See, this is how the REALITY-BASED community works.

1995:

Nearly everyone accepts that sending American troops for ground combat in Bosnia is a nonstarter. There is no support for this idea among the public or in Congress. American casualties undoubtedly would be high -- far higher than anyone could justify based on our interests

The end result:

By 1999, however, American and NATO troops were still in place as peacekeepers, enforcing an uneasy settlement that stabilized war-torn Bosnia with no American casualties. Bosnia was beginning to recover economically, and the horrible atrocities and ethnic cleansing in the area had ended.

2002:

I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.

Do I really need to finish this?

What photos? Oh ... THOSE photos.

"No. Absolutely not. It's out of the question to release any more pictures of the atrocities that took place at Abu Ghraib. There's no value to the public, it's entirely inappropriate, it would serve no useful purpose, it's nothing more than satisfying the prurient interests of a bunch of sadistic voyeurs, it would almost certainly compromise national security and ... hey, look! Pictures!"

Almost time for a new puzzle?

Well, no new puzzle until we deal with the last one.

Say ... why didn't I think of that?

Shorter Weasel Boy: None of this would even be a problem if everyone just agreed with my religious beliefs.

Wolf Blitzer: sleazy media whore.

Just read it, then wonder why this hack still has a job. Oh, right ... he works for CNN.

AFTERSNARK: And speaking of CNN hacks ...

"Oops, I didn't actually read that far."

Oh, man, that's gotta be embarrassing.

When exactly did ideology turn into misogyny?

Once upon a time, bloviating right-wing talk show host and chickenhawk, fat-ass drug addict Rush Limbaugh caused a bit of stink when:

On his TV show, early in the Clinton administration, Limbaugh put up a picture of Socks, the White House cat, and asked, "Did you know there's a White House dog?" Then he put up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, who was 13 years old at the time and as far as I know had never done any harm to anyone.

Even Limbaugh's regular audience managed to rouse themselves from their collective stupor to suggest that maybe this was just a little cruel and over the top. But, really, it shouldn't have come as any surprise since it was a natural extension of Limbaugh's habit of (metaphorically) beating up on women.

Like many of the right-wing, male-run political blogs, Limbaugh knows his audience. That would be, for the most part, the angry white male contingent who is pissed off at just about everything and, frankly, gets a kick out of seeing women slapped around once in a while.

(When I refer to men who get their jollies from "slapping women around", I am, of course, speaking metaphorically. Well, OK, with the exception of this guy, of course. And ... um ... OK, this guy, too. And, well, sure, there's this guy, but we're sure that really was an aberration. Really.)

In any event, it would seem that the conservative male's disdain of women goes eerily beyond just ideological differences. It's one thing for someone like Limbaugh to criticize Hillary Clinton politically; it's quite another to see the year-after-year venomous attacks that seem completely out of proportion to simple political disagreements.

But let's admit it, Limbaugh knows his audience, and he knows what they want. They want to see those uppity women get their comeuppance, which goes a long way to explaining the obvious delight with which "Angry" has been trashing anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan over here.

One doesn't visit Angry's site for a nuanced, thoughtful discussion of the issues regarding Sheehan. Rather, one visits Angry's site to see that treasonous, hypocritical bitch get her life torn apart and her family's life pried open for the pure entertainment value. Quite simply, one visits Angry's site to see Sheehan get slapped around.

And is it all about politics or viewpoints? Apparently not, as Angry's latest post brags about having (Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay!) bested Wil Wheaton in the war of the blogs. So, finally, this is what it was all about for Angry. Blog hits. Web site traffic. Gleefully trashing Sheehan day after day so he could point at the numbers and puff out his chest a little bit further.

Rush Limbaugh would be so proud. And one wonders, if Angry is male and married, whether his wife ever has to explain, in a quiet voice to the other members of her bridge club that, "Oh, it's nothing, I just fell down."

DISCLAIMER: Since there is no indication at Angry's site, I'm just assuming that Angry is, in fact, male. The thought that someone this misogynistic might be a woman is just a bit too creepy for me to handle at the moment.

You want to screw with NAFTA? OK, let's screw with NAFTA.

If the Canadian government really wants to play hardball with the U.S. in terms of the softwood lumber dispute, forget about slapping sanctions on incoming goods. Instead, why not look at what Canada is currently exporting to the U.S. under NAFTA that the U.S. really, really wants. And cut them off.

Speaking from the position of someone who has done minimal research, what about water? Is water currently covered under NAFTA? Are we shipping it south? And, if so, why not just turn off the tap for a while?

I'm hoping those far more in the know can comment on this. Take it away ...

Why church-state separation is generally a good idea.

Because if you're not careful, this is the sort of shit that can happen.

When ideology trumps reality, it's not a pretty sight.

From over at Terminally Boneheaded in the Great White North, we have "Angry" getting an absolute woody without the use of a 1-900 number:

e-Darwinism: Stupidity costs a liberal his job

Who sends poison pen letters using his work address? A guy too stupid to hold a job, apparently...

Oh man, that's too funny. I mean, just how stupid do you have to be? For crying out loud, get yourself a Yahoo email account for that sort of thing...

Yeah, spreading a message of vulgar intolerance and hate via your employer's e-mail system -- that's pretty damned stupid, isn't it?

Now, doing it on the air ... well, that's different.

Angry's new motto: "Almost as witty as Monte Solberg."

Yesterday's statements are inoperative -- part 2.

There's a new meme running loose in the right-wing blogosphere, that being that, given that some of Cindy Sheehan's family members have allegedly criticized her public anti-war stance, she clearly has no credibility and can safely be ignored as a complete crackpot.

Yes, the new meme takes the position that, if those close to you suddenly start edging away, well, that can only mean that you are a raving lunatic for whom scorn and derision are the only appropriate responses.

How soon the right wing forgets.

It seems like only yesterday that previously-loyal Bush foot-soldiers were fleeing the camp, painting a less-than-flattering picture of his Holy Chimpiness. There was John DiIulio, whose career was encapsulated delightfully here:

Boy is Jesus freak and loves governor. Boy helps governor get elected president. Boy works for the president. Boy quits in disgust. Boy vents to a reporter, calling his former employers "Mayberry Machiavellis". White House snaps its fingers. Kneecaps are broken. Boy recants and issues bizarre apology.

Apparently, though, having a loved one turn on you was in no way interpreted as a denunciation of your policies, at least if you're George Bush. No, the proper response was to circle the wagons and attack DiIulio as a traitorous, disloyal scoundrel out for political gain. How convenient.

Then there was Richard A. Clarke who, according to his Wikipedia entry, "provided national security advice to four U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, consulting on issues of intelligence and terrorism, from 1973 to 2003." Yow ... those are some pretty serious street creds, aren't they? So when Clarke took the Bush administration to task for their incompetence related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the denizens of right-wing Wankerville stood behind Clarke, accepting that this selfless act of principle could only mean that the Bush administration really screwed the pooch on that one.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA! Just kidding, of course.

Seriously, again from Wikipedia:

After Clarke appeared before the 911 Commission, his detractors attacked his credibility, suggesting that he was too partisan a figure, and charging that he exaggerated perceived failures in the Bush Administration' counter terrorism policies while exculpating the former Clinton administration from its perceived shortcomings. According to Knight-Ridder, the White House tried to discredit Clarke in a move described as "shooting the messenger." New York Times reporter Paul Krugman was more blunt, calling the attacks on Clarke "a campaign of character assassination."

And who can forget Republican Ohio senator George Voinovich, who apparently found some principle that no one in the Bush administration was using to criticize the selection of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.:

Voinovich was outspoken Thursday in his opposition to Bolton's nomination, suggesting it might not pass the full Senate, where it needs a simple majority of 51 for approval.

He said he plans to vote against the undersecretary of state for arms control and would encourage other senators to do likewise.

