The Best Political Commentary I've Seen In A While

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E.D. Kain keeps it short and concise too, just how I like it:

[U]nless we tackle structural problems with the deficit (i.e. Medicare) and the defense budget, then all the other little political games we play won’t even scratch the surface. Pay freezes, pork-bans – you name it, they’re all just political shenanigans. Obama isn’t serious about the deficit, and freezing federal worker pay doesn’t make him serious about the deficit – any more than trying to ban pork barrel spending makes the GOP serious about the deficit.

Indeed.

Spending cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and defense are the only way to get the budget even close to balanced right now.

Anyone who says otherwise isn't serious about balancing the budget. Period.

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Scarborough: GOP Needs To Confront Palin

Joe Scarborough does not mince words in his critique of Sarah Palin...

What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s, despite the fact that the 44th president breezed into the Oval Office as little more than a glorified state senator.

Still, Palin is undeterred, charging ahead maniacally while declaring her intention to run for the top office in the land if “nobody else will.” Adding audacity to this dopey dream is that Palin can’t stop herself from taking swings at Republican giants. In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.

Wow. That’ll win ’em over in Iowa.

One can only guess what comes next on Palin’s bizarre road show. Maybe the publishing world’s favorite reality star can keep drawing attention and selling billions of books by spitting on John Wayne’s grave or “manning up” by shooting an American bald eagle.

[snip]

this is one Republican who would prefer that the former half-term governor promote her reality shows and hawk her books without demeaning the reputations of Presidents Reagan and Bush. These great men dedicated their lives to public service and are too good to be fodder for her gaudy circus sideshow.

If Republicans want to embrace Palin as a cultural icon whose anti-intellectualism fulfills a base political need, then have at it. I suppose it’s cheaper than therapy.

No Joe, tell us what you really think.

Geez.

Read the whole piece, it's completely worth your time.

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Photo: Finlay McKay/GQ

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DADT Becoming Less And Less Popular

...even among those who are enlisted:

The study found that 70 percent of troops surveyed believed that repealing the law would have mixed, positive or no effect, while 30 percent predicted negative consequences. Opposition was strongest among combat troops, with at least 40 percent saying it was a bad idea. That number climbs to 46 percent among Marines.

The study also draws a strong correlation between troops who have worked with a gay service member and those who support repeal. According to the assessment, 92 percent of troops who have served with someone they believed to be gay thought that their unit's ability to work together was either very good, good, or neither good nor poor.

One person familiar with the report said it will show that military commanders believe gay and lesbian troops have a strong desire to fit in and feel accepted by their units. The report will also show that gay service members currently serving in the military have expressed a patriotic desire to serve, and want to be subject to the same rules as other service members.

The survey is based on responses by some 115,000 troops and 44,200 military spouses to more than a half million questionnaires distributed last summer by an independent polling firm.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's only a matter of time before service members who are gay are treated the same as their heterosexual colleagues.

The same goes for marriage equality... it's only a matter of time.

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Photo: Getty Images

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200 Years, 200 Countries, 4 Minutes

Very cool use of technology. And statistics.

[Professor Hans] Rosling is a man who revels in the glorious nerdiness of statistics, and here he entertainingly explores their history, how they work mathematically and how they can be used in today's computer age to see the world as it really is, not just as we imagine it to be.

Rosling's lectures use huge quantities of public data to reveal the story of the world's past, present and future development. Now he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes.

Head nod: Mr. Furious

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Birther Watch, Ctd.

The U.S. Supreme Court has, once again, dismissed a frivolous lawsuit challenging the citizenship of President Obama. I wonder if the Justices of the Supreme Court roll their eyes at this stuff:

The justices without comment Monday rejected a challenge from Charles Kerchner Jr., a Pennsylvania man who sought a trial in federal court forcing the president to produce documents regarding his birth and citizenship.

Kerchner's attorney, Mario Apuzzo, had argued in a petition with the Supreme Court that Obama did not fit the definition of a "natural-born citizen" required for the nation's highest office, as defined by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

That clause states, "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Kerchner, a retired military officer who describes himself on his website as a "genetic genealogy pioneer," argues the framers of the 1789 document intended a "natural-born" citizen to mean someone born in the U.S. to parents who were both American citizens.

[snip]

"A person gains allegiance and loyalty and therefore attachment for a nation from either being born on the soil of the community defining that nation or from being born to parents who were also born on that same soil or who naturalized as though they were born on that soil," said Apuzzo. "It is only by combining at birth in the child both means to inherit these two sources of citizenship that the child by nature and therefore also by law is born with only one allegiance and loyalty to and consequently attachment for only the United States."

He said it was "undisputed fact" Obama's father was a citizen of the British crown.

And another Birther bites the dust.

...but you know that these crackpots will keep trying. So sad.

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Christine O'Donnell: "Anybody Is Better Than Obama"

... even Hillary Clinton:

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60% Say Sarah Palin Is Unelectable

Not very good news for the half-term Alaskan Governor:

Sarah Palin might think she could get elected President in 2012, but few Americans agree. Only 28% of voters in the country think that Palin is capable of defeating Barack Obama while 60% think she is not and 12% aren't sure.

What might be most troubling for Palin within those numbers is that less than half of Republicans think she's capable of beating Obama- 48% think she would be able to, 37% think she would not be able to, and 15% have no opinion. Republicans continue overwhelmingly to like Palin- 67% have a favorable opinion of her- but a pretty large number of them have serious electability concerns about her.

Many GOP voters who admire Palin may be left having to decide whether it's more important to them to defeat Barack Obama or to help advance her political career and that may prove to be too high a hurdle for her to overcome.

You know what they say, 60% of the time, it works every time. Or something.

