That gosh-darned American liberal media.

John over at AmericaBlog has it nicely nailed -- the Washington Post really has turned into a crappy paper. Between the Post and the New York Times' race to the bottom, American readers might take a minute to be grateful for papers like the Toledo Blade, who still understands what it means to do real news.

Canadian conservative values.

Uh oh ... apparently, all is not sweetness and light in the land of moral absolutes and brothers and sisters in Christ.

To all of you bickering, back-stabbing conservatives, I implore you -- put aside your petty differences and realize that, with all your minor disagreements, you still have in common the most important thing of all: You all hate gays. Surely that must count for something.

More Media Bias Watch stuff.

I wish the MediaBias folks would get it in gear already, so I don't have to keep writing stuff like this.

Another reason to really, really , REALLY hate Microsoft.

Because, according to John over at AmericaBlog, they've just decided to treat peace activists in China about the same way they finished treating gays.

Great. So not only do they make shitty software, now they're just dicks.

Well, isn't this precious?

I'm really looking forward to that grovelling, boot-licking apology from the right-wing wankersphere now that it's become painfully obvious that Commander Chimpy and his sock puppet, Tony Blair, knew the invasion of Iraq was illegal but went ahead with it anyway.

Come on, all you residents of Lower Wankerville. Not even a little apology? Just a teensy, weensy one, that's all. You'll feel better for it.

Off to the races.

No, really -- most of tomorrow will be spent at the bicycle races watching numerous guys and gals in colourful lycra ride very fast. I can't swear as to whether any of them will be Jewish but, if it means that much to you, I can always ask.

Exit strategy? We don' need no steenkin' exit strategy.

And the news for Commander Chimpy and his war-happy gang of neocons just gets better and better:

Faced with plummeting public support for the war in Iraq, a growing number of members of Congress from both parties are reevaluating the reasons for the invasion and demanding the Bush administration produce a plan for withdrawing US troops.

But ... but ... don't these people know that the insurgency is in its last throes? Really, Dick Cheney said so, and Dick Cheney wouldn't lie to you, would he?

A bipartisan group of House members is drafting a resolution that calls on the administration to present a strategy for getting the United States out of Iraq, reflecting an increasing restlessness about the war in a chamber that 2 1/2 years ago voted overwhelmingly to support the use of force in Iraq.

Whoa -- notice that word "bipartisan"? Yes, even some members of the GOP have finally had enough of this. It's not like you had to beat it into them or anything. And it's always nice to have someone in Chimpy's own party not mince words:

Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, a conservative Republican who voted to authorize force, said his district is growing weary of a war that has cost the lives of more than 1,600 US troops and left more than 12,000 wounded.

''I'm hearing: 'How much do we have to do? We're giving blood. We're giving money. What is the final chapter for our involvement?' I think people are looking to the administration for an explanation, whether we have done all we can do," said Jones, whose district is home to 60,000 retired military personnel.

Jones said he felt misled by the administration on the reasons for the war because no weapons of mass destruction have been found. "If I knew [then] what I knew today, I would not have voted for the resolution," Jones said.

That's about as straightforward a condemnation as you can get, isn't it? One wonders if any members of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders (Canadian auxiliary) might be ready to admit they missed the boat entirely on this one. Apologies? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

P.S. Just FYI, I'll bet you had absolutely no idea that using the well-recognized term "neocon" was being anti-Semitic, did you? But there it is, straight from the keyboard of David Brooks:

We'd sit around the magazine guffawing at the ludicrous stories that kept sprouting, but belief in shadowy neocon influence has now hardened into common knowledge. Wesley Clark, among others, cannot go a week without bringing it up.

In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for "conservative" and neo is short for "Jewish") travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another.

Apparently, then, if you use the adjective "neo" (meaning "Jewish"), you're being anti-Semitic. Or something like that. Therefore, in biological circles, describing someone as a "neo-Darwinist" means they're ... what? ... a Jewish evolutionist?

Hey, don't look at me. I just read it in the New York Times. Blame them.

Just how big a dick is Pete Rempel?

About this big. One suspects that Mr. Rempel, not wanting to cut into his wanking schedule too much, never bothered to read the entire series back here, including the comments, in which he'd find all sorts of subtleties and nuance and stuff like that there. Apparently, Mr. Rempel just doesn't do nuance, it being intellectually taxing and all that.

No, apparently, according to Mr. Rempel, I am such a virulent anti-Semite that he couldn't even bring himself to comment on it. Yep, that's me, all right -- ten pounds of anti-Semitism in a 5-pound bag given, over the many months I've had this blog, my overwhelming number of previous anti-Jewish postings which would number ... um, lessee here ... hey! Exactly zero. Ah, but who needs evidence or substantiation when you can just reel back in shock and feign completely bogus outrage, eh, Pete?

So, Pete, you can join the discussion if you have something meaningful to say. Or you can just be a dick. It's a tough choice, but one I suspect you've had to make before.

