Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

The revolution will be supervised.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Infrastructure week. at last.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

T R E 4 5 O N

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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51Comments

  2. 2.

    zmulls

    Haven’t heard from Chalabi for a while. Think he’ll pop up before the November election? Or immediately after it….?

  3. 3.

    Tom in Texas

    Well, beyond the tragedy of the Simpsons en espanol expiring under Chavez’ tyrannical grasp, there’s Armbinder’s purely speculative list of possible VP’s. I quote en toto:

    Here we go — the Ambinder Shortlists, based mostly on educated guesswork and as many conversations as one reporter can reasonably have. I have excluded from these lists candidates I consider — based on reporting — to be implausible. These lists will change as the information changes.

    Sen. John McCain.

    1. Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) — He’s the favorite.

    The rest, in no particular order:

    #. Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) — working hard to earn respect of McCain
    #. Gov. John Hunstman, Jr. (R-UT) — nice man; solid tenure as government official
    #. Sen. John Thune (R-SD) — underwhelms as a surrogate but McCain bonded with him over family history
    #. Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) — McCain respects his decision not to endorse in the primary

    Sen, Barack Obama

    1. vacant. Just to be provocative, I’ll throw out Joe Biden’s name. His hidden asset is his connection with white, working class voters. His obvious asset is his foreign policy experience and.

    The rest:

    #. Ex-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) — he has powerful allies in Obama’s inner circle; Midwestern credentials; government know-how; credibility with white working class voters;
    #. Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ) — Obama really likes her.
    #. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) — his donors will pressure Obama; Dodd and Obama have become close friends
    # Chuck Hagel (D-NE) — Hagel himself seems to want Obama to ask him to join the ticket.

    I think Biden may be better suited for a cabinet post. I love Dodd for Veep, but don’t see a lot to gain from Daschle or Napolitano. Not that I have anything against them, but I think you aren’t doing much for a state advantage (AZ and SD remain highly unlikely, in my view). I think the Mountain West may be better delivered either through a Hispanic VP nod (though I’m not a huge Richardson guy) or a conservative gun rights Dem like Webb.

  4. 4.

    eponymous

    Did a double take as I thought the sentence read “..Ahmad Chalabi for PORN king..”.

    Now I have to get THAT image out of my mind…

  6. 6.

    Jen

    Let’s see just how open this thread is.
    I am taking dinner to 18 Obama staffers at the local campaign office. (This was a service that was requested, I’m not like June Cleaver on speed or something.) Some of them are vegetarian. I am trying to decide between:

    veggie chili, cornbread, & salad –or–
    chipotle meatballs & rice with veggie quesadillas (more work, but a little different) –or–

    something else which you guys will suggest.

    Also, I saw Michelle Obama last night, and so did about 3,200 more people than her previous crowd record without Oprah. She was great. I know she’s had plenty of practice giving her speech, but it was good.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    Chalabi, like a rash that won’t go away, is the gift that keeps on giving. There were a number of stories back in November 2007 that pointed out how the US was using him as a pro-Western power broker Chalabi profile or this Huffinton Post blog post, Gangsta Lean: The L.A. Times Would Have You Believe Ahmad Chalabi Was A Largely Reputable Person

    Chalabi currently serves as the head of a government services committee, which according to a McClatchy Newspapers report (October 28, 2007) is a “consortium of eight service ministries and two Baghdad municipal posts that is tasked with bringing services to Baghdad.” According to the Los Angeles Times (November 13, 2007), both Iraqi and U.S. officials consider the position vital to securing gains made as part of the “surge” effort, which saw tens of thousands of new U.S. troops deployed in Baghdad to enhance security there and wrest control from insurgents.

    Chalabi’s re-emergence on the political scene, which occurred when Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki named him to the services post in October 2007, surprised observers, who pointed to his previous run-ins with U.S. authorities in Iraq related to his mishandling of previous jobs and connections to Iranian political actors.

    Asked why the U.S. government decided to work with Chalabi again, one State Department official told the Los Angeles Times, “That’s a very good question.”

    A link to the original LA Times story may still be available here (Chalabi returns to prominence and power)

    What’s even funnier is that the US is furiously looking for a Chalabi for Iran (Grooming the next Ahmad Chalabi):

    People such as 32-year-old Amir Abbas Fakhravar, an Iranian dissident now living in exile in the United States. In a 2006 Washington Post Op-Ed article, Perle promoted Fakhravar as a heroic and inspirational figure around whom oppressed Iranians could rally, if only he were given America’s support. Fakhravar is president of the Iran Enterprise Institute, which takes its name and some of its financial support from the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, of which Perle is a resident fellow. In the coming weeks, Fakhravar will be speaking at a conference in Palm Beach, Fla., on the subject of regime change in Tehran, addressing the Heritage Foundation in Washington and then heading to Rome to deliver a lecture on “Democracy in the Islamic World.” Just recently, he was the honored guest at DePaul University’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” where he was introduced as “the hero of our age.”