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Quote Of The Day

"I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history. One is 'Do They Know It’s Christmas?' and the other one is 'We Are The World'. Any day soon, I will go to the supermarket, head to the meat counter and it will be playing. Every ****ing Christmas." -Bob Geldof, the writer of those two songs as well as the actor who portrays "Pink" in Pink Floyd's 1982 film The Wall.

Welcome to the holiday season, Sir Geldof.

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Photo: REX

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Michael Steele In Hot Water... Again

For more suspicious goings-on in RNC spending:

At issue are critical preparations for the national convention each party holds every four years. The conventions are massive undertakings with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. Thousands of party activists stream into town and byzantine campaign laws complicate fundraising efforts. The conventions also offer each party its most high-profile effort to market their respective presidential candidates to the country.

To head this effort, Steele installed his former personal assistant, Cook, as the RNC’s “liaison to the convention.” The Washington Times first reported that GOP insiders were unhappy with the seemingly extravagant compensation she was receiving – a $25,000 signing bonus and salary of $180,000.

The Committee on Arrangements for the 2012 Republican National Convention, the legally separate organization from the RNC that is paying Cook, is also apparently paying rent on a waterfront mansion for Cook to reside in.

The payments as listed in Federal Election Commission filings are ostensibly to Sun Vista Realty. Three GOP officials close to the situation confirm the payments are for a waterfront mansion on South Yacht Drive in Treasure Island, Fla. Public records confirm Cook is living at the address.

The 3,143 square foot house features a private pool and dock. Including the garage and open porch, the house is over 4,200 square feet. A spokesman for Steele did not reply to a request for comment.

In the 2008 cycle, top convention officials did not move to the host city until April 2008. When they did, they lived in sparse, one bedroom apartments one or two blocks from the convention site.

Steele is facing charges of cronyism for Cook’s extravagant salary and accommodations. But also on the payroll are Cook’s son, Lee, and sister, Betina Barcus, who has been paid over $25,000 for “hotel management consulting.”

As much as I think that Steele has made mistakes, I think that he has also bee good for the RNC. He has brought a fresh face and ideas to the mix -- however unpopular they may have been.

The irony is that, for as much as other GOPers criticize Steele, the Republican party took back control of the House and made gains in the Senate.

Whether or not these victories were a result of Steele's policies/actions is up for debate...

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Photo: Molly Riley/REUTERS

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Irvin Kershner, 1923 - 2010

Sorry to hear it.

US director Irvin Kershner, renowned for making the second Star Wars film, "The Empire Strikes Back", has died in Los Angeles, his goddaughter Adriana Santini told AFP on Monday. He was 87 years old.

Kershner, who besides the 1980 sci-fi epic also directed Sean Connery as James Bond in "Never Say Never Again" (1983) and Peter Weller in "Robocop II" (1990), died at home after a long illness, said Santini, who lives in France.

Born in Philadelphia in 1923, Kershner trained as a musician and in photography before starting making documentaries and then feature films.

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News #Fail

...or more specifically, a Fox News fail:


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Please do note the "read the full story..." at the bottom of the article.

This "news" item originally appeared at FoxNation.com, but as you might imagine was quickly taken down.

Head nod goes to The Fury Blogger who sent the link and screenshot to me.

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I Just Lost Respect For Andrew Napolitano

[Update: vid now broken -- new link here]

Watch the whole thing if you like, as it's not a bad conversation. But, things get weird at the 4:00 mark...

Yup. Judge Napolitano is a Truther. Oy.

Head nod: Killgore Trout

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Sunday Morning Music

This is "Sleigh Ride" from Harry Connick, Jr.'s first holiday album, When My Heart Finds Christmas.

Enjoy your Sunday.

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Trekking For Trees

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The Boy at our annual Pajama Family Christmas Tree Trek yesterday. He was just about to chop down the tree -- and he did a great job (with a little help from Yours Truly)...

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Saturday Morning Cartoon

Eat your Wheaties -- it's cartoon time!

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World of TSA-craft

Even the World of Warcraft isn’t safe from the TSA.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

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Signing Off

...for a couple of days.

For the next few days, I'll be spending some time with TPW's family, my family, and a turkey. Yum.

In case you hadn't noticed from the Todd Akin post, I've installed a new feature called "Thickbox" on the site [it's a variant of Lightbox that also uses jquery]. Here's a demo:


Pretty sweet, eh? I also have the ability to load flash video (e.g. YouTube videos) into the script, hence the previous post featuring Congressman Akin.

Anyway, I hope you have a safe and happy Thanksgiving weekend. I know that I'll be up bright and early tomorrow to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade... who's with me?

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Rep. Todd Akin: Pilgrims Were Running From Socialism

Wow. I don't even know where to begin...

Steve Benen's commentary is a good start:

The problem is that Akin's wrong. The New York Times' Kate Zernike had an item on this the other day, citing the work of actual historians, rather than easily-confused right-wing politicians.

In our reality, the settlers agreed to hold their property in common, not as experiment in socialism, but as a short-term decision "in the interest of realizing a profit sooner." The Pilgrims "were more like shareholders in an early corporation than subjects of socialism."

In the right's version, the commonly-held property led to laziness and famine. That's wrong, too: "The arrangement did not produce famine. If it had, Bradford would not have declared the three days of sport and feasting in 1621 that became known as the first Thanksgiving."

The Pilgrims ultimately moved away from the system, not because of discoveries about their "unbiblical ways," but because settlers "spoke different dialects and had different methods of farming, and looked upon each other with great wariness."

In the right's version, the Pilgrims flourished after moving away from communal property, which made the first Thanksgiving possible. In reality, the first Thanksgiving was held two years before the settlers gave up on holding their property in common.

Their production improved, not because they turned from a wicked economic system, but because the Pilgrims got better at farming crops like corn that they'd never seen before.