WEASEL BOY UPDATE! You know, I knew when I started this blog that, some day, it would all pay off in pure entertainment value. And, wouldn't you know it, today's the day. Look who joined the party -- Weasel Boy himself, with some delightfully inane comments. (And notice how he can't even seem to post a comment without somehow fucking that up. Too funny.)

Yes, go read how, according to WB, my smackdown of anti-evolution Intelligent Design here is, if you can believe it, just more evidence of my apparent anti-Semitism.

Man, this is funnier than the first round of Canadian Idol.

BY THE WAY: There's something moderately amusing about the selectivity of outrage on the parts of both Mr. Rempel and Weasel Boy. For instance, once upon a time, we had Kate of the blog Small Dead Animals suggesting that perhaps the best thing to do about the AIDS- or ebola-infected citizens of Angola might be to just "close the borders and let nature take its course."

Gosh, you might think that that suggestion could be ever so slightly racist, no? And yet, where's the outrage on the part of Mr. Rempel? And should we expect any sudden, animated condemnation of such racism from Weasel Boy? Let me give you some advice -- don't hold your breath.

OH, YAWN: Help yourself. So, let's sum up here. If we understand Mr. Rempel properly, explaining why Jewish writers writing wholly unsympathetic articles referring to Muslims being incarcerated in inhumane conditions and published in Jewish periodicals simply gives ammunition to people to defend their anti-Semitism: Bad. Very, very bad. Breathtakingly, jaw-droppingly bad.

On the other hand, Pete's buddy Kate suggesting quarantining an entire African nation and letting them die from disease: Apparently, not so bad.

Relativism, taken to a whole new level.

Sometimes, over-reacting just makes you look like a dick.

Priceless. The best part is where Ms. Darr actually admits, while she's whining to the FEC, that "I realize that the Commission lacks the jurisdiction to handle a threat issued to one commenter by another in the course of the Commission's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ..."

That's right, Ms. Darr, you moron. So why are you wasting their time? I mean, besides just to bitch and moan about something.

SNARKY AFTERTHOUGHT: You know, the "threat" to minimize attendance at someone else's event sounds suspiciously like, you know, a boycott, doesn't it? And, as we all know, no one on the ideological right would ever stoop to such classless, sleazy strategies, would they?

U.S. missile defense: A bad idea, getting worse by the minute.

Did someone mention quality control?

An outside panel chartered by the Pentagon has concluded that the rush to deploy a national antimissile system last year led to shortfalls in quality controls and engineering procedures that could have better assured the system would work, according to the panel's final report.

Bent on meeting President Bush's deadline to install the first elements of the system by the end of 2004, Pentagon officials put schedule ahead of performance, the report says. Among risky shortcuts that were taken, the panel says, were insufficient ground tests of key components, a lack of specifications and standards, and a tendency to postpone resolution of nettlesome issues.

Some unintentional hilarity in the next short paragraph:

"Manage quality first and then schedule," the panel advises.

And we all know how well this administration takes advice.

The few, the proud ... the really fucking desperate.

Apparently, military recruiting in the U.S. is becoming kind of stressful.

"Hidden agendas" and right-wing media bias griping.

Until our new site Media Bias Watch really gets cranked up, we can still make fun of the right-wing whiners here at mediabias.ca, as we see just how hypocritical and inconsistent they can be.

For instance, note how annoyed they get about accusations regarding conservative "hidden agendas":

In one election after another, the national media have steered public opinion toward left-liberal parties. Last year, they accused Steve Harper [ed: "Steve"? Good buddies, are they?] and the Conservatives of pursuing a "hidden agenda" (which conveniently can't be shown to exist because it's "hidden") ...

So, accusing someone of having a "hidden agenda"? Apparently, unfair. Or ... maybe not, as we read in the next column:

In 2003, Fraser academics Lydia Miljan and Barry Cooper published a book analyzing the strong left-liberal bias of Canadian journalists ("Hidden Agendas": How Journalists Influence the News," UBC Press, $25).

Left hand, meet right hand.

UPDATE: OK, the first actual content has now gone up at Media Bias Watch. More to come, I'm sure. And we'll definitely be doing some work on the site layout in the near future.

Open thread.

Today's going to be busy. Feel free to pick up the slack, but play nice.

Sometimes, this is just too easy.

Remember the Republicans, getting their dicks in a knot about how all of Commander Chimpy's nominees deserved -- yes, by God, were entitied to -- a straight up-or-down vote since, as everyone knows, that's how democracy works?

Well, apparently, democracy is kind of a relative thing:

WHILE REPUBLICAN senators insist on prompt votes for every judicial nominee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has placed a "hold" on President Bush's nomination of Julie Finley as ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

... Mr. Brownback, a possible presidential candidate in 2008, as of last night was employing a parliamentary maneuver to block any Senate vote -- on the grounds that Mrs. Finley is pro-choice on abortion.

That's great -- a Republican senator blocking one of the President's nominees. And where is Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R - Kitty Murderer) in all of this?

"Are we going to step back from that principle?" the Tennessee Republican asked reporters. "The answer to that is 'no.'"

Senator Bill Frist: He's got principles. And if you don't like them, well, he's got others.

