Two recent catches from the underrated Steve Benen:
Pat Robertson leg presses 2,000 pounds.
The president read 60 books this year.
These are hardly the worst whoppers told by either man. Rather, both deserve mention mainly for the North Korean leader-cult ridiculousness of the reported feats. A determined person can certainly read sixty books in twelve months, but given that the president has a fairly demanding job, a regular exercise regimen and a healthy sleep schedule the probability of his making it through a third of that recedes to the area of one divided by infinity. Both examples show a certain contempt for the audience in that Robertson’s comments are not intended for anybody who knows anything about lifting (he was marketing fitness shakes to the unfit) and the president’s comments are plainly not meant for people who have experience with books.
None of this matters of course, except to remind us that a bunch of guys who will lie this plainly over minor things probably have no problem making things up when it matters.
Pb
Zing!
Andrew
There’s a little jezus in those shakes.
Ryan S.
I wonder if he’s counting in those books all the times he read Cat in the Hat, to Barney.
Tim F.
Not even then – it took him twenty-two minutes to get through My Pet Goat.
SeesThroughIt
I always thought shit like that was just fodder for the Fox News crawl:
Northwest corner of Baghdad liberated, 265 dead…Pat Robertson leg presses 2000 pounds…George W Bush: too smart for Mensa…Lose 10 pounds a week eating nothing but chocolate cake…Economy best in world history…
ThymeZone
Anyone who needs a reminder at this point just hasn’t been paying attention.
Also keep in mind that to a large demographic out there, lying is not considered a bad thing.
When Ends Justify Means, as they do in BushDarrellLand, then a lie is just a way to get at the truth.
Lying is truthy, when the lie is told by the right person.
Mr Furious
I didn’t realize Dr. Seuss had sixty titles…
Jon H
Bush would have no problem reading 60 books like this. He could read 60 books and not even finish that series.
The Other Steve
Ok speaking of lies.
How the fuck can anyone claim that the military is meeting recruitment quotas, if…
They’re calling back individual ready reserves due to recruitment shortages?
Pull out or restart the draft, you mother fudgers.
ThymeZone
Let’s not forget who the base is for these lying crapheads.
To say that they will believe anything is something of an understatement.
Tsulagi
You would think, given their age and number of years spent lying, that they would be a lot better at it by now. Guess it still shows they go for cheap quantity over quality.
Gee, can’t wait to hear Hannity and Geraldo on Fox News use this new revelation to burnish the president’s image as the model of new Republican warrioriness. Reading 60 books in a scant eight months while conducting the nation’s WOT when not on vacation discussing the origins of existentialism with Tony Snow while catching fish twice the size of existing world records. Wow. Don’t forget, all this while trying to satisfy his insatiable appetite for fart jokes and cutting gas greeting new aides. Turd Blossom, you’ve met your match.
ThymeZone
Kevin Drum, as usual, nails the lying bonesmokers and their hyped-up, phony “Airline bomb threat” thing in Britain.
Who’s “weak” on defense? The shitheads who lie about it, cry wolf all the time, and tie us up in useless wars that weaken our military readiness and give motivation to our enemies.
ThymeZone
Welp, there you are.
Darrell
Yes, liquid explosives are all just a “phony” threat hyped up by lying bonesmokers, because the terrorists aren’t really trying to kill us
Let’s see, liquid nitroglycerin killed a passenger on PAL Flight 434 in 1994
KAL Flight 858 destroyed in 1987 using explosives C-4 and PLX, the latter of which is a liquid. I’d link to wikipedia, but too many links = comment moderation purgatory
London blasts last year were a result of TATP liquid explosives, which, as the article states, is a favorite, commonly used explosive recipe of terrorists.. which might explain why the London would-be bombers were targetting 10 airplanes, knowing the likelihood that some efforts would fail. Remember, we’re talking about 8 hour+ flights with plenty of time
But ThymeZ and Drum know it’s all nonsense
Darrell
Inhofe was right.. the UN has a deplorable record of sexual abuses, not just in African nations, but in the Balkans too, and yes, suprising as it may be to the ‘reality based’ community, most Iraqis are quite happy with the fact that we intervened to remove Saddam from power. Hilarious that’s such ‘big news’ to so many of you idiots.