Brian at Right Wing Watch noted that Akin's not the only one caught up in the conservative-politically-correct myth on Thanksgiving's origins -- John Stossel and Phyllis Schlafly like the bogus version, too -- so don't be too surprised if your crazy uncle brings it up tomorrow at the dinner table.

Hey, I've got a GREAT idea -- let's politicize f**king Thanksgiving!

As if we don't have enough to worry about getting into legitimate political arguments over a steaming hot plate of turkducken. Now I have to concern myself with some grossly uninformed family member shooting off at the mouth about how Pilgrims were fleeing socialism. Gah.

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Quote Of The Day

“This speaks to a bigger picture here that certainly scares me in terms of our national security policy. But obviously we’ve gotta stand with our North Korean allies.” -Sarah Palin, discussing the situation on the Korean Peninsula with Glenn Beck yesterday.

And if you missed it, she said that we are allies with North Korea -- which could not be farther from the truth.

Ugh.

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Decrying John Conyers' "Smut" On A Plane

Seriously.

While November’s election brought a tsunami of change to Michigan policies, some incumbents are untouchable. So untouchable, apparently, that they openly read girlie magazines on their trips to and from Washington, DC. Detroit Congressman John Conyers was caught on film in a late July flight this year perusing a Playboy magazine on a trip from Detroit to Washington.

The video and pictures – first posted by ex-Detroit News reporter and New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner Charlie LeDuff on his Facebook page – were taken by an anonymous passenger seated two seats from Conyers (see video here). Conyers – in his aisle seat – is shown flipping though pages showing two nude gal pals in the August issue of Playboy. And he also apparently reads Hefner’s product for the articles. The pages he lingers on appear to feature an article entitled “La Chatte” by Maureen Gibbon, on article exploring lesbian sex.

Of course, Mr. Conyers is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, so it is entirely possible he is preparing for a committee hearing on the legal definition of pornography. Or perhaps he is studying new TSA pat-down procedures for female passengers.

Whatever the case, the congressman doesn’t seem bashful about sharing the magazine with nearby passengers and passing stewardesses. After all, Conyers is not a bashful man. He once used staff as baby sitters and chauffeurs for his children. And this children attended Cranbrook private school at a time when the congressman opposed giving his own constituents the choice of more charter schools.

Obviously, this is a politician who is not easily embarrassed.

So, David Vitter can have sex with prostitutes, which is illegal, but John Conyers looks at a Playboy (which is barely pornography) and suddenly it's a big issue? Give me a break.

Now, if Conyers had been seated next to a five-year-old little girl and been pushing the Playboy into her nose, I might change my tune. But that's not the case here, is it?

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Taking Rush Limbaugh To Task

After Rush Limbaugh oh-so-publicly criticized their review of the Chevrolet Volt, Motor Trend hits back:

[Motor Trend's] credibility, Mr. Limbaugh, comes from actually driving and testing [the Chevy Volt], and understanding its advanced technology. It comes from driving and testing virtually every new car sold, and from doing this once a year with all the all-new or significantly improved models all at the same time. We test, make judgments and write about things we understand.

Chevrolet has not sold one Volt because it’s not on sale yet. It will not sell 10,000 this first model year (although GE plans to buy truckloads for its fleet), because it takes time to ramp up production. See, Rush, because we’re the World’s Automotive Authority, we get access to many cars before they go on sale.

But, harrumph. In its attempt to force cars that don’t use much gas on us — how un-American/un-ExxonMobil/un-Halliburton is that? — the Obama administration is offering a $7,500 tax credit on the Chevy Volt, grabbing tax breaks and credits right out of the deserving, job-creating pockets of America’s richest individuals. How dare he?

This is another of your distortions, Rush, repeated by the otherwise more level-headed George Will in The Washington Post last Sunday. The $7,500 Obama tax credit is an expansion of President Bush’s hybrid credits from the last decade. The Obama tax credit extends to the new Nissan Leaf, too, but if you or Will slammed that car, I’ve not heard or read it. I’d be surprised if you did, though, as Nissan is building the Leaf in a non-union factory in a right-to-work state represented by two Republican senators. A factory located there because Tennessee offered Nissan big tax credits. Maybe you’re worried that if the $7,500 tax credit works, too many people will buy the Volt, and that could reduce the need for oil drilling tax credits?

I'm sorry Rush, but you just got schooled. Deservingly, I might add.

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Photo: Crunchgear at Flickr

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Chris Christie On Jimmy Fallon

Hmmm. I wonder what Palin thinks of Christie's, errr, comments? Heh.

Head nod: GOP12

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Fisking The Fourteenth Amendment

Congressman Steve King wants to go at it with a fine-toothed comb:

[The 14th Amendment] reads: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

King said framers considered exceptions, including certain Indian tribes and babies born to ambassadors or visitors — the reason, he said, for the language “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” the line King thinks opens the door to the change he seeks.

“For example if Alexis de Tocqueville had had a baby while he was here, I don’t think they would have conferred automatic citizenship on that child,” King said, referring to the French politician who famously wrote about America in the 1800s during extensive travels here.

King went on to say that automatic citizenship, which results in what he called “anchor babies” for illegal immigrant parents, is a “habit of the heart so to speak.”

“The framers did not consider the babies of illegals when they framed the 14th amendment because we didn’t have immigration law at the time so they could not have wanted to confer automatic citizenship on the babies of people who were unlawfully in the United States,” King said.

King wants Congress to pass a ban on “anchor babies,” place it in statute, and wait for the other side to challenge the prohibition in the courts. If King and his forces lose, they’ll move for a constitutional amendment to change the practice, he said.

“It’s the right policy, and I think we can do it by statute,” King said.

"They [the framers of the Constitution] could not have wanted to confer automatic citizenship on the babies of people who were unlawfully in the United States." Really? How do you know this Congressman?