"I have every faith in my colleagues," Voinovich said. "No one's really excited about him going to the United Nations."

"It is my opinion that John Bolton is the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be," said Voinovich, a former Ohio governor.

Not surprisingly, Voinovich's criticism of Bolton was used only as evidence that some Republicans should keep their freakin' mouths shut.

So there you have the new rules for discourse in the right-wing blogosphere. If those close to liberals turn their backs on them, it clearly means that those liberals are loony wingnuts. If the same happens for conservatives, well, Jesus, it just proves what sort of disloyal sleazebags some people can be. I mean, really.

The right-wing blogosphere. Their motto: "We have rhetorical principles. And if you don't like them, well, we have others."

Yesterday's statements are inoperative -- part 1.

Apparently, Cindy Sheehan is a bad mother because it's sleazy and classless to exploit the dead for political purposes.

Insert punchline here.

Please tell me you've already thought of this.

I'm sure I can't be the only one who thinks it's just a bit surreal for the U.S. government to, on the one hand, demand that Canada co-operate in prosecuting Canadian Marc Emery while, simultaneously, telling Canada to suck it in terms of the softwood lumber dispute.

Is anyone up on Parliament Hill connecting these two issues? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Cindy Sheehan: Who you gonna believe?

Media Matters? Or this idiot? Tough choice. Grapple, grapple ...

Wait, wait ... here's a good one ...

What's the difference between Cindy Sheehan and Osama bin Laden? George Bush knows where Cindy Sheehan is.

Or how about: According to the right-wing wankerhood, one's an evil, homicidal terrorist that hates America, is a threat to national security and is responsible for the deaths of countless U.S. military personnel overseas. The other's an Arab.

I got a million of 'em, really. I'm here till Thursday. Try the veal.

Woodward claims Cheney to run in '08.

Well, at least he won't need the sock puppet anymore.

One down, about 1,819 grieving mothers to go.

And after all the keyboard-wielding, right-wing patriots finish smearing and reviling grieving mother Cindy Sheehan, I guess they can start on this treasonous, lying, America-hating bitch next.

It will, of course, take a while since, as we all know, insulting and denigrating grief-stricken mothers is hard work.

Deep thought, right-wing style.

So, it's been a couple of days since Wizbang blogger "Jay Tea" embarrassed his immediate family by whining about how, no matter how hard he rubbed it, he just couldn't seem to find any thoughtful, scholarly left-wing writing out there in the blogosphere. So let's check in on Jay this morning and see how all of the advice he got in the meantime has transformed his work:

Stardate, Aug 11, 2005:

Last week Paul took me to task for my piece lambasting Wal-Mart over a sewage hookup. And when confronted with what he and numerous commenters said, I reluctantly had to admit I had, indeed, been talking out of my ass. I'd built my entire piece on a single fact that had been utterly wrong. I ate so much crow I'm still coughing up feathers.

Super. Wal-Mart, sewers and talking out of his ass. Suddenly, my piece on the recent international decision against the United States on the softwood lumber dispute seems so ... so ... puerile.

WizBangBlog. Their new motto: "Approaching scholarly, intellectual right-wing discussion very slowly and quietly from downwind, so as not to frighten it off."

This side of the border, we call that being a "sore loser."

Well, colour me shocked. Apparently, the U.S. thinks about as much of NAFTA as they do of all of the other international treaties they've taken a steaming dump on lately:

U.S. brushes off softwood ruling

Canada scored what should be a knockout legal victory in the softwood dispute Wednesday, but the U.S. government quickly dismissed the unanimous NAFTA ruling as irrelevant, a stalemate that observers warn could undermine respect for the 11-year-old trade deal.

The U.S. lumber lobby, which started the timber battle in 2001, responded to the NAFTA judgment by calling the trade treaty's dispute resolution process “constitutionally defective.”

I'm guessing that dismissing something you don't like as "constitutionally defective" has the same rhetorical heft as White House Press Lizard Scott McClellan telling you that he "doesn't agree with your characterization. Next."

And what do you do when you don't like the contract you signed? Oh ... that's what you do:

The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports announced it's preparing a constitutional challenge to try and scrap this section of the North American free-trade agreement.

I can see the analogies now:

"Well, I've decided that I don't like this mortgage I signed with you folks last year, so I was thinking of cancelling parts of it. Now, I'd still get to live in the house but, the part where I have to keep paying you every month? I'm not so crazy about that part."

And that "sore loser" part:

NAFTA panels have three times concluded that the United States failed to prove that Canadian softwood poses a material threat of injury to U.S. producers.

Under trade rules, if Washington can't prove Canadian timber injures or threatens to injure U.S. producers, it is obliged to scrap the duties on Canadian lumber imports.

Wednesday's decision should end the dispute immediately.

But the United States said the extraordinary challenge committee ruling was inconsequential and that it had no intention of scrapping the duty on Canadian softwood that can exceed 20 per cent or refunding the $5-billion in levies collected over the past few years.

“We are, of course, disappointed with the [NAFTA panel's] decision, but it will have no impact on the anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders,” said Neena Moorjani, spokeswoman for U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman.

Mercifully, the Canadians involved in the process are taking a pragmatic, realistic attitude:

Ottawa said it believes the United States is now obliged under international law to scrap the softwood duties and refund the levies collected since 2002. “The world is watching,” International Trade Minister Jim Peterson said.

And, of course, your unintentional hilarity for the morning:

“For the U.S. government to deny the effect of this process weakens respect for the NAFTA and for the rule of law internationally, something the U.S. espouses when it suits its purposes,” said trade lawyer Lawrence Herman of Cassels Brock in Toronto.

And, as we all know, it there's one thing you can take to the bank, it's the U.S.'s respect for international law.

Oh, those fighting Young Republicans.

From a recent episode of "Hardball" (and has there ever been a TV show more laughingly misnamed?), we have the Young America's Foundation's Jason Mattera:

Chris: Would you like to serve in this war?
Jason: I'm fighting the battle for ideas...

I'm guessing that "I'm fighting the battle for ideas" is the new "I have other priorities." Or perhaps, "Yes, I really am such a gutless coward, I just wet myself thinking about it."

I suspect there's a whole bunch of folks overseas who'd rather be fighting the battle for ideas. Well, at least, the ones who aren't dead.

AFTERSNARK: Dear Angry: Are we poor deluded liberals allowed to wonder why a strapping hunk of manhood like Jason Mattera prefers the bravery of being out of range? Or is that, in your opinion, just another tacky, sleazy, classless, ad hominem attack on all those shining conservative principles?

Just asking.

First, you think it just HAS to be a sick joke ...

This is what they must mean when they talk about "the death of outrage."

I guess this represents bad news for SOMEONE.

(CC News) In more bad news from the war-torn country of Iraq, the U.S. military reported the deaths of five more U.S. service members, four of whom were killed when insurgents attacked their patrol Tuesday night.

Upon hearing the news, a visibly angry President George Bush responded, "Oh, Christ! Does this mean I'm going to have more pissed off mothers bitching at me? Jesus, you'd think those whiners had lost a family member or something."

In related news, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, being told of the latest casualties, also made it clear he didn't give a shit either.

Hands up, everyone who saw THIS coming.

Uh oh ...

A conservative group in Virginia said Tuesday it was withdrawing its support for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' confirmation because of his work helping overturn a Colorado referendum on gays...

Eugene Delgaudio, the president of the group, said in an interview that he hopes his stance will prod others.

"I know that others feel the same way. I know they believe as I do. They're just not going to act," the 50-year-old Northern Virginia man said. "But once I've done it, then they can't claim that no one's opposing Roberts."

"We can't take our limited resources and put it toward a candidate who is not a strict constructionist when we were told he is," Delgaudio said.

