This is too funny.
Maybe they would get more participation from the right-wing netroots if they promised the winner a tour of Graeme Frost’s castle instead of an Apple gift certificate.
(Via the Great Orange Satan)
by John Cole| 31 Comments
This post is in: Humorous, Republican Stupidity, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing
This is too funny.
Maybe they would get more participation from the right-wing netroots if they promised the winner a tour of Graeme Frost’s castle instead of an Apple gift certificate.
(Via the Great Orange Satan)
by John Cole| 31 Comments
This post is in: Sports
GO STILLERS! Beat the fish!
*** Update ***
Will someone pick up the 22 kids at Heinz field who just played a pony league football game on national tv?
Steelers win, 3-0.
Blech.
by John Cole| 42 Comments
This post is in: Humorous
Big story on Dan Rather here, and you all can discuss it in the comments, but this made me laugh out loud:
Rather’s shock turned to quiet fury. He stalked the offices, barely acknowledging staffers in the hallways. People referred to this mode as “Defcon 4.” “He got progressively, visually angry,” says a former colleague. “You don’t want to be in his eyesight when he’s like that.” His only release was commiserating on the phone late at night with Mary Mapes; he would announce himself as “Dan Rather, plus three”—meaning he’d had three glasses of bourbon.
From now on, when I blog after having a stiff drink, I will change my signature to ‘John Cole, plus three.’ Or four. There is also this:
But the anger was seething just below the surface. The next night, Rather’s last as anchor of the CBS Evening News, he wore a T-shirt under his suit and tie that read F.E.A.—“Fuck ’em all.”
I am starting to like Dan Rather.
*** Update ***
BTW- I saw Katie Couric’s CBS news last week, and she is just terrible. I really don’t know what it is about her that makes her so bad, but it is almost painful to watch. Any one of the female broadcasters at MSNBC would have been better than her.
by John Cole| 61 Comments
This post is in: Politics, Republican Stupidity
Because I think he is smoking pot:
In the past few months, Ron Paul has dramatically raised the profile of libertarianism inside the Republican Party. My small-l libertarian friends seem more comfortable describing themselves as such, even though they’ll go out of their way to disassociate themselves from Ron Paul and the big-L kind.
Libertarianism in the GOP took a big hit on 9/11, and it’s slowly coming back, with Ron Paul as the catalyst. Its underlying ideals still have appeal well beyond the cramped confines of the LP. If it’s possible to be known as a pro-life, pro-war, pro-wiretapping libertarian, then sign me up.
Ron Paul opposes everything the GOP has stood for the past few years. His popularity is not causing a resurgence of libertarianism in the GOP, it is caused by a general disgust WITH the GOP. If Ruffini would check Hugh’s archives where he wrote this, he will see what the party apparatchiks think of Paul and Paul supporters. He can also check at Red State, where he used to write.
The rise of Paul is not going to cause a surge in libertarianism in the Republican party. The rise of Ron Paul is due to his filling the void in a party filled with moralists, in-your-face social cons, warmongerers, and authoritarians. The only libertarians currently in the GOP are folks who are either too stupid or too cowardly to admit they are Bush dead-enders and think ‘libertarian’ sounds cool, or those hoping sometime the party will regain its sanity. Actual libertarians find their home in places that actually embrace libertarian ideals- the Libertarian party, as registered Independents, or as conservative Democrats.
We’ll just chalk Ruffini’s post up to analysis by anecdote and wishful thinking. If anything, the treatment of Paul by the GOP has pushed libertarians out of the party.
*** Update ***
And if anyone wants to have fun with this quote, have at it:
Mainstream Republican libertarians might be gung-ho for Paul’s small-government idealism, they might adopt Glenn Reynoldsish skepticism of the homeland security bureaucracy…
I know when I think of skepticism to the overreaches of this administration and the Homeland Security Department and the recent privacy issues, the first person I think of is Glenn Reynolds.
*** Update #2 ***
Just go read Sullivan.
by John Cole| 53 Comments
This post is in: Politics, War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.
Via TPMmuckraker, we see the US is pursuing permanent bases in Iraq:
The U.S. and Iraqi “Declaration of Principles” is a shared statement of intent that establishes common principles to frame our future relationship. This moves us closer to normalized, bilateral relations between our two countries. With this declaration, leaders of Iraq and the United States commit to begin negotiating the formal arrangements that will govern such a relationship.