I think that King is looking at this purely through the prism of modern times. He cannot begin to understand how the founding fathers would have weighed-in on this topic. None of us can.

At the time of the founding documents of our nation, our republic was in its infancy. None of the men who signed the Constitution could have known that in a mere 220 years, people from other countries would be clamoring to get themselves inside of our borders, by any means necessary.

To presume to know what these men would have thought is above arrogance.

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Cartoon: Mike Keefe, The Denver Post via Cagle Cartoons

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David Frum: Mike Huckabee Versus Sarah Palin

A very interesting take on the possibility of a Huckabee-led overthrow of Sarah Baracuda:

Huckabee is a very different cat from Sarah Palin. He’s smart and policy-minded. And while he expresses a strong social conservative message, he does not play the politics of division, disparagement, and resentment in which Palin specializes. In the days of party conventions, the answer to the Palin problem would have been obvious: party leaders would assemble and force the mutually mistrustful Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee onto the same ticket. In modern times, the game is played differently, but the structure of the situation remains the same: an early Huckabee pact with a candidate acceptable to Republican donors (if not Romney, then Tim Pawlenty or even Jeb Bush) would command enough clout to push Palin off the stage. If not, all bets are off. As I think about it, that’s one of the big problems with the candidacies of a Thune, a Daniels or a Barbour: They will need Huckabee as much or more than Romney does. Yet Huckabee is also a re-elected governor, plus he won the second largest haul of delegates last time. Why should he defer to any of the lower-polling governors? And who will make him?

I still cannot believe that Palin would even run for the nomination in 2012. But, I suppose stranger things have happened in politics...

Postscript: how frightening is it that Frum includes the phrase "President Palin" in his post headline? *shudder*

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Photo: Smith, AP/Reinke, AP

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Are Moderates/Independents Turned Off By Gridlock?

Buried in the latest ABC News/Yahoo! polling are some numbers to which both Republicans and Democrats should pay close attention:

While [political gridlock] customarily is taken as a negative, this ABC News/Yahoo! News poll finds that Republican registered voters in fact divide evenly, 42-43 percent, on whether gridlock is a bad thing because it prevents good legislation from being passed -- or a good thing, because it blocks bad laws.

The split underscores many Republicans' skepticism of active government. But it may make it difficult for GOP leaders to push their own legislative agenda. And it raises questions about the durability of the party's appeal to independent registered voters, who favored Republicans by a record margin Nov. 2, but who see gridlock as a negative by a 2-1 margin, 57-28 percent.

[snip]

...40 percent, a plurality, don't think the outcome of the election will make a difference in the country's direction at all. That view is especially prevalent among independents, customarily a politically skeptical group. They see the election results as a positive by 30-14 percent, but 51 percent of independents don't think it'll make much difference.

My emphasis.

Take note parties: independents usually control the swing of power. If you don't live up to the promises that you make during an election campaign, you'll be punished for it at the polls the next time around.

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North Vs. South: The Koreas Light Up

Geez:

North Korea fired scores of artillery shells at a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing two soldiers, in one of the heaviest attacks on its neighbor since the Korean War ended in 1953.

The barrage -- the South fired back and sent a fighter jet to the area -- was close to a disputed maritime border on the west of the divided peninsula and the scene of deadly clashes in the past. South Korea was conducting military drills in the area at the time but said it had not been firing at the North.

The attack came as the reclusive North, and its ally China, presses regional powers to return to negotiations on its nuclear weapons program and revelations at the weekend Pyongyang is fast developing another source of material to make atomic bombs.

It also follows moves by leader Kim Jong-il to make his youngest, but unproven, son his heir apparent, leading some analysts to question whether the bombardment might in part have been an attempt to burnish the ruling family's image with the military.

I don't care who started it. What matters is where things go from here. The uneasy relationship between North and South Korea has implications that reach far beyond the DMZ.

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Photo: KNS/AFP/Getty Images

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On "Sarah Palin's Alaska"

I haven't watched it. Hell, I refuse to watch it. Luckily for me, The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash watches it for me:

Just how Sarah is Sarah Palin’s Alaska, her new hit reality show on the TLC network? It’s soooo flippin’ Sarah, as Sarah would say. And it’s soooo Alaska, which Palin pronounces “A-LASK-ahhhh.” She repeats this on the show over and over again, as though we might forget where she’s from otherwise. She says it in that chirpy honk that, to her legions of fans, represents the music of Mom, apple pie, and flyover country. To her legions of enemies, it is the sound of gum smacking and syntax breaking. As Palin intones in the show’s opening, “A-LASK-ahhhh—I love this state like I love my family.” Except that she didn’t give her family up after governing it for two-and-a-half years, so that she could get a Fox News contract, and make 100 grand per speech, and write two books in a year, and drag her entire family onto a tacky reality show.

[snip]

[H]er show is very similar to other reality-television fare, in that there are plenty of artificially constructed moments. The eldest Palin daughter—Dancing with the Stars contestant Bristol—is taken to a shooting range so that Sarah can “remind Bristol what it’s like to pull the trigger.” But it’s fairly obvious when Bristol asks if the recoil is going to hurt and mistakes a clay pigeon for a mosquito that the reason she needs “reminding” is because she’s rarely if ever pulled a trigger at all. Likewise, there are gobs of forced dialogue in order to set up Palin’s bumper-sticker lines (she tells Bristol, with the -subtlety of a skywriter, “Don’t retreat, just reload”). She also repeatedly makes unlikely pronouncements, such as that Denali National Park is 9,400 square miles while New Hampshire is only 9,200 square miles, sounding less like Sarah Barracuda than Sarah Wikipedia.

Wow. And he writes for The Weekly Standard -- hardly a bastion of liberal-Palin-critics.

I'm still anxiously awaiting a B-Diddy critique (praise?) of the show....

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A Message From The TSA

Heh.