ThymeZone
Current plot does not involve this material. No attempt to screen for this material has been made at US airports, ever, to my knowledge.
Current plot does not involve these materials. No attempt to screen for PLX has ever been made at a US airport to my knowledge.
Read the material I posted. 8 hours or 80 hours, there is no plausible scenario in which this material can be mixed in flight without extreme danger to the participants, noxious fumes dangerous to the participants and obviously alarming to anyone in the plane, and activity requiring COMPLETE PRIVACY FOR HOURS. Privacy which could be obtained only by locking onesself in the lavatory.
Do you still want to claim that this is aa plausible threat, you STUPID LYING GODDAM PIECE OF SHIT?
Why the FUCK is this stupid asshole allowed to post here?
ThymeZone
And furthermore Darrell, the analysis of the true nature of the TATP threat on a plane was BY CHEMISTS.
Not by my and Kevin Drum.
Are you claiming that you KNOW MORE THAN CHEMISTS?
YOU STUPID SHIT.
ThymeZone
Tell you what, Darrell. I can become the publicity agent for the nexus between you and Inhofe. Every utterance, every position that comes from his lips can become your property. You can own the crazy lying piece of dirt, and he can own you. You can be become the chief spokesman for the views of Inhofe here on this forum.
You just let me know and I will arrange it for you.
Darrell
Suicide bombers trying to kill themselves and others would be deterred by the ‘extreme danger’ in mixing these chemicals on board? yeah, that’s a real reality based idea for you.
Pat Robertson’s 2000 lb leg press was all over the news and internet months ago.
Darrell
Like this chemist?
ThymeZone
Did you read the thing? It would take 4-6 hours of painstaking mixing, at great risk, creating horrible fumes, to make enough material to do any serious damage.
This mixing could not be concealed unless the people doing it were concealed. They would have to be in a lavatory.
What the fuck is the matter with you?
Perry Como
Not TATP they won’t. Talk to anyone that has made it. It isn’t difficult to do in a lab (or a garage), but you aren’t going to do it in an airplane bathroom.
tbrosz
60 books a year is five books a month, or a little over one book a week. This is supposed to be impossible? My kids can do that, if the books are interesting.
Rob
I wish my wife only read 60 books a year. And no, she doesn’t go to the library.
And no again, I don’t believe Bush read 60 books that weren’t large print and condensed.
Might have had 60 books read to him.
Jon H
Darrell writes: “Inhofe was right.. the UN has a deplorable record of sexual abuses, not just in African nations, but in the Balkans too, and yes, suprising as it may be to the ‘reality based’ community, most Iraqis are quite happy with the fact that we intervened to remove Saddam from power. Hilarious that’s such ‘big news’ to so many of you idiots.”
So did US contractors in, say, the Balkans.
ThymeZone
Hard as it is to believe, Darrell at this point is making scs look like a scientist.
I have $25 that says John Cole is writing the part of Darrell.
Jon H
“60 books a year is five books a month, or a little over one book a week. This is supposed to be impossible? My kids can do that, if the books are interesting.”
Dan Froomkin calculated, based on the released titles, that Bush would have had to read 115 pages or so a day, every day this year. At a minute per page, that’d be about two hours a day reading. I’m not sure where he’d fit that in, given how much he exercises and likes to sleep. I kinda doubt he’d read that fast.
He certainly wouldn’t retain anything if he read that fast.
Anyway, I think he’d get a lot more out of spending an hour a day with a young adult encyclopedia.
It’s interesting that the released titles haven’t launched the usual accusations that the titles were ingenuously chosen for political effect. Obviously, nobody believes the premise itself, so nobody has felt inclined to dissect the titles he is claimed to have read.