    This shit just never stops.

  10. 10.

    Incertus

    Jen,
    I vote for the chili–easier to serve to a large group, and easier to make well for a large group. Individual things tend to fall apart in my experience.

    Tom in Texas, I don’t get where all this South Carolina love is coming from in the McCain Veep race. That’s about as solid a state for the Republicans as exists. Why in the hell would McCain choose a running mate from there?

    And on Obama’s side, Dodd is out because Connecticut has a Republican governor, and no way do you give up a Senate seat right now.

  12. 12.

    Zifnab

    #. Ex-Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD)—he has powerful allies in Obama’s inner circle; Midwestern credentials; government know-how; credibility with white working class voters;

    That said, if Obama selects Tom Daschle as his running mate I will vote for him, but only after punching someone repeatedly in the nuts to work off my fury.

    Biggest waste of space Senate Majority Leader in modern history. He went from middling, centrist pre-9/11 pussy to Bush Doormate post-9/11 pussy so fast it made my head spin. And the Republicans still made a point of running the poor schlub out of office for not kowtowing long and hard enough to President Codpiece.

  13. 13.

    joe

    Second on the veggie chili.

    Corn, even just frozen corn, gives each bite a nice little pop.

  14. 14.

    jake

    Khalilzad doesn’t want to stack chairs, turn off the lights.

    Khalilzad has said he wants a job in the private sector in the United States. He has also said publicly that he does not want to be the last member of the Bush administration to leave office.

    I’m not sure if this can be an official resignation announcement since he didn’t mention his family.

  15. 15.

    Jen

    Chili it is! I will look for a good recipe.

    There definitely has to be salad, though. I’m a mama, I try to integrate green into every meal, even though my kids are usually too smart for me. Once I made pizza with some grated broccoli, just the finest little wisps of broccoli on the sauce — you probably didn’t even know that you could grate broccoli, did you? — which I covered up with the cheese. It was foolproof. They found it, and rejected and denounced my pizza.

  16. 16.

    Pb

    Some of them are vegetarian. I am trying to decide between:

    veggie chili, cornbread, & salad—or—chipotle meatballs & rice with veggie quesadillas

    So some of them are vegetarian–what about the rest of them? All I’m saying is, if you go with the chili, stick some beef in some of it. Personally, though, I’d still vote for the quesadilla dish. As for side dishes, how about a potato salad?

  18. 18.

    Krista

    I’ve got a veggie chili recipe for you, Jen. Obviously, you’ll need to fiddle with the quantities, but most of this stuff is to taste anyway, so there are no hard and fast rules. Just adjust it all to taste, and you’ll be fine.

    First of all, get yourself some Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP). You can usually find it in the organic section of your regular grocery store. You’ll need to rehydrate it with some liquid. Water works, but for more flavour, try mushroom or vegetable broth.

    In a big-ass pot, on medium or so, cook up some minced onions and garlic until it all softens. Throw in a can of chopped tomatoes and a can of tomato sauce. Add in some chili powder, some red pepper flakes, some chipotle seasoning, and a small amount of cocoa. Fling in your rehydrated TVP. Stir it all up. Then, taste it to see how the spices are working out for you.

    Then, add in some canned black beans (drained and rinsed, of course), and some canned corn.

    If it looks too liquidy, you can just fling another bit of dried TVP right into the pot (a little at a time, though — the stuff expands like a bugger once it’s rehydrated.) You want it to have a nice beefy texture, so feel free to fiddle with your ingredients until the texture’s right for you. Simmer it for awhile to let all the flavours come together. Taste it again and adjust what you need to adjust.

    When you serve it, if you’ve got some shredded soy cheese and some fresh chopped cilantro to go on top of it, so much the better.

  19. 19.

    Krista

    I just reread that and should add that you only want to rehydrate your TVP about a cupful at a time, add it in, and see how it’s looking in the chili. The way I had written it makes it look as though I was advising you to rehydrate the entire package and put it all in the chili at once. That’d be a bit excessive, and you’d wind up with enough chili for 180 staffers after having thinned it back out again.

    For 18 people, I’d say about 6 cans of each canned ingredient should do fine. When I get home, I can look up the exact quantities of stuff and re-post it, if you don’t feel like winging it.

  20. 20.