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And We Wonder Why Voter Turnout Is Always So Low...

Hmm...

While pundits and activists bemoan the consistently low levels of turnout in American elections, we as political scientists are perplexed by the millions of citizens that DO vote. On Tuesday, 42% of registered voters took time out of their day to travel to their assigned polling location, wait in line, exchange niceties with a grumpy volunteer, and fill in some bubbles with a Sharpie. What did they receive in return?: a sticker and a 0% chance of changing the results of the election.

Political scientists have tried to calculate the probability that one vote will make a difference in a Presidential election. They estimate that the chances are roughly 1 in 10 million to 1 in 100 million, depending on your state. This does not give an individual much incentive to vote.

The whole article is very interesting. The reasons that people do vote, despite the odds, are the most impressive...

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Caffeinated Vs. Decaffeinated Coffee

I meant to post this ditty some-time ago, but never got to it:


Head nod: TYWKIWDBI who found it at Fake Science

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Quote Of The Day

"I sat next to her once. Thought she was beautiful. And I think she's very happy in Alaska, and I hope she'll stay there." -former First Lady Barbara Bush, commenting on her impression of Sarah Palin.

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Down And Out

So, as you have likely noticed, the blog has been somewhat sparse for the last few days.

On Thursday, I had a wonderful celebration for my birthday with my entire family (and a really neat post here on the blog -- she even set up a Blogger account so that she can add her opinion here once in a while). On Friday, TPW and I were supposed to get a date. The plan was to leave work a couple of minutes early and sprint to our local cinemaplex to utilize our advance tickets for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I.

Alas, t'was not meant to be...

I woke up on Friday morning and could barely walk around without feeling like I was going to launch my cookies on the area rug. I called in sick to work, and spent the better part of the next 24 hours on my couch. The stomach virus attacked.

Since then, I have started to feel a bit better -- but I still have moments of nausea. I'm at work today, but I still feel pretty crapola.

Unfortunately, this feels like an endless cycle of sickness. For the past two weeks, my kids have passed this crap back-and-forth between them, I got it on Thursday night/Friday and my parents spent their weekend feeling downright sh*tty as well.

The only person who has remained relatively unscathed in this mess has been TPW. The irony, of course, is that she wants to get sick. She wants to get it over with -- seeing as how Thanksgiving is in three days. She does not want to feel icky on one of only a couple of days each year that we are encouraged to over-indulge. That. Would. Suck.

So, if posting continues to be sporadic today, you now know why. I have a few things that I want to cover, and I also wanted to highlight a nifty-new image effect that I've tweaked on the site, so maybe I'll get to a couple of things today. If not, I'll get to 'em tomorrow. Or Wednesday. We'll see.

Either way, thanks for listening reading. Happy Monday to you.

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Sunday Morning Music

You are listening to Al Green's "Love and Happiness" from 1972's I'm Still In Love With You.

Enjoy your Sunday.

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Saturday Morning Cartoon

Drink your coffee -- it's cartoon time!

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Defunding NPR

...failed:

The House on Thursday voted to move forward on legislation without voting on a proposal put forth by Republicans to defund NPR.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the next majority leader, said the vote demonstrates that Democrats "are still not ready to listen" following their sweeping midterm election losses.

"News organizations are free to do, say and operate on their own terms, but that doesn’t mean that taxpayers should be forced to fund them. Today’s vote was just the latest common sense YouCut to cut spending and save taxpayer dollars, and again Democrats showed that they just don’t get it."

[snip]

"Today, good judgment prevailed as Congress rejected a move to assert government control over the content of news," NPR said in an official statement.

...until next year when the GOP controls the House.

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PSA: Talk To Your Kids About Star Wars

Pure genius.

Head nod: James Joyner

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On The Palin Kid's Use Of "Faggot"

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...and I'm not referring to Dancing With The (not really) stars, either.

I'm no fan of Sarah Palin (shocker). That said, I will not criticize Willow Palin for calling someone a "faggot" on her Facebook page. She is 16-years-old. My thought is that 16-year-olds should be allowed to say stupid shit on their Facebook page.

I know that I said some stupid shit when I was 16 -- and we didn't even have Facebook back in those days (AOL was brand-new).

What I will say is twofold:

1) I do not share Willow's view that "faggot" is an okay word to just throw around and
2) If Sarah and Todd Palin are the good Christians that they purport to be, they should have a nice little sit-down chat with Willow about what that word means.

That's all I'm going to say on the topic.

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Fred Thompson: 'Joe Miller Needs To Be A Big Boy'

In Alaska's race for the U.S. Senate, incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski has been declared the winner. However, Joe Miller does not appear to be ready to concede, leading Fred Thompson to weigh-in on his radio program:

"Joe Miller ought to give it up and live to fight another day. Show a little class. All those people around you who had big plans based upon your success are going to have to back off now. Don't let them take you through this court system forever, trying to hang on by your fingernails in hopes of getting enough ballots thrown out. Because she has pulled off a feat that I didn't think she could ever pull off . . ."

Thompson went on to add that Miller is "right on the law, but he's wrong on the politics. And he ought to preserve his credibility and be a big boy . . ."

Ouch.

Head nod: Matt Lewis

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Ron Paul On The TSA

Head nod: Doug

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Happy Birthday To The Pajama Pundit!

PJP regularly devotes a blog post to those he loves on their birthday, so I thought it appropriate to devote one to him.



Happy Birthday super dad, super friend, super blogger and all around super-man!

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The End Of MySpace?

Hmmmm...



...quite possibly.

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Quote Of The Day

"[People at NPR] are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda." -CEO of Fox News Channel Roger Ailes, comparing executives at National Public Radio to a political party that ordered the systematic murder of approximately six million Jews and six million other people from other targeted groups.

Yeah. They are definitely the same thing.