Krista
They must be counting his collection of Archie Double Digests…
Darrell
Are you comparing the alleged transgressions of a handful of individual US contractors (link please?) with the systematic sexual abuse inflicted by UN personnel on the Balkan women?.. or what the UN workers did in African nations? UN workers had child sex rings for chrissakes. But nice of you to try and minimize those large scale UN abuses by pointing to a handful of alleged US transgressions. It demonstrates how ‘honest’ you are.
ThymeZone
Inhofe comments on the sexual abuse of prisoners in Iraq:
Darrell comments on civilians killed in Lebanon:
Is Inhofe writing the part of Darrell? Or is it John Cole?
The mystery deepens.
One thing is sure, there is a link between Inhofe and Darrell. It is not possible that two different people could possibly be that stupid.
Darrell
Or whether or not they were “civilians” or Hezbollah terrorists. Didn’t realize such a basic observation was so ‘controversial’ to you whackjobs.
ThymeZone
How many of the children were “Hezbollah,” you fucking liar?
How many of those, under the age of ten, were “Heabollah?”
How many of the 1,2,3 and 4 year olds?
How about the 8-year old and 10-month-old burned in front of their mother? Hezbollah?
You worthless piece of shit. Go ahead and defend the murder of children. Go ahead, do it. You will never post here again without me here to shove your face into the bodies of those dead children.
Kids with their faces burned off will be your legacy here, you piece of filth.
Perry Como
It was Dyncorp, iirc. Don’t have the links on me, but Google can satisfy the itch for you.
Nah. Scumbags all around. I’m working on memory, but I think the Dyncorp problem was a bit more than a handful. I don’t think it was the scale of the reported UN abuses, but I’d happily see them all hang.
ThymeZone
Consistent with reports from the ground throughout the war, approximately a third of the deaths in Lebanon, children.
Darrell’s legacy. This is what the Darrells of the world offer you: Twisted arguments and dead children.
Three hundred reasons to throw Darrell off this fucking blog.
Darrell
You know, a lot of you lefties talk mucho phony bullshit about free speech, but as soon as your sacred cow beliefs are challenged, out come the calls for censorship, and most of you are all for it.
Amen
ThymeZone
You can’t open your blog mouth without lying, can you?
AFAIK, I am the only person here who has called for you to be banned.
Where do you get this “most of you” bullshit?
You just make shit up and throw it out there hope nobody is paying attention.
Shut up.
Andrew
I think Darrell and ppGaz should host a boy scout jamboree together.
Zifnab
Thank god, Darrel is finally coming around. Maybe he read the articles pointing out how the British terrorists had no pre-made bombs, tools for making bombs, or bomb making lab space. Perhaps he stumbled upon how these men had been under survallience for over a year and British authorities still had found no compelling reason to arrest them before the conclusion of the Lieberman-Lamont Iraqi referendum in CT.
Perhaps it is worth noting that people all over the world are not, in fact, plotting to kill us all. Mostly they just want to kill people in a few major cities like New York, Madrid, and London – and when they do attack, at least under the Bush watch, they invertiably succeed so long as its not an election year in the US.
Last I checked, the Bush administration was 0-3 regarding actual terror plots. 0-1000s if you count IEDs in Iraq.
Zifnab
Fuck that, Darrel. You want to shoot your mouth off, go right on ahead. Call us names? Make phoney allegations? Cry wolf? And generally give us someone to bitch at for being a mindless Republican drone? Let me co-opt the worlds of our beloved Commander-in-Chief and suggest you, “Bring it on!”
Hopefully, unlike last time those words were uttered this won’t result in the deaths of 3000 US servicemen.
Jon H
“Are you comparing the alleged transgressions of a handful of individual US contractors (link please?) with the systematic sexual abuse inflicted by UN personnel on the Balkan women?.. or what the UN workers did in African nations? UN workers had child sex rings for chrissakes.”