Iraq’s leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America, and we seek an enduring relationship with a democratic Iraq. We are ready to build that relationship in a sustainable way that protects our mutual interests, promotes regional stability, and requires fewer Coalition forces.
Permanent bases- whee! Apparently our grand adventure in Iraq has proven to be so successful, we would like future generations to have the opportunity to experience Baghdad in a flak jacket. If you think about it, that is only fair, since future generations are going to be paying the 2.4 trillion dolar costs anyway.
At any rate, all throughout this rhetorical dance party from the Bush administration, in which we had to take out Iraq because of WMD, then we switched to a new step and stated we were there for peace and Democracy, it has been suggested that the notion of permanent bases in Iraq was merely fantasy from the lunatic conspiracy theorists on the left. As I have learned over the past few years- you don’t diss the insight of the smelly dirty hippies. Once again, they were right.
At the very least, surely no one would be so shameless as to not only fail to admit the hippies were right, but to attempt to turn this into more agitprop for domestic political concerns. Whoops. I forgot about Captain Ed:
The Iraqi government has offered the US a long-term security partnership that envisions a lower profile for American troops, as well as economic advantages for US investors. The agreement would replace the current UN mandate, which Iraq wants extended only to the end of 2008. It might also revive conspiratorial criticisms that have dogged the Iraq effort.
***The open question will be whether the next US President will fulfill our side of the agreement. Hillary Clinton might or might not be strong enough not to cave to the isolationists, but Republicans almost to the man would strongly commit to a partnership with Iraq. Will such an agreement influence the 2008 elections?
Unless Ed can explain how predictions about the US wanting permanent bases (which, btw, turned out to be true) “dogged” the progress in Iraq, it might be time to move Ed from the “Blogs I read” category to the “Blogs We Monitor and Mock.” Personally, I missed the news reports that stated that “conspiracy theories kill 12 troops in Baghdad.” I guess that is just more evidence of liberal media bias. And I love the phrasing- the oil contracts we will get are just an accidental side-product of our determination to bring Democracy to the Middle East.
But let’s not mock Ed too much. He probably is just vying for Blog of the Year from Time.
This post is in: Science & Technology
Another thing humans can blame themselves for:
Forget about the threat that mankind poses to the Earth: our very ability to study the heavens may have shortened the inferred lifetime of the cosmos.
In a nutshell, the theory suggests that quantum systems can exist in many different physical configurations at the same time. By observing the system, however, we may pick out one single ‘quantum state’, and therefore force the system to change its configuration.
So, simply by looking at the universe, we are shortening its lifespan. Upon hearing the news, Al Gore and the IPCC immediately blinded themselves and promised to work to ban telescopes, binoculars, eyeglasses, microscopes, etc.
Of course, I didn’t understand more than a paragraph or two of the article. What I would suggest though is that there are probably millions of other species out there – many with much more advanced “looking” technology and capability than we mere earthlings. Shouldn’t we be allowed to get to a more advanced evolutionary stage of vision before these other species tell us we’re part of the problem too? I mean, it wouldn’t be fair for us to halt our progress while the inhabitants of, say, whatever planet the Scientologists aspire to end up inhabiting keep looking and looking and looking. And what about less developed planets? Should the inhabitants of more developed planets like our own subsidize their lack of vision?
When we get to a stage of interplanetary travel, or even before for that matter, I propose a system of “Vision Credits.” Someone like me with good vision, for example, can trade credits with someone who has absolutely no vision at all.
Like, say, Giuliani or Romney.
by John Cole| 28 Comments
This post is in: Sports
But shooting for #1:
Perhaps for the first time all season, the national championship race can be explained very simply.
If No. 1 Missouri (vs. Oklahoma) and No. 2 West Virginia (vs. Pittsburgh) both win on Saturday, they will play each other for the BCS title. If one of them loses, No. 3 Ohio State will slide into the national championship game. If Missouri and West Virginia both lose, a two-loss team will probably meet the Buckeyes in New Orleans for all the marbles.
It seems unlikely that West Virginia will lose at home against Pitt, but if it happens, choosing which two-loss team belongs in the national title game will be a difficult assignment for the voters.
No. 4 Georgia is the highest-ranked twice-beaten team in the standings this week, but that might change next week if it matters who’s atop the two-loss heap. Because the Bulldogs didn’t win their division of the SEC, it’s doubtful voters would put them into a BCS championship slot, especially if another two-loss team (LSU) emerges as the conference champion.
This will be the biggest Backyard Brawl in my memory- I might go grocery shopping on Friday and lock all the doors until Monday.