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"The Green Lantern" Trailer

Yes. From Matt McDaniel at Yahoo! Movies:

[Ryan] Reynolds plays Hal Jordan, who was actually the second Green Lantern in the comic books starting in 1959. He is a test pilot at Ferris Aircraft alongside Carol Ferris (played by Blake Lively). Jordan discovers where a spacecraft crashes on Earth, and its alien passenger, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison), passes on his power ring to Jordan before he dies. So Jordan is inducted into the Green Lantern Corps, sort of an interplanetary police force whose rings have the power to create anything they can imagine.

[snip]

It's a far cry from the gritty realism of a movie like "The Dark Knight," but that's by design. It also has a lighter tone that gives Reynolds the chance to show off his trademark charm, putting his romantic comedy experience to use in his bantering with Lively. And unlike the brooding, tortured heroes like Christian Bale's Batman or Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, Reynolds seems to be having fun with his superpowers.

...and I think that this type of super-hero flick is due. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy The Dark Knight and Wolverine with the best of 'em. BUT, a funny/witty/snarky/good-time-havin' character is a welcome addition to all of the movies-based-on-comic-books out there.

Thoughts?

Head nod: Mr. Furious

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John Boehner Is The New Speaker Of The House

Not all-that-surprising news.

It's almost assured now that the next Speaker of the House will be Rep. John Boehner, who was re-elected as Republican Leader Wednesday in a closed-door meeting of House GOP members.

He was nominated by Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, who said in his nominating speech that Boehner "has the skills, the knowledge and the resolve to lead us and America forward."

Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia was elected Majority Leader. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California was elected whip.

After Boehner won, staffers brought in a green cake to celebrate.

Yummy.

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Quote Of The Day

“Tea Party activists would be nuts to challenge Scott Brown. He’s the best we can hope for in Massachusetts and is not a blight on the party like Mike Castle would be.” -Erick Erickson, founder of RedState, clarifying his analysis of potential Tea Party targets for Republican primary elections.

Hey Tea Party folks, Scott Brown is as conservative as you are going to get... in Massachusetts. You should be pleased that Republicans got that win in the first place.

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Goodbye, TWI

Next month, The Washington Independent will close it's doors:

Nearly three years ago, The Washington Independent was launched as a bold experiment in online journalism. The idea was to combine hard-nosed investigative reporting with all the web had to offer: the nimbleness of real-time coverage, the interactivity made possible by this new thing called blogging, and the ability to create a narrative that was bigger than the sum of its parts.

[snip]

But TWI was not just a journalistic experiment; it was also a financial one, and ultimately, the successes of the former couldn’t sustain the strains of the latter. Our first year was marked by a kind of exceptionalism, the feeling that we were expanding as other newsrooms were contracting, that this new model of journalism would survive as our dead-tree colleagues struggled. But in the end, we fell prey to the recession just like everyone else.

Another casualty of this recession.

Weak. I will have to update my bookmarks, as I was an avid reader of TWI.

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Douchebag Quote Of The Day (UPDATED)

[updated below]

"When we think of heroism in battle, we used the [sic] think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe do Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements.

That kind of heroism has apparently become passe when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them.

So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?

I would suggest our culture has become so feminized that we have become squeamish at the thought of the valor that is expressed in killing enemy soldiers through acts of bravery." -Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, explaining to all of us "feminized" Americans what it you have to do to be a good soldier: Kill motherf**kers.

Seriously. Look at this guy:


Does he really look to be the epitome of masculinity? (not that that matters)

More importantly, this sounds to me like bravery incarnate:

Salvatore Giunta, a 22-year-old Army specialist from Hiawatha, Iowa, was knocked flat by the gunfire; luckily, a well-aimed round failed to penetrate his armored chest plate. As the paratroopers tried to gather their senses and scramble for a shred of cover, Giunta reacted instinctively, running straight into the teeth of the ambush to aid three wounded soldiers, one by one, who had been separated from the others.

Two paratroopers died in the Oct. 25, 2007, attack, and most of the others suffered serious wounds. But the toll would have been far higher if not for the bravery of Giunta, according to members of his unit and Army officials.

For Fischer to suggest that Mr. Giunta running head-first into enemy fire to rescue his comrades-in-arms is anything other than insanely heroic is moronic. Period.

My guess is that, were Bryan Fischer pinned-down by enemy fire -- or worse yet, lying on the ground from gunshot wounds -- and someone like Savatore Giunta pulled his injured body out of harms way, he'd be singing a different tune. He'd be singing the praises of our Medal Of Honor recipients, not trashing them as somehow less "manly".

Gah.

UPDATE:: Blackfive says it much better than I ever could:

[G]iven this guy thinks we ought to put a skirt on Paul Ray Smith (because, you know, all the MOHs given in Iraq and Afghanistan have been feminized), tell me objectively what he did that was that much different than Audie Murphy did? Does Murphy deserve a skirt too?

People like this guy simply burn me up. His claim is centered on the fact that most of those who’ve been awarded the MOH in the two wars were awarded the medal for “saving lives”, not “killing people and breaking things”.

Tell it to the 50 hajis in the common grave SFC Smith put ‘em in, mister.

Tell it to the 20 or so Taliban Robert James Miller sent to see Allah.

He also objects to the MOH given to those who have fallen on hand grenades. Apparently the sacrifice of one’s life to save others doesn’t measure up in his book. And he apparently thinks that’s a fairly recent phenomenon.

Well buy a clue, gomer – ever hear of Marine PFC Richard Anderson? Anderson fell on a grenade on Kwajalein in February of 1943. Yeah, a Marine – in WWII. And we all know they all wore skirts then, don’t we? There have been many, many others given since then for basically the same act.

Indeed.

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SNL On China-U.S. Relations

Heh.