Sorry ... what was all that about those infuriating liberal "litmus tests" again?

If the irony was any thicker, I could cut off a piece and beat you to death with it.

Remember this idiot who, for the life of him, couldn't find any really scholarly, thoughtful left-wing blogs?

This would be someone who writes for the same blog that inspired this.

Yes, take the time and just savour the irony. Mmmmmmmm ... irony.

BY THE WAY ... If you read far enough, you'll eventually notice that the Wizbang crowd claim that the posting that inspired all of that beatdown was, in fact, just an April Fools joke. The sad thing about that claim is that the aforementioned Paul had been posting anti-evolutionary idiocy for so long that, apparently, no one could tell the difference.

That's just plain sad. (Not to mention the fact that I don't buy the April Fools excuse for a minute. But that's just me.)

One of these things is not like the other.

Better buckle up for the inevitable bogus equivalence, starting here:

Tough opponent wants Clinton's seat

Republicans hope ex-prosecutor can ruin Democrat's '08 White House bid

Hillary Clinton may face a tough re-election fight from a woman who has shown she can stand the political heat: Jeanine Pirro won her last re-election as district attorney as her husband was serving 11 months in federal prison for tax fraud.

Oooooh ... having a husband who went to prison for tax fraud -- that's generally not a promising sign for an ex-prosecutor, is it?

But then, Ms. Clinton, New York's junior U.S. senator, has withstood her own firestorm over a cheating, scandal-ridden spouse.

Apparently, though, it's morally equivalent to having a husband who played around on you and didn't go to jail. Who knew? And just in case you didn't catch that the first time, well, reporter Shawn McCarthy is going to slap you upside the head with it a few more times:

The ethical problems of their respective husbands, Albert Pirro and former president Bill Clinton, will lurk in the background, although neither camp is expected to seek political points by attacking the spouse...

The parallels between the incumbent and her presumptive challenger don't stop with scandalous spouses.

Sorry, what was the deal with Pirro's husband again? Oh, right ...

In 2001, Mr. Pirro, then a prominent real-estate lawyer who was kept on retainer by Donald Trump, went to jail for hiding $1-million (U.S.) in income on his tax returns by claiming as business expenses such personal luxuries as his $123,000 Ferrari, his wife's Mercedes-Benz and veterinary bills for the couple's pet potbellied pigs.

Whew. What luck it didn't involve, like, a blow job or anything. I mean, the American public won't stand for that sort of thing. Good thing that Pirro had no idea, I say, had no idea of what was going on:

Ms. Pirro denied any knowledge of the fraud and was not prosecuted, although she had signed the tax returns.

OK, it's all good, then. Carry on.

One of our own is famous!

Oooooh ... can i get me some of that?

"The Internet is on-demand. I don't think it's realistic any more in our lives to expect someone to tune in to the news at 6 and to watch movies at 9," Sean McDonald said.

The 25 year-old runs his own news blog called trickledowntruth.ca in his spare time.

Spare time ... yeah, can I get me some of that as well?

Is there a legal minimum for "stupid"?

Yes, I know it's not polite to generalize but, holy fuck, just how stupid do you have to be to be a Republican? Apparently, about this stupid.

Matt Drudge and the smearing of Cindy Sheehan.

Well, you knew it was only a matter of time until the right-wing smear campaign against anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, and who better to start the despicably dishonest festivities than everyone's favorite conservative bottom feeder, Matt Drudge:

PROTESTING SOLDIER MOM CHANGED STORY ON BUSH

Mon Aug 08 2005 10:11:07 ET

The mother of a fallen U.S. soldier who is holding a roadside peace vigil near President Bush's ranch -- has dramatically changed her account about what happened when she met the commander-in-chief last summer!

Cindy Sheehan, 48, of Vacaville, Calif., who last year praised Bush for bringing her family the "gift of happiness," took to the nation's TV outlets this weekend to declare how Bush "killed an indispensable part of our family and humanity."

CINDY 2004

THE REPORTER of Vacaville, CA published an account of Cindy Sheehan's visit with the president at Fort Lewis near Seattle on June 24, 2004:

"'I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis,' Cindy said after their meeting. 'I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith.'

"The meeting didn't last long, but in their time with Bush, Cindy spoke about Casey and asked the president to make her son's sacrifice count for something. They also spoke of their faith.

"The trip had one benefit that none of the Sheehans expected.

"For a moment, life returned to the way it was before Casey died. They laughed, joked and bickered playfully as they briefly toured Seattle.

For the first time in 11 weeks, they felt whole again.

"'That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together,' Cindy said."

Wow, that Cindy ... what a two-faced, opportunistic bitch. Or she would have been, except for (emphasis added):

Her role in that battle exploded Monday morning, when Matt Drudge - the infamous commentator behind the popular Drudge Report, a right-leaning online news site - accused Sheehan of changing her tune to serve political purposes.

Drudge's story, headlined "Protesting Soldier Mom Changed Story on Bush," was posted in the highest slot on the Web site that receives more than 5 million visits per day. It drew quotes from a Sheehan interview published June 24, 2004, in The Reporter, suddenly dragging the newspaper into the fray.

That story, by staff writer David Henson, was an account of Sheehan's visit with the president in Seattle.

In Henson's story, Sheehan admitted she and her husband, Patrick, debated before the meeting whether to ask pointed questions about the war and whether to vent their frustration over their son's sacrifice. Ultimately, the couple chose not to publicly criticize Bush in the meeting or shortly after...

Sheehan also said the trip to Seattle helped connect her family to others that had lost a son or daughter in Iraq. Sheehan said sharing their story with those families was rewarding, as was the time she got to spend with her own family.

"That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together," she said in the story.

Drudge included that quote in his Monday morning report, but didn't explain that it referred to sharing time with her family, not the president...

Sheehan, in a press release distributed Monday by the Institute for Public Accuracy, explained she was "still in shock" during her 2004 meeting with the president.

"We had decided not to criticize the president then because during that meeting he assured us 'this is not political.' And I believed him," Sheehan wrote. "Then, during the Republican National Convention, he exploited those meetings to justify what he was doing. It's now clear to me that what I had feared is true: Bush lied us into war, and Casey, more than 1,800 other Americans and thousands and thousands of Iraqis are dead because of what he did."

Matt Drudge: a douchebag for sleazy, right-wing hackery.

AND THERE'S MORE, as Editor & Publisher launches into Drudge as well.

OH, GEEZ: And Moronic in the Great White North leaps into the fray with both feet stuffed firmly in mouth. Isn't that adorable? He's linking to Drudge, just like eight gazillion other right-wing wankers. And that, boys and girls, is how an echo chamber works. Any questions?

Sorry ... how's that again?

Um ... there's this:

"Spending time outside of Washington always gives the president a fresh perspective of what's on the minds of the American people," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Friday. "It's a time, really, for him to shed the coat and tie and meet with folks out in the heartland and hear what's on their minds."

And then this:

Bush To Arrest Grieving Mother For Protesting

"In the early afternoon, we got word that if we were still there by Thursday, we were going to be deemed a 'security threat' to the president... If we don’t leave on Thursday, we could be arrested." -- Grieving mother Cindy Sheehan.

Must ... process ... conflicting information ... YEEEEARRRGGGGHHH!

AFTERSNARK: Heh.

How to embarrass yourself utterly in one easy step.

This is what happens when conservative bloggers try to get clever, and end up over-reaching:

But where are the thinkers of the left? Where are the serious essayists, the scholars, the contemplators who would provide balance to the sheer intellectual power of the above? ...

I went looking through the big liberal blogs, and was left wanting. Atrios? Nope. Eschaton? Nope.

Identifying the overwhelming stupidity in the above prose is left as an exercise for the reader.

Some people just know how to do snark.

Read it all. Right down to the bottom.

Really, really, really stupid in the Great White North.