Look up DynCorp’s adventures in Bosnia. Women were being bought and sold by employees. I use “women” loosely, because they could be quite young. Two whistle blowers were fired. One of the whistle blowers was formerly a US cop. The company basically covered it up. None of their employees were prosecuted because DynCorp enjoyed immunity from prosecution in Bosnia, and few were fired (other than the whistleblowers).
Perry Como
Hmm. It may be a bit more complex than that:
It may have been DynCorp that was facilitating the UN “services.” It’s been a while since I’ve looked at the documents surrounding the allegations. I remember two witnesses coming forward (like you mentioned) and both being sacked by DynCorp after they blew the whistle.
chopper
those choose-your-own-adventure books count as like, 10 books if you think about it.
chopper
airport bathroom + noxious fumes + hours of mixing == no bomb.
here’s an experiment; lock yourself in a port-a-john and try to brew the stuff. ten bucks sez you’ll pass out from the fumes in less than 5 minutes.
ThymeZone
Tall tales?
Here’s a tall tale: There’s a blog out there run by a RINO which has carefully and steadfastly avoided the single most important topic of the last four years, and possibly the most important single topic in the history of this country. Namely, the fact that the president and the government of this country lied to manipulate the nation into a war that wasn’t necessary, wasn’t properly planned and executed, and now is the centerpiece of everything that is wrong in America, and the apparent political collapse of its government.
But … let’s goof about how many books Bush reads a year.
That’s …. you know …. funny.
Can you hear the gales of laughter out here?
I know why you guys won’t get rid of Darrell. Darrell is your cover.
Hyperion
well, that might explain why oCole posts have become so rare.
but…if he is, how would that be different from what the Scrutator folks did?
DaveC
When will the CIA agent step forward that gave John Kerry the lucky hat before he was smuggled into Cambodia, in December of 1968, when Nixon was president?
ThymeZone
Scrutator was intentional and obvious, over the top spoof.
If BJ is to be that, fine. Then we’ll treat it as such.
Problem is, BJ can’t decide what it wants to be.
Call when somebody makes a decision.
Hyperion
oh, i didn’t get the memo explaining that.
perhaps i need to order the Ronco spoof detector.
because IMO life is too short to spend time in debates with spoofs or even trying to decide WHO is a spoof.
which is why i will never “reply” to a darrell post.
ThymeZone
No offense, but it’s not that hard. Simple observation will get you the right answer about 90% of the time.
The Asshole Formerly Known as GOP4Me
That’s the whole fucking point, dude. When an argument’s so ridiculous that no serious person could advance it, you should treat it as spoof. Take Blogs for Bush, for example- spoof, or not spoof? I have no idea whether the guy’s spoofing or not; probably, he isn’t. But the point is, he’s tarnished enough by association with spoofers that no one can take him seriously anymore.
If this is bothering you, I’d suggest doing what I do: stop taking it seriously. Spoof or no spoof, serious or not, it’s still just a bunch of assholes sitting around arguing on their keyboards.
And anyway, is anyone seriously going to contend that Senator Cornyn’s arguments are sacred cows whom none may ridicule by virtue of their inherent value? He gets what this is about, that’s why he’s not here for honest debate. He’s here because he’s an asshole, and he likes pissing people off. In his own way, Senator Corky is very honest about it. (It’s what he means when he says things like, “I OWN you kooks.”) He’s proud of it, and who can take that away from him? You’ve got to respect him for his dishonest honesty and his honorable dishonor.
Some people tell the truth when they lie, and the truth about the Senator is that he likes to piss people off.
Jon H
Perry Como writes: “Hmm. It may be a bit more complex than that:”
Yeah, I looked it up, but the site where I read about it most, the BBC news site, recently redid their search function and blew away everything prior to 2000 or so. It used to go back to the mid-90s.
Some reports mention only the UN. Some mention only DynCorp. There’s a document posted by a congresswoman which quotes one of the whistle blowers saying that he’d see 50-60 year old guys with 12 year olds. Some reports say the DynCorp people were using brothels staffed by slaves. Others say the DynCorp people were buying and trading women themselves.
It’s not well documented and seems to be slipping down the memory hole.