Canadian right-wingers emulate U.S. counterparts as annoying whiners.

If there's one thing members of the right-wing wankersphere do better than anyone else, it's whine, bitch and moan. How else to explain this imminent web site, MediaBias.ca, which will, we are told, chronicle all of the shocking misdeeds of the dastardly left-wing, liberal media here in Soviet Canuckistan?

Oh, yawn.

As its primo, numero uno example of wretched, left-liberal bias, the group parades, front and centre, the following:

A typical example of news bias occurred on April 9, when 15,000 people rallied on Parliament Hill to support traditional marriage -- the biggest political event on the Hill in years, perhaps ever. The National Post and Canwest News Services paid the story almost no attention, and the Globe and Mail didn't mention it at all.

Ignore for the moment the suggestion that the National Post downplaying the event constitutes liberal bias. (For our international readers, the right-wing National Post is akin to the Washington Times, but with perhaps slightly fewer Moonies.) Quite simply, there was no need for the media to cover this event because, in a nutshell, there was no news there.

Seriously, think about it. It's not as if an ambitious reporter would have learned anything going to the event and interviewing anyone. "So ... you're all opposed to same-sex marriage? Yup, got that. And ... that's pretty much the story. Thanks for your time."

Really, what kind of article could anyone write about this? You could pretty much mail this one in from your couch during commercial breaks of Canadian Idol. In case it happens again, let me give you a generic template that could probably cover anything that might happen:

Parliament Hill (CC News) -- Gathering since early this morning, [insert number here] thousand supporters of so-called traditional marriage rallied on Parliament Hill. Lots of them were clearly Christian. Many Bibles were waved about, and many passages from Scripture were cited, mostly badly out of context. After a while, everyone went home.

Did I miss anything? And just in case that web site really does get cranked up and starts churning out the inevitable mixture of right-wing innuendo, distortions and outright lies, well, I've taken the precaution, just in case.

Life just gets better for the Conservatives.

Rather than invest any of my own time chronicling the delightful meltdown of the CPC, I'll just point you over to Robert's Blahg. Enjoy.

And now we see what's behind the curtain.

I'm almost past the point of even being capable of outrage anymore. Yet again, it's John over at AmericaBlog who points readers at a Nation article, describing how those fine Christian folks at the Family Research Council once paid white supremacist David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list.

I'm sure the right-wing wankersphere will be, like, totally outraged by this blatant racism. Yes, sir, any minute now. Any minute now ...

When Christian telemarketers attack. Or whatever.

Thanks to AmericaBlog, just go read this.

Sometimes, you can't even put good spin on it.

Everyone else is linking to it; why not me? Apparently, the U.S. Army is going to fall just a touch short of its recruiting goals:

Even after reducing its recruiting target for May, the Army missed it by about 25 percent, Army officials said on Tuesday. The shortfall would have been even bigger had the Army stuck to its original goal for the month.

On Friday, the Army is expected to announce that it met only 75 percent of its recruiting goal for May, the fourth consecutive monthly shortfall in the number of new recruits sent to basic training. Just over 5,000 new recruits entered boot camp in May.

But the news could have appeared worse. Early last month, the Army, with no public notice, lowered its long-stated May goal to 6,700 recruits from 8,050. Compared with the original target, the Army achieved only 62.6 percent of its goal for the month.

Ah, but here's the best part, where the Army tries to rationalize lowering their target number:

Army officials defended the shift on Tuesday, saying it was not uncommon to change monthly goals at midyear. They said that the latest change reflected the reality that the Army was not going to meet its May goal, and that it made more sense to shift some of that quota to the summer months, traditionally a better season for recruiters to attract new high school graduates.

Translation: we lowered our goal because we knew we weren't going to achieve it. Sometimes, it really is that simple, isn't it? And then there's this:

The Army's figures for May put the service about 8,300 soldiers behind its projected year-to-date number of enlistees sent to basic training by now. "The trend line is going against them," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

The Army has tried to reverse the trend by adding 1,000 recruiters since last September ...

Here's a suggestion: if those recruiters are doing such a pathetic job signing up new volunteers, just ship them off to Iraq. Hey, that's another 1,000 warm bodies right there, no?

But can any of them make a radio out of a coconut?

And isn't that special? Following the appropriate links from the inimitable Ms. Z (and there has to be a better euphemism for her than that, I'm sure), we learn that those wacky pirates over at the Western Stunned Herd are about to make a Bill O'Reilly-sized mistake.

OK, maybe that's unfair. After all, it might be a truly educational experience basking in the variety and breadth of this truly diverse collection of conservative thinkers. I mean, there's Ezra Levant, the publisher of the Western Standard. And Lyle Dunkley, the chairman of the Western Standard. And Kevin Libin, editor of the Western Standard. And Andrew Coyne, a columnist with the Western Standard. And Terry O'Neill, a senior writer for the Western Standard. And ... uh ... and ...

Oh, never mind. You might as well save your money and just subscribe.

BY THE WAY: Speaking of diversity, notice anything just a wee bit odd about the collection of speakers? Think hard, it'll come to you.