And now, to fulfill our legal requirements for minimum Canadian content (Bryan Adams retrospective to follow shortly), we will set our sights ever so slightly eastward, where one "Angry in T.O." (can I call you "Angry"?), in a posting entitled "Death to the Twins", shows that Canadians will take a backseat to no one when it comes to breathtaking, eye-rolling moronicity.

Angry gives himself an atomic wedgie over the common left-wing refrain that, if Admiral Bunnypants is really that convinced of the nobility of war and the sacrifice involved therein, why aren't his military-age daughters (you know, Jenna and not-Jenna) there on the front lines? A good question, and one which Angry proceeds to mutilate badly in more ways than are healthy.

Angry starts off really, really badly by screwing the rhetorical pooch in two big ways in just the four words of the title: "DEATH TO THE TWINS." In the first place, no one that I'm aware of is advocating simply killing twins Jenna and Barbara (or, as they're known to local Pennsylvania Ave. liquor stores, J&B).

Rather, the suggestion is simply that both young ladies should, if conservatives want to be consistent, be prepared to enlist and simply put their alcohol-soaked bodies in harm's way like all other military personnel. This is a subtle (OK, not that subtle at all) distinction from saying they should simply be killed but, apparently, Angry doesn't do nuance very well. Sadly, it gets worse.

Angry seems to think this is all about "the twins." Well, no. Here in the stratified regions of intellectual discourse, we liberals would refer to the girls as "an example." Left wingers are not obsessed exclusively with getting the Bush daughters out of their halter tops and into some khakis. It's just that, what with Daddy Warhead being such a big fan of the nobility of military service, his daughters represent the most obvious example of right-wing hypocrisy. See how that works? Geez, how dense can one person be?

And as for the most amusing example of rhetorical stupidity, well, it would be a challenge to top this part:

... I'm feeling lazy, so I'm just going to quote Christopher Hitchens:

Further on in the same portentous article, we encounter one Andrew Bacevich, a "professor of international relations at Boston University and a retired Army officer." What could be more impressive? This expert delivers himself of the opinion that, "If this is such a great cause, let us see one of the Bush daughters in uniform." Let me do a brief thought experiment here. Do I know a single anti-war person who would be more persuaded if one of the Bush girls joined up? Do you? Can you imagine what would be said about such a cheap emotional stunt?

To which one, after deep consideration, can properly respond: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Lord.

Angry seems to think that, when liberals suggest conservatives send their own loved ones into battle, they're looking for role models. Let me disabuse him of this idiocy.

If Angry were to ask me to jump off of a cliff, I'm sure I'd demur, what with there not being an overwhelming upside to that prospect. However, he seems to think that if he offered to jump first, then, hey, I'd be all over that idea. In a word, fuckno. In my mind, jumping off a cliff is, inherently, a bad idea and having Angry do it first doesn't change the situational dynamics a whole lot.

Similarly, when liberals are prodding conservatives to get their cowardly, doughy asses into uniform, they're not looking for freakin' role models. They're suggesting that, if right-wing wankers love war so much, they might want to avail themselves of the opportunity to see it up close and personal, if you know what I mean, and not have everyone else do the fighting and dying for them.

And, sadly, just when you think Angry has plumbed the depths of rhetorical stupidity, well, buckle up:

Maybe these people would be happier to have either of these guys as president, having suffered the loss of a child in war:

Stalin's son was taken prisoner by the Nazi invaders (and never exchanged), and Mao's son was killed in the war that established the present state of North Korea.

Ah. So if you've taken a principled stand against the illegal invasion of an impoverished, defenseless nation, well, then you're clearly a big fan of mass murderers Josef Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. I could swear I've seen this kind of argument before. But where ... where ... Oh, right.

Here.

Angry in the Great White North. His motto: "Making Kate McMillan look like an intellectual."

AFTERSNARK: And speaking of that worthless cocksucker Christopher Hitchens, well ...

George Bush: fair and balanced?

Apparently, Commander Chimpy is a big fan of the notion of presenting both sides of the argument, of academic fairness, of showing students all the scientific alternatives:

President Bush said Monday he believes schools should discuss "intelligent design" alongside evolution when teaching students about the creation of life...

"I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought," Bush said. "You're asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes."

Sadly, that open-minded academic fairness appears to have its limits:

The Administration’s political interference with science has led to misleading statements by the President, inaccurate responses to Congress, altered web sites, suppressed agency reports, erroneous international communications, and the gagging of scientists. The subjects involved span a broad range, but they share a common attribute: the beneficiaries of the scientific distortions are important supporters of the President, including social conservatives and powerful industry groups.

George Bush: champion of situational academics.

One of these things is not like the others.

Uh oh ... this is an ominous portent.

Sometimes, parody just writes itself.

Right-wing nutbar Charles Krauthammer:

“To teach [intelligent design] as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of a religious authority."

Yeah, and you wouldn't want to give that impression, would you?

Just when you thought the Wall Street Journal couldn't be any bigger whores ...

you get this. Words fail me, truly.

Test your right-wing quotient.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

BREAKING NEWS! New York Times takes a stand on something!

Over here, the New York Times (New motto: "Judith? Judith who?") takes an astonishing leap into actually having an opinion on something:

A battle is brewing over whether the Bush administration is wrongly holding back information on Judge John Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court nominee. The short answer is: yes.

Well, fuck me. Can a blue moon and two-headed calves be far behind?

Phrases that really bug me -- part deux.

Over here, Five of Five has a nifty little list of really grating phrases, to which I will add my own selection of utterances I would like to see condemned to some particularly remote corner of hell.

"At this time ... " OK, to be fair, that's not as annoying as "At this point in time ...". But then there's "At this particular point in time," which makes one long ever so briefly for the possibility of capital punishment.

"I appreciate that question." Typically uttered by a spokesperson who most certainly does not appreciate it and, if he could, would arrange to have you knee-capped by two large individuals named Guido and Lorenzo but, to his chagrin, that's still against the law in some places.

"For your convenience ...", generally followed by something like, "... this branch has been closed. You can now do all your banking at our other branch, five blocks away." And this is for my convenience how exactly?

"For the record ..." As if everything up to this point was just some good-natured bantering but we're getting serious now so I want to make sure everyone listening takes note of this. Note to speaker: Do you really think anything you say is of such import that someone suddenly needs to be warned to turn on their recorder, so that the next few words that come out of your mouth can be transcribed accurately for posterity or the inevitable time capsule? Really ... get over yourself. All the rest of us have.

"... a high rate of speed ..." Don't make me have to explain this, OK?

MORE IRRITATIONS:

"Let me be perfectly clear." Well, I'm glad you warned me up front, I was expecting the usual ambiguous, dissembling incoherency. Glad we got that out of the way.

"Now, CC ... can I call you CC?" No, you can call me sir, you presumptuous, snot-nosed, little putz.

Your turn.

Your weekend brain teaser.

Now open for business.

There's an old puzzle that asks, if two pirates have a stash of treasure they want to divvy up, how can they do it so that each pirate is satisfied with his "half"? The answer is obvious -- one pirate divides the booty into two piles, and the other gets to pick which pile he wants.

Note that this, of course, doesn't guarantee that the two piles of swag will have exactly the same value. All it guarantees is that each of the two pirates should be satisfied with his share and neither has any right to complain after the division is over. But how well does this generalize to more than two people?

Imagine you have a group of children and a chocolate cake, and they want to divide the cake "evenly" amongst themselves. How can this be done so that, after all portions are allocated, everyone is satisfied with their slice? You can assume the existence of an extremely sharp knife that can make arbitrarily precise cuts if you need to.

(And, knowing my readership, no, the children are not allowed to murder each other to simplify the puzzle.)