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Lisa Murkowski On Sarah Palin

Most reasonable: "I will tell you, I am not one of those who wants Obama to fail. If he does well, that means the country's doing well. We don't have time as a nation to spend all of what we do blocking. We have got to figure out how we get to a point where we can be sitting around the table and talking about these difficult problems and advancing some solutions."

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David Frum On Party Factions

And the guy makes a lot of sense:

In 1999-2005, when [Newt] Gingrich was focusing on building a second career for himself as a commentator on domestic and international affairs, Gingrich talked about the environment and school reform and healthcare. As hope dawned in him that he might at last have an open opportunity in 2008, Gingrich put those broad themes away, and has slammed instead at the Kenyan anticolonialist in the White House. Romney leaves the door open to non-supporters; Gingrich seals it tight; Palin of course divides the world into supporters and enemies. But unfortunately, the very things that should make Romney an attractive nominee are the things that will likely doom him. What we are likely to get instead is an attempt to pile leverage upon leverage in a style that would have impressed Samuel Insull: to control a great national party that seeks the votes of tens of millions by speaking to the passions and interests of a core group of some hundreds of thousands.

It’s no way to run a company, it should not be the way to run a party, and for sure it’s a terrible way to run a country.

And herein lay the dichotomy of running for high public office. The Christine O'Donnells of the world may fire up the base, but that extreme candidate/ideology will rarely win the day.

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Tweet Of The Day

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Charlie Rangel Guilty On 11 Counts Of Ethics Violations

Dang.

A House ethics committee subpanel today found Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel guilty of 11 of the 13 charges of ethics violations against him.

The panel, composed of four Democrats and four Republicans, emerged after private deliberation to announce their findings.

"This has been a difficult assignment," committee chair Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said. "We have tried to act with fairness, led only by the facts and the law, and I believe we have accomplished that mission."

The subpanel will now submit its findings to the full ethics committee, which will schedule a public hearing to determine the appropriate sanctions to take against the longtime New York representative. Whatever action they decide on during the sanctions hearing will then go to the full House of Representatives. The committee could go so far as to recommend expelling Rangel, but that would be unlikely. Other possible sanctions include a House vote deploring Rangel's conduct, a fine or a denial of privileges.

Cue the Republican glee.

Although, Stephen Littau makes a good point.

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Photo: Doug Mills/New York Times

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The "Sarah Palin Approved" Presidential Candidate

Hmmm. Sayeth Sister Sarah:

I'm certainly going to take a good lay-of-the-land look, and see if there are others out there, who are electable, who are willing to make the tough decisions, won't care what the heck the media says about them, but will do the right things and shrink the government so the private sector can thrive.

If there are others out there, willing to do that and make the sacrifices, then I'll support them. If there's nobody else, I would do it.

My emphasis.

Interesting.

So, what the former Governor of Alaska is saying is, she would not support her own bid for the presidency.

Seriously. Think about it.

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No Jindal Presidential Run In 2012

Like Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal needs to continuously respond to rumors regarding a possible 2012 run for the presidency:

Jindal, considered to be a rising star within the GOP despite some high profile setbacks, issued an emphatic Shermanesque statement Monday in an interview with the Associated Press when asked about his 2012 White House plans.

"I'm not being coy at all. I'm not running for president in 2012. Period. No ifs, ands or buts, no caveats," said Jindal. "We have made great progress in Louisiana, but we've got a lot more work to do."

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Photo: Tim Mueller/New York Times

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All Of The Fuss About Earmarks

With all of the headlines about Mitch McConnell joining the Tea Party ranks in looking to ban earmark spending, FirstRead raises some good points:

[The movement to ban earmark spending is] so … small, especially compared with the price tag of extending the Bush tax cuts (for the wealthy or the middle class) and what the deficit-reduction co-chairs recently proposed (tax increases, spending cuts, entitlement reform). It also raises this question: If senators or members of Congress are no longer in charge of bringing home the bacon to their states or districts (via earmarks or another mechanism), then what becomes their primary mission? Being ideological fighters? And then there's this: By banning earmarks, is Congress ceding all the bacon authority to the executive branch? (If you're a community, for example, you're going to the Transportation Department to get your road projects, not your congressman.) McConnell even addressed this on the Senate floor yesterday, “I’m not wild about turning over more spending authority to the executive branch.”

I don't think that this thing has legs. However, I think that it's a positive conversation -- and will likely shed some much-needed sunlight on the back-room dealings that get projects earmarked into Congressional legislation.

Chart via Foreign Policy

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Sunday Morning Music

You are listening to "Boulevard Street Scene" by St Germain, from their album entitled Boulevard.

Enjoy your Sunday.

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Saturday Morning Cartoon

Eat your Cocoa Puffs -- it's cartoon time!

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Cindy McCain Disagrees With Her Husband

What is notable here (and has been making the rounds on the Inter-tubes and the Tweety-pages) is the inclusion of Cindy McCain. She appears thrice in the video, and says:

Our political and religious leaders tell LGBT youth that they have no future.

... and regarding Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

They can't serve our country openly.

... and finally:

Our government treats the LGBT community like second class citizens, why shouldn't [bullies]?

... and all of this flies in the face of that which her husband, Senator John McCain, has said on the record in the U.S. Senate. In fact, he is helping to lead the filibuster against repealing DADT.

Interesting.

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Jon Stewart On Rachel Maddow

Not literally, of course...



For the entirety of the interview, click here.

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Veteran's Day: Refreshing

So, yesterday afternoon, after I had returned from a high school visit that took up most of my morning, I had the pleasure of attending my son's elementary school Veteran's Day program.

It was an afternoon filled with the usual pleasantries directed towards the handful of (very deserving) veterans in attendance. The kids sang songs (none of which included anything by Lee Greenwood, I might add), presented each of the vets with a flower and, in general, said thank-you to all of those American men and women who don a uniform in service to this country.