    Darkness

    Whoever gets the Dem VP nod better have a full camera prod in all the uncomfortably places checking for anything the least bit untoward in their past. Everything will come out, and sometimes the Dems just completely blow this background check. It makes my palms sweaty just worrying about it. Let’s hope they are delaying while armies of smarmy PIs are doing their work.

  21. 21.

    Jen

    Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP)

    I have not heard of this, but will keep an open mind and look out for it. I hope they took the money they saved on not branding it with a yummy-sounding name and put it into product quality.

  22. 22.

    Rick Taylor

    Via the left coaster, another scientist is warning the current goals for carbon emissions we aren’t meeting aren’t nearly stringent enough.

    Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 – the most stringent in the world – should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if “humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed”. A final version of the paper Hansen co-authored with eight other climate scientists, is posted today on the Archive website. Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth’s history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.

    The team studied core samples taken from the bottom of the ocean, which allow C02 levels to be tracked millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the Ice age about 35m years ago, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere stood at about 450ppm.

    “If you leave us at 450ppm for long enough it will probably melt all the ice – that’s a sea rise of 75 metres. What we have found is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster – a guaranteed disaster,” Hansen told the Guardian.

  24. 24.

    Krista

    I have not heard of this, but will keep an open mind and look out for it. I hope they took the money they saved on not branding it with a yummy-sounding name and put it into product quality.

    Heh. That’s not the brand name. There are probably all kinds of different manufacturers of it, and they might put yummy-sounding names on it. But that’s what the basic product is. Bob’s Red Mill is one of the companies that has it, and I think they sell most everywhere.

    It really does mimic the texture of ground beef once it’s rehydrated. Not being vegetarian, I sometimes rehydrate it in beef broth. That chili is good for those crazy-busy days when…oh shit…you’ve forgotten to defrost anything, as it really only takes about twenty minutes to make, tops, and you don’t need to prep anything in advance.

  25. 25.

    cbear

    Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP).

    Wow, that sounds tasty.
    File that under: some things are better left a mystery.

  26. 26.

    Punchy

    but only after punching someone repeatedly in the nuts to work off my fury.

    I first read this as “punching myself….”. It’s actually much funnier that way. And painful.

  27. 27.

    jack-of-all-thumbs

    OK, this is odd. A few minutes ago CNN had a red banner headline up about the death of a major al Queda figure from natural causes. I didn’t catch the name, but the assumption that I made was that he was our biggest catch – currently in U.S. custody (probably Guantanamo).

    A few minutes later, the banner is gone, no story to replace it and no story anywhere else that I’ve found. Any ideas?

  28. 28.

    Jen

    TPM sez, the link is borked tho, that HRC is trying to spin an upcoming estimated $1.5mil fundraising day with Elton Friggin John, as an “extraordinary” $2.5 mil day.

    Or, as Obama calls it, “Thursday”.

  29. 29.

    Punchy

    Unfuckingbelievable.

    They need ammo, reinforcements, a nice bed, and some drones. We give them these.

    And I’m SURE they’re calibrated for the Afghan language and mannerisms, right? And all that sand, dirt, and bomb dust won’t possibly affect all those fancy buttons, right?

    Wow.

  32. 32.

    Buck

    There definitely has to be salad, though. I’m a mama, I try to integrate green into every meal

    If I eat my salad can I still have two pieces of cornbread?

  34. 34.

    Pb

    jack-of-all-thumbs,

    It’s nothing–just some guy named al-masri that we supposedly killed back in January, died perhaps from hepatitis instead. I don’t know why CNN wouldn’t want to trumpet that success…

  35. 35.

    cleek

    Fark:

    Michelle Malkin is heroically leading the charge in the boycotting of Absolut vodak in response to their Islamohomomexicofascist identity politics. She’s like the Rosa Parks of the disproportional outrage movement

  36. 36.

    Jen

    If I eat my salad can I still have two pieces of cornbread?

    Well, sure, honey. I make mine kind of sweet. Some people like the not-sweet kind.

  37. 37.

    Darkness

    cbear Says:

    Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP).

    Wow, that sounds tasty.
    File that under: some things are better left a mystery.

    Given the mysteries of hamburger from downed cattle wallowing in their own feces, that’s saying a lot.

    Back before my soy intolerant days, we used a lot of this. You can find it with the Bob’s Red Mills flours which are quite common in most groceries now. The way we made it taste like hamburger in chili (again, not saying a lot) was to cut up lots of onion, add that to pan with generous amount of corn oil, and then stir in the dry TVP. Fry that until it just starts to brown. This works well because the onions give up just enough moisture to the tvp for this process. Add lots of chopped mushrooms and fry a little more (not much tho, as they are moisture-hungry) then add your tomatoes. I would cheat sometimes and add more mushroom stock as this has a real meaty flavor that will fool a non vege quite easily.