SOLUTION: I think it's time to put all of us out of our collective miseries, so here's the solution. Note very carefully two things about this solution: 1) it works for an arbitrary number of children, and 2) it does not (as I stressed above) guarantee that every piece of cake is identical (that is simply impossible to attain), but it does guarantee that, once the cutting and allocation is done, no child has cause for complaint. Here goes.

Child 1 cuts a slice that he would allegedly be happy with. One at a time, every other child inspects the piece and, if they have no problem, approves it. Note how, regardless of the size of that piece, if all of the other children have no quarrel with that slice, that first child will get to keep it and everyone will be satisfied with it.

On the other hand, if, while the other children are examining the slice, any of them thinks that slice is unfairly large, they can trim however narrow a slice off of it they want and return that slice to the cake BUT ... that's their slice now. That is, the child who trimmed the slice is now forced to take ownership of that slice, and the remaining children still get to inspect that smaller slice the same way they did above. At the end of the inspection period for that slice, whoever has ownership of that piece gets to keep it.

Start all over again with slightly less cake and one fewer child.

Why this works, and can't be "gamed" by any child, is left as an exercise for the reader.

Well, now, there's a bonus.

Hot diggety -- James Wolcott laying a smackdown on both creation science and Charles Krauthammer. That's what we in the biz call a "two-fer."

Hmmmm ... this sounds vaguely familiar ...

From this morning's Mop and Pail:

Canadian authorities are alarmed about a shocking rise in seizures of smuggled stun guns, even as U.S. manufacturers are stepping up their campaigns to sell the weapons to American civilians.

Fifty-nine Black Cobra model stun guns were found hidden in the body panels of a sport-utility vehicle at the Alberta border recently, pushing to 173 the number of stun guns seized by border guards so far in 2005...

The weapons, which are meant to disable victims by zapping them with non-lethal-but-powerful electric shocks, are banned from civilian use in Canada...

A 22-year-old Florida man now faces criminal charges in connection with the Alberta discovery, the largest such seizure in recent memory.

So ... what we have is a foreign citizen, attempting to supply goods to Canada which, while legal in his own country, are ever so illegal here.

Where have I heard this story before?

Ah ... it's that "Bush" thing that makes all the difference, is it?

(CC News, Oct 17, 2002) In a chilling demonstration that President George W. Bush's "War on Drugs" would play no favourites, Noelle Bush, the daughter of Florida governor Jeb Bush and niece of the president, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for being found in possession of crack cocaine while she was already in a drug rehab center for previous drug-related offenses.

A visibly angry Jeb, who had already publicly accused drug users of aiding terrorists, leveled stinging criticism at his daughter, fuming:

"Every parent of a child with an addiction understands that the long road to recovery is never easy and that there are numerous challenges along the way.

"This is a very difficult time for all of us ... and I pray every day our beautiful daughter will once again know a life free from the horrors of substance abuse."

Judge Reginald Whitehead was similarly furious and unforgiving of the multiple offender, lashing out at her from the bench with, "You should be disappointed that you let yourself down."

Even the president was quick to emphasize that no one in the legal system was playing favourites. "Well," said George Bush, "I think it sends a clear and disambiguous message that no one is aboard the law here. Even though she's my niece, she's going to jail for 10 days. That's a lot more than just a week, right?"

Maybe it's just as well he's dead so he's not here to see this.

From CNN:

The angry mother of a fallen U.S. soldier staged a protest near President Bush's ranch Saturday, demanding an accounting from Bush of how he has conducted the war in Iraq.

Supported by more than 50 demonstrators who chanted, "W. killed her son!" Cindy Sheehan told reporters: "I want to ask the president, 'Why did you kill my son? What did my son die for?"'...

The group marched about a half-mile before local law enforcement officials stopped them at a bend in the road, still four to five miles from the ranch's entrance. Capt. Kenneth Vanek of the McLennan County Sheriff's Office said the group was stopped because some marchers ignored instructions to walk in the ditch beside the road, not on the road.

The Bush administration: supporting the troops one "Get your sorry ass into that ditch, lady!" at a time.

Nice little falafel stand you got there ...

... be a shame if anything happened to it.

Open thread.

Make yourself useful.

Death becomes him. (Or, how to destroy Bob Novak once and for all.)

In the midst of all of the gleeful giddiness over Robert "A Douchebag for Liberty" Novak's recent meltdown on CNN, I thought I'd try a slightly different spin. Rather than obsess over what Novak did, I think it would be more amusing to suggest what to do, and that is to destroy Novak's journalistic career utterly, totally and completely. (So I'm a prick. So sue me.)

As most careful observers have already noticed, Novak has managed to stagger along as a journalist only because he has steadfastly refused to discuss (at least until recently) anything whatsoever to do with the Valerie Plame case. Allegedly, this has been on the advice of counsel or some such bullshit story like that. Novak even made it clear that, if he was involved in a political discussion and anyone even asked him about "Plamegate", he would walk off the set.

Well, geez, how much more of a freakin' gift do you people need?

The obvious strategy is that every Democrat, every liberal, every left-winger who gets on a show with Novak should, the very instant they get a chance to speak, ask Novak to explain his part in Plamegate. No matter the topic, it should be Plamegate, 24/7. If Novak is true to his word (and it's hard to see how he could handle this any other way), he'd have no choice but to take a powder.

And it's not like Democrats would even have to deviously spring this on Novak without any warning. The proper response from any Dem invited to be on a show with Novak should be something like, "Why, yes, I'd be happy to participate. But, just so you know, I'm going to be all over Novak about this CIA thing from the get-go."

If every Democrat had the self-discipline to stick to this game plan, Novak's career as a journalist would be over. He would be so journalistically useless, he'd be radioactive. He'd have no value whatever as a host, moderator or participant. If the Dems make Bob Novak's life one long grilling over Plamegate, he would be untouchable. And it couldn't possibly happen to a more deserving traitor.

As for me, well, I'm getting kinda tired of giving the Democrats all these nifty ideas for free. Can I at least get a goddamned coffee mug out of this or something?

When Republicans get their schedules mixed up.

"I don't know, Rick ... there's all these black people looking at us ... are you sure we have the right hotel?"

Why right-wing blogging pundits really are a bunch of total dickheads.

It's not like you needed any more proof that conservative bloggers are a pack of snotty, holier-than-thou whiners with feelings of entitlement but, what the heck, I was in the neighbourhood.

Start, if you will, with this link at Think Progress, to arrive here, where Nigel Hawthorne Chesterfield IV and his polo buddies simply can't fathom why their precious Commander Chimpster is about as popular as incontinence at a hot tub party.

Nigel (or "H-Bomb" as he's known to his polo ponies) is totally, totally ticked that the Ipsos-AP poll shows that 49% of the respondents appear to lean left, while only 39% incline to the right. In a world of random polling, this is, of course, completely unacceptable to Nigel -- yet another reason why conservatives should never be allowed to do arithmetic.

His nose still firmly in the air, Nigel continues: "As for the 21% of respondents who aren’t even registered to vote? Well, not to sound rude, but who really cares what they think?" And, by George, who does care what they think? (Ignore that the poll question actually asked, "Are you currently registered to vote at this address, or not?" since that qualifier is mere nuance and, as we all know, conservatives just don't do nuance, it being intellectually taxing and all and best left to the experts.)

Finally, Nigel seems a bit put out by one of the surveyed demographics: "Question D14 is curious, too. 14% of respondents make less that [sic] $15,000 per year?" And if there's one thing that really irritates conservatives, it's being told what poor people think. Because if those people don't like being poor, well, gosh darn it, they should have invested more wisely in the market. Or been born with richer parents.

You know. Like Nigel.

What do you mean that WASN'T satire?

Excuse me?

Many people seem to have this idea of the Catholic Church as some sort of gestalt mind, a Borg-like single brain with all members thinking in lock-step.