But, do you know what I enjoyed the most?

It wasn't the singing. It wasn't the high school trumpet player's brave attempt at "Taps". It wasn't the presentation by the married couple who met at the U.S. Naval Air Station at Adak, Alaska. It wasn't even finding out that, unbeknown to me, a new friend of mine fought in the Gulf War.

What I enjoyed the most out of the whole assembly was the fact that nobody said anything political.

Nobody stood up and said, "Democrats are soft on terrorism and military issues!" Nobody stood up and said, "America should get out of Afghanistan NOW." Nobody stood up and said, "Barack Obama is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief because he is Kenyan."

Granted, it is quite possible that many people were thinking some of these thoughts (and others). But, because none of those folks acted on their thoughts, it was very nice to sit and listen to the kids. They did a great job singing the praises of those men and women who have answered the call of a grateful nation -- and not worry about some crazed activist (liberal or conservative) standing up and ruining the assembly for everyone else.

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What A Week

So, in case it hasn't been absolutely obvious -- this week has been a busy one. Work has had me traveling all around the center of the Keystone State, which I have greatly enjoyed. Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, particularly in my neck of the proverbial woods.

Example:


(I know, I know -- it's a dark photo. Cut me some slack, the sun sets early now.)
However, because of all of my work travel, I have had to devote more time to my actual work when I've been in the office. (translation: I haven't had as much time at work to goof around on the Internet -- shhh, don't tell my supervisors)

That being said, I really have missed the opportunity to post my thoughts here. I can say with high confidence that next week the regularly scheduled posting will resume. With great fervor.

Think of it like this: I have had to take a mini-vacation from the blog, so that I can work. Sad, I know. But that's how I'm going to look at things.

Also of note -- as an early birthday present, TPW ordered high speed Internet service for our family. Yesterday, the technician came to ThePajamaPundit.com World Headquarters and installed 21 mbps service for us. What does this mean? It means that I can once again post to the blog from the comfort of my own home. In my pajamas.

Yes.

Have a great weekend, we'll get caught up more next week.

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Happy Veteran's Day

Happy Veteran's Day to all those who have served and those who are currently serving.

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Cartoon: Frank Galasso

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Rush Limbaugh's Diet Plan

Rush has some advice for you eggheaded liberals out there: eat sh*t and you'll live longer and healthier:

I told you I was gonna have fun with this story: "Twinkie Diet Helps Nutrition Professor Lose 27 Pounds." I love stirring the conventional wisdom pot, as you know. And I love being right. Folks, it's a thrill. I have to tell you, you don't know what it's like to be right as often as I am, particularly when you're simply following instincts, when being right really doesn't have that much to do with formal education, just being street-wise smart, just having common sense, having the guts to say what you know to be true regardless what the reaction to it is gonna be and when it eventually is all proven like "I hope he fails," all this stuff.

What have I told you about diet and exercise? Exercise is irrelevant.... "How do you know all this?" One of the reasons I know what I know is that I know liberals, and I know liberals lie, and if Michelle Obama's gonna be out there ripping into "food desserts" and saying, "This is why people are fat," I know it's not true. "Rush, do you really believe that? It's that simple to you, liberals lie?" Yes, it is, folks. Once you learn that, once you come to grips with that, once you accept that, the rest is easy. Very, very simple. Now, my doctor has never told me to restrict any intake of salt, but if he did, I wouldn't. I'd just spend more time in the steam or the sauna sweating it out.

My emphasis.

Rrrrright. So, when I die of a heart attack at age 40, or a stroke from high triglycerides at age 43, can my widow sue the f**king pants off of Mr. Limbaugh?

'I told you so' my ass.

I am so unbelievably tired of Rush Limbaugh (and others like him) telling their listeners/followers/fans that stupidity is okay. Stupidity is cool. Being educated makes you a lying liberal.

'Hey look kids! You can play video games all day and eat junk food all day and not only will you be healthy, you can lose some extra pounds too!'

Ugh. It's almost as if he wants Americans to embrace stupidity. Being smart is no longer a valued attribute to people like Limbaugh.

Oh sure, some guy goes on a 'Convenience Store Diet' and loses some weight. There are also runners in near-perfect physical condition who drop dead from heart attacks. So what? So, sometimes sh*t just happens.

Just because one guy lost some weight eating nothing but Twinkies (and other junk food), does not mean that everyone will have the same results. I understand his point (that counting calories is the way to go), but surely the human body needs some kind of real nourishment.

To prove my point, I have a challenge for Rush (HA! as if he reads this blog)...

Rush Limbaugh. I propose that you LITERALLY put your money where your mouth is and eat nothing but Twinkies for six months. Hey, it's only one-half of a year! At the end of the challenge, if your triglycerides have not risen, if you weight has not risen, I will admit on this site that you are right. Oh, and since "exercise is irrelevant", you shouldn't do any of that either.

If I win this challenge, you must publicly admit that you are wrong. You must make a donation to the charity of my choosing and you must say on the air that you were "bested by a blogger".

The ball is in your corner Rush. Grab a Twinkie...

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Quote Of The Day

"No one cares if you smoke a joint or not." -Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), speaking to Jay Leno on NBC's The Tonight Show regarding California voters' rejection of Proposition 19.

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Anonymous Bloggers, For A Reason

Simon Owens points to a really interesting graph depicting the concern that many bloggers have over revealing their true identity.

This is a fascinating subject to me, largely because I have used an anonymous moniker for the entirety of my blog-life.

Now that I am back in a professional work environment, the concerns regarding my employer have begun to resonate with me. But, when I first started this little political hodge-podge back in 2007, I wanted to remain anonymous not to protect myself from family or friends or coworkers, but rather to let my voice be completely uninhibited.

At the time, I felt that if my real name was on my work, that I would hold back with my opinions and editorial commentary.

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