  38. 38.

    RSA

    veggie chili, cornbread, & salad—or—chipotle meatballs & rice with veggie quesadillas (more work, but a little different)—or—
    something else which you guys will suggest.

    Have Irregardless or another veggie-friendly restaurant cater the meal? Assuming (a) laziness–which applies to me–and (b) it’s someone else’s money, which may not be the case.

    Otherwise the chili sounds good. Too bad that the signature meals of NC tend to be so pork-centered.

  40. 40.

    Dennis - SGMM

    Punchy Says:

    Unfuckingbelievable.

    Of course the troops need another useless, unproven and possibly counterproductive piece of tech. No point in simply training and equipping enough people to do the job now is there?

    This whole thing is becoming way to reminiscent of the “mods n’ pods” theory of equipment during the time that MacNamara was SECDEF.

  41. 41.

    Jen

    Oh, that’s cool, Cleek. I wonder if I can get a group of 4 together to be a person.

    All right, I’m sold on the TVP. I get the Morningstar farms veggie sausage patties, which really are tasty, and sometimes the frozen fake ground beef. It sounds like the TVP might be the cheaper version of the fake ground beef.

  42. 42.

    cleek

    instead of TVP, you could try Quorn. i sometimes throw some Quorn “crumbles” into sketti sauce if i don’t have any ground beef handy. it has a pretty nice meat-like texture and a decent (bland but not offensive) flavor.

  43. 43.

    cbear

    Given the mysteries of hamburger from downed cattle wallowing in their own feces, that’s saying a lot.

    That was kind of my point.
    I do my best to avoid slaughterhouses, sausage factories, and delivery rooms. I guess I’m just too delicate for some things.

  44. 44.

    OriGuy

    If McCain’s VP choice is Pawlenty, it will be because Minnesota is a swing state, but I bet some people in MN will vote for him to get him out of the statehouse.

  45. 45.

    joe

    That said, if Obama selects Tom Daschle as his running mate I will vote for him, but only after punching someone repeatedly in the nuts to work off my fury.

    Oh, Zinfab, I don’t have…I don’t think the American people are comfortable with that. They haven’t reached a comfort level with nut punching. I’m deeply, deeply concerned that this lack of comfort could cause people to become uncomfortable.

    Mewl, mewl, please don’t be mean to me.

  46. 46.

    DBrown

    OK people – I have the perfect VP for Obama – muscle head Schwarzenegger’s Governor of California; he has board appeal, gets that big state’s votes, reaches out to moderate republicans, and best of all -HE CAN’T BECOME PRESIDENT! If someone off’s Obama, they get Pelosi!!! Obama will be able to travel without SS … bad shorthand, I mean secret service and be safe!

  47. 47.

    Napoleon

    First of all, get yourself some Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP). You can usually find it in the organic section of your regular grocery store. You’ll need to rehydrate it with some liquid.

    Are you talking about something that is like what goes by the Boca tradename? I can now find it in my grocery rehydrated (its a meat substitute). I think its much better.

  48. 48.

    Brachiator

    Jen Says:

    Let’s see just how open this thread is.
    I am taking dinner to 18 Obama staffers at the local campaign office. (This was a service that was requested, I’m not like June Cleaver on speed or something.) Some of them are vegetarian. I am trying to decide between:

    veggie chili, cornbread, & salad—or—chipotle meatballs & rice with veggie quesadillas (more work, but a little different)—or—
    something else which you guys will suggest.

    Since not all the people are vegetarians, how about some chicken quesadillas as well? This way, you could build from the basic recipe, possibly saving some time, and easily make the menu a little more varied. Here is a site with a recipe for both traditional chicken and “healthy” chicken quesadillas (How to Make Chicken Quesadillas).

    By the way, as a old chili-head, I find the notion of veggie chili to be an offense against nature. On the other hand, a little broccoli and carrots in a salad is a thing of beauty.

  49. 49.

    Buck

    Well, sure, honey. I make mine kind of sweet. Some people like the not-sweet kind.

    I can eat cornmeal dry out of the bag. When it comes to food I ain’t hard to please at all.

  50. 50.

    Krista

    Oh crap — Jen! Cumin! I forgot to mention the cumin!

    I’m terrible at memorizing recipes. Why don’t I just post the damn thing later?

  51. 51.

    Soylent Green

    Jen,

    People cooking for us vegheads often think if they just leave out the proteinaceous animal stuff, we’ll be happy. But we need protein too. So the artful use of TVP is to be commended, and kudos for asking.

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