The Church does have a body of doctrine, but that doctrine was compiled over centuries. Doctors of the Church debated for years on this issue and that, applying all the forces of human reason and of observation to try and tease out the truth.

Yeah, that would be the Catholic Church, all right -- 10 pounds of reason in a five-pound bag.

And to think I have to work at being funny.

Yeah, like I need a lesson in civility from some people.

You know, it occurs to me that the next time some pompous, puffed-up, right-wing fluffbrain starts whining to me about the lack of civility and respect in intellectual discourse these days, I think I'll show them this (courtesy of Bob G. over at Yellow Dog Blog):

Then I'll tell them to just fuck off.

When really annoyed Jesuits attack.

Well, you knew there was eventually going to be some reaction to this execrable piece of Catholic anti-intellectualism and, sure enough, here come the Jesuits.

The proper response here is not to blog about this. The proper response is to buy one horking big bag of popcorn, sit back and watch the bitch slapping.

Geez, it's getting hard to tell the "wars" without a program.

OK, maybe it really isn't a "war" after all since, back in 2004, we had Commander Chimpy making things clear as, well, mud:

We actually misnamed the war on terror, it ought to be the struggle against ideological extremists who do not believe in free societies who happen to use terror as a weapon to try to shake the conscience of the free world.

That would be the SAIEWDNBIFSWHTUTAAWTTTSTCOTFW for those of you into acronyms.

You say "extradition," I say "immunity from prosecution."

It's not clear how relevant this article from a couple of months back is to the Marc Emery case, but I'm betting someone can dig a little hypocrisy out of it somewhere, no?

A group of US soldiers arrested for alleged cocaine smuggling cannot be allowed to stand trial in Colombia, Washington's envoy to Bogota has said.

Colombian senators have been calling for the men, who were based in the country, to be extradited from the US.

But US ambassador William Wood said the soldiers are immune from prosecution.

Well, as long as there's some kind of quid pro quo, right?

More than 200 Colombian citizens have been extradited to the US to face trial for drug trafficking, under a bilateral deal between the two countries.

Well, so much for that quid pro quo.

I think somebody here needs a time-out.

Novakula loses it and finally lets his inner child out. Bob Novak: a douchebag for douchebaggery.

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

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey:

"By next summer in my judgment -- we have 17 combat brigades there right now -- we will be forced into a draw down, and have 10 brigades or less on the ground. The army and marines are starting to come apart."

Conservative pundit Rich Lowry:

"We're winning."

Yeah, things always look a lot different from that side of the keyboard, don't they, Rich?

Gosh, you should have called first, the place is such a mess.

Sure, they can stop by for a visit, but I'd still want to count all the silverware afterwards.

There's irony, and then there's ...

Well, isn't this an interesting juxtaposition of recent events? First, there's this (emphasis added):

Republican Beats Iraq Veteran in Ohio Vote

A former Republican state legislator narrowly won a special Congressional election in southern Ohio on Tuesday, ending an underdog bid by her Democratic opponent to become the first combat veteran from the Iraq war to serve in Congress.

With all of the precincts reporting, Jean Schmidt, the Republican, had nearly 52 percent of the vote, edging out her challenger, Paul L. Hackett, a major in the Marine Forces Reserve, by about 4,000 votes.

"Voters declared that they support our president and approve of his leadership," Ms. Schmidt, 53, told supporters gathered at a suburban Holiday Inn late Tuesday evening. "They want us to stay the course so the enemies of freedom cannot bring their terrorism to our shores again."

On the other hand, there's this:

Ohio families fed up with casualties in battalion that lost 21 in six days

Rosemary Palmer and her husband were making plans to attend memorial services for six Marine reservists killed earlier this week — five of them from the same battalion as her son, Lance Cpl. Edward Schroeder — when two uniformed servicemen came down her street.

It was her family's turn.

"We knew. They didn't even get a chance to knock," Palmer said...

Pat Wilsox, who manages a doughnut shop by the battalion's headquarters in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park, threw her hand over her heart when she heard of the latest deaths.

"Oh my God," she said softly. "I'm all for protection but this is getting a little bit ridiculous."

Apparently, some folks still haven't figured out that whole "cause and effect" thing.

With friends like this ...

More exciting news from members of the Coalition of "Will you Americans stop being such freaking assholes?!"

Open thread.

Please feed the threadbot.

Reality -- that occasional swift boot to the nads.

Well, there's reality:

The explosion that killed 14 marines in Haditha yesterday was powerful enough to flip the 25-ton amphibious assault vehicle they were riding in, in keeping with an increasingly deadly trend, American military officers say.

In recent months the roadside bombs favored by insurgents in Iraq have grown significantly in size and sophistication, the officers say, adding to their deadliness and defeating efforts to increase troops' safety by adding armor to vehicles.

And then there's Rich Lowry. Dontcha just hate it when the world intrudes on your neo-con fantasy? Man, that must suck.

EXTRA SNARK AT NO EXTRA CHARGE: And when you really need someone slapped around, well, there's always James Wolcott.

Sometimes, he's just plain pithy.

How to be a "scientific creationist" in oil-rich Texas.

And as I'm sure you're aware, Commander Chimpy has been making the news lately, extolling the virtues of "Intelligent Design" or, as we here at CC HQ like to call it, "moronic fundamentalist horseshit."

While the proponents of ID are adamant that they're not strict literal, Biblical creationists, it's obvious to anyone with the intellect of a pet rock that ID is really a stealth vehicle to get creationism into the public school system, so it behooves us to ask -- how exactly does one embrace a strict, 6000-year-old Earth, Noachian deluge, Biblical interpretation of history while living in a state whose economy is based on oil? You know, the stuff that took millions and millions of years to form. That stuff.

You'd think that trying to reconcile those two belief systems would cause no end of cognitive dissonance, but you'd be wrong. There is, in fact, quite a simple way to deal with this. You become an outrageous hypocrite.

Take the case of one Dr. Andrew Snelling, once (and perhaps still, I haven't bothered to check since, well, I really don't care enough to keep up with him) a member of the Creation Science Foundation of Australia (CSF) and (here's the good part) a holder of a BSc (Hons) and PhD, both in areas related to (oh, you knew this was coming, didn't you?) geology.

In fact, Snelling's Ph.D. is in the area of uranium mineralization, which kind of suggests you have to accept basic things like, oh, radiometric dating techniques. And yet, despite his academic credentials, Snelling was simultaneously a prominent member of the CSF, arguing on behalf of a very, very, very young Earth. You know -- Biblically young. And however did Snelling manage that? Apparently, he simply severed the two halves of his brain, as one Dr. Alex Ritchie explains here.

As Ritchie so clearly explains, while Snelling adhered faithfully to his organization's fundamentalist, creationist doctrine, this didn't stop him from accepting geology consulting gigs, where he got to write stuff like:

"The Archaean basement consists of domes of granitoids and granitic gneisses (the Nanambu Complex), the nearest outcrop being 5 km to the north. Some of the lowermost overlying Proterozoic metasediments were accreted to these domes during amphibolite grade regional metamorphism (5 to 8 kb and 550° to 630° C) at 1870 to 1800 Myr. Multiple isoclinal recumbent folding accompanied metamorphism."

For the non-geologist, "Myr." means millions of years. Yes, Snelling really is the prototypical creationist hypocrite, spreading the fundamentalist gospel to the gullible masses, but lapsing back into mainstream geology when he has to make a buck.

Now, you'd think that someone who's been busted so thoroughly would at least have the common decency to be, you know, embarrassed. Ah, but not Snelling, who defends his hypocrisy here (emphasis added):

When I came to write the paper on the Koongarra uranium deposit, it was at the request of the mining company who knew exactly where I stood. The paper was for a book on Australian ore deposits with an editor who had strict guidelines as to how the papers should be written. When I wrote the paper I had no option but to take the standard conventional terminology, and what all the critics have overlooked is that I fully reference all the comments that they are slamming me with. In other words, as far as I was concerned I was making it perfectly clear that this is what everyone else believes, and what is the standard wisdom about this ore deposit and its geological setting.

