Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The Cleland lie continues on, this time from Kevin Drum:
The White House cynically proposed a union-busting plan for the Department of Homeland Security designed solely to arouse Democratic opposition. The President told cheering audiences that Senate Democrats didn’t care about the security of the country and campaigned tirelessly even against congressmen who had supported him. In Georgia, Max Cleland was likened to Osama bin Laden.
Ask Paul Begala.
John Ellis has been spot on with his day by day analysis on how the executives and Dan Rather are going to hang Mary Mapes out to dry. Hit Ctrl F, type rout, and then read the bpost above and all that follow. Frightening how correct Ellis has been.
Mark Kleiman makes complete sense discussing the perverse effects of our current mindset (and, unfortunately, policies) in the War on Your Neighbor.
This post, however, contains this thoroughly obnoxious remark:
Not that an honorable discharge is anything to crow about: all it means is that you didn’t get caught violating any really outrageous rules.
Spoken like a man who doesn’t have one himself, as I am pretty proud of my honorable discharge. One of these days Democrats are going to learn how to attack Republicans (or Bush) without shitting all over millions of bystanders. I seriously hope the Kerry campaign decides to take up this snotty refrain- enough PR collateral damage will be done to edge a million more votes Bush’s way should anything this offensive come out of Kerry/Edwards or the DNC.
New Swift Vets Ad called “Friends.”
If you look to the right, you will see a blogad for Intellectual Morons, which I am almost finished reading. I wil have a review up for you in the next couple of days.
Quick Preview: I love it. Click and buy it. Trust me.
*** Update ***
Unlike Oliver, I am reading the book before commenting on it- novel idea, hunh?
Arrogance was the follow-up book to Bernard Goldberg’s bestseller Bias. After reading this Dan Rather interview, I think his third book could be titled Jackasses:
In an interview Monday evening, a repentant Rather conceded it had been a mistake to broadcast the documents. But even though he could not vouch for their authenticity, he said he still did not believe that they were fakes.
“Do I think they’re forged? No,” Rather said. “But it’s not good enough to use the documents on the air if we can’t vouch for them, and we can’t vouch for them.”
Rather said he had no regrets for his defense of the story.
“I believed in it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have put it on the air if I hadn’t of believed in it. And what kind of reporter would I be if I put something on the air in which I believed, and as soon as it’s attacked and under pressure, you run, you fold, you fade, you side-wind? That’s not the kind of person I am, and it’s not the kind of reporter I am.”
What an asshole.
I am not sure how many of you are aware of he devestating effect that Hurricane Ivan had over the weekend to the interior of the nation, but here are some pictures to give you an idea. My hometown of Bethany, WV, received 9.5 inches of rain in ONE DAY, and we experienced the worst flooding in the memory of our oldest citizens. This was a once a century flood:
These previous three pictures are of the town park. It is hard to tell, but, but the source of the water is from a small creek that snakes through the valley from left to right. The creek, at normal size, is about 1-2 feet deep, and 10-15 feet wide, and if you look closely, it follows the countour of the tree line in the far left all the way around the valley, and in normal times, the park is a grassy area bowl shaped area about 1000 meters by 100 meters with the creek on three sides. The town building (the olf Fire Department), is displayed prominently in the first picture on the right, and this is the fourth side of thepark, which is a gentle incline into a hill.
At any rate, as you can see, the water is about 6 feet tall by the Fire Department, which means the creek had to raise at least 20 feet.
Here is a view of the parking lot to the old Fire Department (shown in picture 1) after the waters have receded. Behind the viewer in this picture would be the hill to the town, to the left is be the creek (about 300 yards to the left) in normal times.
Here is a picture showing the ‘upper’ shelter during and after the flood. As you look at the two pictures, two things should stand out- how high the water was to submerge the shelter, and in the second picture, you should be able to detect the sloping nature of the park as it heads towards where the creek normally resides.
If you want more, I’ve got plenty, but this should give you an idea how bad the flooding was because of the Hurricane after effects. BTW- these photos were taken by the town Mayor with a Pentax Optio.
*** Update ***
Here are some more pictures posted by a Bethany student, (via Rob Bernard who has two brothers attending Bethany College).