National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) Facilities (Canada) VS Toxic Release Inventory Facilities (TRI) (U.S.)

NPRI facilities are lagging behind TRI facilities in reducing air emissions

• From 1995 to 2002 NPRI facilities reported a decrease of 2% in air emissions vs. TRI facilities that reported a decrease of 45% (based on CEC’s Taking Stock core chemicals that match NPRI and TRI pollutants and reporting facilities over time).

• Taking Stock also shows that the same trend holds true for a more recent time period. From 1998- 2002 NPRI facilities increased their air emissions by 8% compared to a decrease of 21% for TRI facilities

And here's the link to the report. Anyone want to translate it into English? It's been a long week and, frankly, it's your turn to do a little work. It sure does look like those values are comparing apples and oranges, doesn't it?

Air pollution, Weasel Boy and complete dumbfuckitude: Part 2.

Assuming you've read the first part of this diatribe, let's pick up where we left off and try to track down the authors of this infamous air pollution report. As a starting point, let's review the Yahoo article in question, which claims that Canadian air pollution dropped by 2 per cent (OK, let's just accept that for the sake of argument), while the American drop was a whopping 45 per cent!

If we take this claim at face value, we can, for the sake of argument, just accept the Canadian figure -- I don't even want to argue about it. Let's just accept it as accurate, since the real controversy is that 45 per cent -- that's the only figure I'm interested in. But if you read the Yahoo article to the end, you find the following data (in its entirety):

The report is available on the Internet at www.PollutionWatch.org. It lists the top 12 Canadian polluters with their total 2003 emissions:

-Inco Ltd., 368,624,879 kg.

-Alcan Inc., 288,311,262 kg.

-Ontario Power Generation, 248,537,673 kg.

-Nova Scotia Power Inc.174,404,618 kg.

-Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company Ltd.,168,783,694 kg.

-SaskPower,141,826,018 kg.

-Syncrude Canada Ltd., 120,699,098 kg.

-Transalta Utilities Corporation, 102,558,188 kg.

-New Brunswick Power Corp., 100,265,046 kg.

-Noranda Inc., 84,698,864 kg.

-Aluminerie de Becancour Inc. 67,937,464 kg.

-EnCana Corporation,64,440,962 kg

Well, I'm sure that's all wonderful and everything but why list only the Canadian data? If I'm willing to accept the Canadian figures, then this information doesn't do me any good. It's the American claim that's so stunning that it needs solid evidence to back it up. And yet, with respect to data from that side of the border ... nothing. How odd.

All right, so we're going to have to work for this. Let's follow the bouncing links over to Pollution Watch, where we find, on the home page ... the same list of Canadian polluters! So where's the American data?!?! What the hell is going on here?

But wait ... what's that in the top-left corner of the home page? Why, two links, one to "Environmental Defence", and the other to the "Canadian Environmental Law Association." Sound familiar? They should. From the Yahoo article:

Between 1995 and 2002, Canada cut its air pollution by 1.8 per cent while the United States achieved a cut of 45 per cent, says the report by Environmental Defence and the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

So ... a report is written by two organizations, who post only selected (Canadian-only) data at a third web page, which just happens to have prominent front-page links back to those same two organizations. Are you getting nauseous yet?

This is definitely getting interesting, isn't it? More to come. Count on it.

WHOOPS: I just noticed this at the bottom of the Pollution Watch web page:

PollutionWatch is a collaborative project of Environmental Defence, the Canadian Environmental Law Association.

Well, that's kind of intriguing since the Yahoo article kind of suggested that these were separate groups, yet it sure looks like they're tightly coupled, doesn't it? I have no idea where this is going, but I'm sure it will be quite the ride.

Once again, don't change that channel. (But feel free to e-mail me any tidbits you think might be informative here.)

SLIGHTLY TARDY OBSERVATION: From a cursory examination, the "report" at Pollution Watch refers to Canadian companies only. There is, as far as I can see, nothing regarding the data to support the claim that American air pollution dropped 45 per cent between 1995 and 2002. That part of the claim appears to be entirely fictitious -- I see nothing at Pollution Watch anywhere that refers to an alleged decrease in air pollution in the United States.

Help, anyone? Am I just missing it?

EVEN MORE: There's a comments section for that Yahoo article -- perhaps someone there can clarify this.

SUPER BREAKING NEWS!!!! I just now got off the phone with a charming lady at Pollution Watch, who assured me that the claim of 45 per cent reduction in American air pollution was not from them, despite the wording in the Yahoo article. She is e-mail