Translation: "I didn't believe a word of what I was writing, but I took money for writing it anyway." Oh, my. What would Jesus do?

Anyway, you get the idea. When it comes to strict, Biblical creationism, it might be entertaining to ask those Texans where they think the oil came from. Better yet, it might be fun to check into what they do for a living.

There's science, and then there's SCIENCE.

(CC News) In a startling scientific breakthrough, scientists from South Korea announced that they succeeded in cloning a dog:

The group worked for nearly three years, seven days a week, 365 days a year and used 1,095 eggs from 122 dogs before finally succeeding with the birth of a cloned male Afghan hound. The surrogate mother was a yellow Labrador retriever.

What is particularly impressive is that dogs are considered one of the most difficult of all animals to clone:

Dogs have such an unusual reproductive biology, far more so than humans, scientists say, that the methods that allowed cloning of sheep, mice, cows, goats, pigs, rabbits, cats, a mule, a horse and three rats, and creation of cloned human embryos for stem cells, simply do not work with them...

The reason that other researchers are so impressed, said Mark E. Westhusin, a cloning researcher at Texas A&M University, is that with dogs, "their reproductive biology makes them a nightmare." Cats, in what might seem a turnabout, are biologically much less finicky.

Dr. Westhusin cloned the first cat, in 2002, on his second try. But, he said, after trying for a few years to clone a dog, "I quit."

Other researchers say dog cloning is so hard, they will not try it. George E. Seidel Jr. of Colorado State said Genetic Savings & Clone approached him and "I refused." As for the South Koreans, who succeeded in what is the Mount Everest of cloning, it was "simply a heroic effort, a brute force heroic effort," Dr. Seidel said.

In unrelated science news, U.S. President George Bush announced that he favoured the teaching of "intelligent design" since, when it came to addressing the unresolved scientific questions related to the origin and development of life, it was critically important for students to know that God made them and loved them all.

And Canada's new Governor-General is ...

Shari Belafonte! No, wait ... that can't be right ...

Today's quickie math puzzle, Thu, Aug 4.

What is the value of sqrt(2 + sqrt(2 + sqrt(2 + ... )))? Open for solutions now.

Your next puzzle.

Busy day today so open for solutions now. Next puzzle coming shortly.

A young Buddhist is told by his master to meditate for exactly 45 minutes. However, all he is given to keep time is two incense sticks and some matches. Each of the incense sticks, upon being lit, will burn completely in exactly one hour, but they are cheaply made and don't burn uniformly.

How can the student arrange to meditate for exactly 45 minutes?

OK, apparently, it's a war after all.

Normally, we'd call this schizophrenia or something:

President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

I'm so confused. Jon Stewart ... you're up.

Irwin Cotler: A profile in cowardice.

Following a link from Simon Pole, we learn that Canada's Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler has decided that discretion is the better part of valour and that, with respect to the Marc Emery case, he "will not comment on the case while the judicial proceedings unfold." How best to respond to this? Let me think ... let me think ... OK, maybe something like this:

Irwin, you worthless, weaselly, cock-sucking piece of shit.

Dante wrote that there were several circles to hell and I dearly want to believe there's a particularly unpleasant one for a country's justice minister who seems perfectly content to offer up some of his own citizens for numerous years in a foreign prison system but doesn't feel like he has any obligation to explain his thinking.

Now, certainly, in some legal cases, there are good reasons to keep your mouth shut. If you're the defendant, the first piece of advice you were probably given by your lawyer is to put a sock in it. Then there are the occasional gag orders, so it's kind of out of your control. But none of this applies to Cotler.

He's the man who made the decision and, as a public servant, he has an obligation to explain to Canadians what's going on here and, specifically, the legal basis for it. As Canadian citizens, we deserve no less. We have a right to know how our own legal system works and how our politicians make decisions that could put some of us in prison for years. That's not a privilege; that's a fucking right and we are entirely entitled to be demanding an explanation.

So how does Cotler defend his "no comment"? Actually, it doesn't really matter since what he's up to is so transparent, it's painful.

If Cotler were to actually explain his logic (or appalling lack thereof), numerous legal eagles across Canada would undoubtedly start to dig through it and show the glaring holes in his thinking. And, oh dear, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

The solution? Obviously, say nothing and leave everyone guessing. After all, they can't criticize you if they don't even know what your position is, can they? How slick. How clever. How unspeakably irresponsible and sleazy.

Can we impeach this asshole? And where do I sign up?

Marc Emery and abortion rights.

If U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts is confirmed, and if he helps to overturn Roe v. Wade making abortions illegal again so that abortion providers in the U.S. could be prosecuted, and if pregnant women who want abortions then come to Canada to get them, would the U.S. demand that Canadian abortion doctors be arrested for breaking American law in Canada?

Just asking.

(I know it's not a perfect analogy, I'm just curious where the line is being drawn.)

When you have to think there's a message there somewhere.

"And may lightning strike me down if ... aw, crap, not again."

"In Defense of Stupidity".

It's always entertaining to watch a good writer lay a savage beating on a neo-con dingbat, especially when that dingbat is Charles Krauthammer.

What IS it with all these bogus referring URLs?

Ever since I can remember since I started this blog, I would occasionally (via sitemeter) get a flurry of hits whose "Referring URLs" were clearly not linking to me in any meaningful way. It didn't happen often so I just ignored it.

But lately it's gotten noticeably worse. Just now, I got at least a couple of dozen of these, every single one from another "blogspot.com" domain name. What's up with this? What does it represent? And is there any way to avoid it? (I'm suspecting the answer to that last question is no.)

Thoughts?

Same-sex marriage and Fermat's Last Theorem.

For a number of years, German mathematician Edmund Landau had a form letter which read as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam:

Your proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has been received. The first mistake is on page _____, line _____.

Landau would then assign to one of his students the task of filling in the appropriate values.

In the spirit of Edmund Landau, we can similarly refer to the writings of Canadian same-sex marriage opponents and ask, in any given article or publication, for the location of the earliest example of a breathtakingly inane and moronic argument.

For the entertainment value, one can start here and follow the link at the bottom of the page to the good professor's screed. All submissions must be examples of actual unspeakable stupidity. Mere typographical errors will be rejected out of hand.

Scott McClellan: Always good for a morbid chuckle.

From Monday's White House gaggle:

MR. McCLELLAN: A lot of people that have worked very closely with Ambassador Bolton recognize that he is someone who brings a results-oriented approach to the position. If you go back and look at people who know him well -- like former Secretary of State Baker, former Ambassador to the United Nations Jeanne Kirkpatrick -- they recognize that he will be a strong advocate for the priorities that we want to see at the United Nations.

The American people want to see comprehensive reform at the United Nations...

And I'm sure that when the American people look at the current American unemployment rate, the skyrocketing deficit, the 1800+ dead military in Iraq, the fact that they can't get affordable health care and that a single serious medical emergency could wipe out their life savings and that the recently-passed bankruptcy bill could leave them destitute, the first thing that comes to their minds is, "You know what we really need? Comprehensive reform at the United Nations, damn it, that's what we really need."

Oh, those Americans. Ever the internationalists.

It's not nice to make fun of someone's looks.

So it's more than a little classless to refer you to the Second District of Ohio's new congresswoman Jean Schmidt like this.

And given that appalling lack of taste on my part, it's only fair to give you Schmidt at her best, on her own campaign web site.

OK, I'm still kinda creeped out.

No, really. Duct tape.

In any other universe, this would be a bad joke:

Employing the kind of NASA ingenuity seen during Apollo 13, an astronaut prepped for an emergency repair job this morning on Discovery's exterior using forceps, scissors and a hacksaw fashioned out of a blade and a little duct tape.

Can the editorial page cartoons be far behind?

Man, those "last throes" can be a real bitch, can't they?

"14 Marines, Interpreter Killed in Northwestern Iraq". And what's this?

Marines outside their armored vehicles generally wear body armor and carry weapons at all times, except when sleeping.

It's a good thing those insurgents don't read the Post. Otherwise, that information could be kind of useful, couldn't it?

Once more, into the breach.

Commander Chimpy, once again forging ahead into the Global Struggle Against Uncleared Brush.

Steroids? Moi? Surely, you jest.

I don't jest and stop calling me "Shirley".

Sure, we can play that game, too.

I rather like this idea. I think a few years of tending his organic garden in British Columbia might be good for Reverend Fred.

What's a poor blogger to do?

Apparently, you just can't please everyone.

I guess it's all a matter of priorities.

Apparently, a few people are getting a mite impatient:

[Iraq's] draft constitution is due Aug. 15, but the committee writing it may ask for a delay of up to six months if it's not ready by then. A decision on whether an extension is needed will be made on Monday, committee chairman Humam Hamoudi said.

[U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld warned that a delay would be "very harmful" to the momentum that's necessary to get the work done.

Ah, yes ... this would be pressure to finish a brand spanking new national constitution within the next 13 days, coming from someone whose administration still, after two years, hasn't figured out who exposed a covert CIA operative.

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

Cotler: vows increased co-operation with U.S. law forces.

(CC News) In a surprise announcement today, Canada's Justice Minister Irwin Cotler promised increased co-operation with American authorities to track down and bring to justice Canadian citizens who are, as Cotler described them, "blatantly flouting American law and cowardly hiding behind the technicality that they happen to be Canadian citizens living in Canada while they do it."

Cotler opened by describing the case of Marc Emery, who was arrested by Canadian authorities in Canada while selling marijuana seeds, an act which, while legal in Canada, violates American law. "And it's not going to stop there," Cotler assured reporters.

"As it stands now, while the legal drinking age in, for instance, Ontario is 19 years, it's uniformly 21 years throughout the United States," explained Cotler, "and it's obvious that countless 19- and 20-year-old Ontario residents are shamelessly breaking U.S. law whenever they knock back a Moosehead."

"Because of this casual disregard for American law," continued Cotler, "we've agreed in principle with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that they can randomly raid Ontario drinking establishments and arrest underage drinkers. I've already discussed this with the RCMP, and we expect the extradition process to be relatively quick."

Cotler continued, "Of course, this isn't just a one-way street. It's a reciprocal agreement. For instance, while handgun laws in the U.S. are fairly liberal, they're very strict here in Canada, so the RCMP will be given the authority to enter the United States and arrest all handgun owners who, while they happen to be American citizens, are in clear violation of Canadian law."

"Any American carrying a concealed weapon," warned Cotler, "would be subject to particularly harsh Canadian penalties. Residents of Texas would, of course, simply be shot on sight."

Apparently, that blogroll thing is hard work.

For the longest time, I wasn't on Warren's blogroll. Then, I was. Briefly. Then I wasn't. But then, it was fixed and I was on again. And now I'm not. Again.

I'm guessing that Warren is currently in a pitched battle with his conservative evil twin Skippy.

There's class and diplomacy ... and then there's John Bolton.

Following a link to a link to ... well, you get the idea, we have this gem which demonstrates nicely ... oh, hell, you can see what it demonstrates:

Richard Holbrooke, who Republicans delayed for 14 months as Bill Clinton's nominee to the U.N., refused to bypass the Senate with a recess appointment, saying that it would introduce him to the world body with no credibility or authority.

You really couldn't make up this kind of hypocritical irony if you tried.

OK, maybe we could have worded that differently.

"Determined not to lose another space shuttle and crew, ..."

Your Canadian, long weekend bonus math puzzle.

Oh, heck, open for solutions. Go wild.

At a terminal gate at Calgary airport, you have 100 young, male members of the CPC, standing patiently in line to board their 100-seat plane where they will fly to Parliament Hill to demonstrate against same-sex marriage because, as we all know, allowing same-sex marriage would cheapen the sanctity of their sitting in the dark of their parents' basement, snarfing down Cheeto-s and masturbating to online, photoshopped pictures of Rachel Marsden. But I digress. Onward.

Every passenger has a boarding pass with a pre-assigned seat number but, as the very first passenger makes his way down the JetWay, he loses his pass. Because of this, upon entering the plane, he simply picks a random seat and sits down.

Subsequently, each passenger, upon entering, goes to his pre-assigned seat and, if it's empty, sits there. If someone is already in it, he randomly picks an empty seat and sits there instead. And so on, and so on.

What are the odds that the very last passenger to board will actually get to sit in his original, pre-assigned seat?

Whatever will we tell the children?

"Mr. Palmeiro, have you ever used performance-enhancing drugs in your baseball career?"

"No. No, no, no, no, no ... well ... yes."

AFTERSNARK: And how exactly does Rafael Palmeiro's steroid use relate to Commander Chimpy's being a total moron? I'm glad you asked.

It's caption time!

Loathsome and loathsomer.

"Recess appointment"? Those damned semantics again.

It's not like I don't have better things to do today, but something's been irritating me for a while (no, not this guy ... well, OK, him too). It's been gnawing at me for some time that waiting until Congress wasn't in session anymore to sneak John Bolton in on a "recess appointment" was sort of abusing the whole idea of a recess appointment, which I would have thought was there to handle things that, well, you know, unexpectedly come up during the recess of Congress.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks this way as you can read here:

Seriously though (though I was serious, sort of), after I heard that Bolton may yet squirm through on a recess appointment, I dug around on these here Internets for information about the constitutionality of recess appointments (here's a good explanatory essay that I'm drawing from today). More precisely, I was wondering whether appointing Bolton would be a constitutionally valid recess appointment under Article II. Even if it is, the bigger point I want to make today is that recess appointments no longer make any sense in 2005.

But first, to the constitutionality of appointing Bolton during "recess" (which is an appropriate word for our third-grade maturity level Congress these days).

There is at least one strong textual argument that a recess appointment of Bolton would be unconstitutional. The Constitution reads, "The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate." Thus, one could argue that recess appointments are only valid if the vacancy arose during the actual recess. If so, Bolton's appointment this summer wouldn't be valid because the post opened before the recess.

Naturally, there's more. You know what to do -- just follow the link.

It's official -- Bolton to the U.N.

As you can read here, taking advantage of a recess appointment, President McFlightSuit appointed raving lunatic and arrogant, misogynistic prick John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Let the preening smugness, grating condescension and abusive rancor begin.

WHOA, WHAT'S THIS? From the linked article above (emphasis added):

"This post is too important to leave vacant any longer, especially during a war and a vital debate about U.N. reform... ," Bush said.

Hello? "War"? Apparently, poor Chimpy didn't get the memo that the notion of a "war" is just so ... so ... last week.

OOOOOOH ... Not going over so well.

OK, I get it now.

I guess they really do hate our freedoms and liberties after all.

SOMETIMES, YOU PEOPLE ... Sigh. Just to make sure that some of you don't get, like, totally the wrong idea, the above photo and caption was quite seriously meant to provoke a discussion of fundamentalist Islam and its response to decadent Western culture vis a vis the current Global Indian Wrestling Match Against Things That Really, Really Bother Us.

It's not like it's just there for the superficial T and A factor. We serious bloggers would never stoop that low.

How can I say this diplomatically?

Get a freakin' life already.

I see a pattern here.

You know, Commander Chimpy really does have questionable taste in ambassadors, doesn't he?