Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

75% of people clapping liked the show!

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

T R E 4 5 O N

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

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A tale of two papers

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James Fallows contrasts WaPo’s and NYT’s coverage of CLIMATEGATE!:

In this case one big-time paper, the Post, sticks with “critics contend,” while the other (the Times) presents a contrast between “decades of peer-reviewed science” and politically-motivated opposition. Moreover, the NYT presents the controversy as something that might get in the way of deliberations in Copenhagen; while the Post presents it as a scandal in which “wonky” emails may not constitute “proof” that climate change is a “lie or a swindle” but still justify introducing “lie” and “swindle” as possibilities.

Not to overdramatize, but: in a way the papers are betting their reputations with these articles. The Times, that climate change is simply a matter of science versus ignorance; the Post, that this is best treated as another “-Gate” style flap where it’s hard to get to the bottom of the story. While I don’t claim to be a climate expert, the overwhelming balance of what I’ve read convinces me that the Times’s approach is right. For now, I’m mainly noting the stark contrast.

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Get This Man A Cold Shower

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Andrew Malcolm just pains me on so many levels:

Obama’s new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.

Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama’s closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin’s little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.

Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.

The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable, just one point below her fellow basketball fan.

The gallup poll is measuring Obama’s job approval. The CNN poll (.pdf) is measuring the favorablity ratings of people in the news.

Pretty impressive, even for a wingnut like Malcolm. He takes the results of two separate polls, measuring two different things, and finds two numbers that are comparable, and gets wood.

And let me remind you that these are the idiots that are attacking the statistical work of climate scientists.

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Call Me Crazy

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But when I read things like this, I think to myself- “Gee, maybe a good use of some of that $200 billion for job creation could be well spent improving our drinking water and sewage systems. Or repairing bridges. Or, well, any of the thousands of things I see crumbling around us.” This just seems insane:

More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.

That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.

Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards.

Of course, the Republican response would be to defund the EPA so we wouldn’t have to know about the violations, and then spend that money and the 200 billion on tax cuts for Jesus.

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ACORN remix

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No one could have predicted this:

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms. Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

I’m going to see if I can get the ombudsmen at the Times and Post to admit that this story is bullshit and that they don’t need to have special reporters running around “investigating” everything they hear about Glenn Beck.

Update. As Cerberus points out, the media person who looks the most stupid right now — partly because he had some credibility to begin with – is Jon Stewart.

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The Fun Never Stops

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So I’m sitting watching the Ken and Barbie Killers on Biography with Lily on my lap (I lost interest in the game and my book), and I hear some bitching coming from the kitchen. Out saunters Tunch, with foam on his tail and hindquarters, and I say to myself, “This is where finally he kills me. I thought it would be years from now.”

Turns out my dishwasher has blown up. The fun never stops.

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Whatever

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I’m calling bullshit:

Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Rasmussen’s raison d’être in between elections is to push the overton window to the right. The way they make their money is telling wingers what they want to hear for 46 months, then they swing back in line for one month every two years so they don’t look like total idiots and retain some credibility. They are the echo chamber’s official polling place.

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Monday Night Open Thread- Don’t Forget to Punch the Clock, Shorty

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It occurred to me I am always referencing Breaking Away , and aside from a few of you (I know DougJ loves it, and my best friend loves it, too), many of you have never heard of the movie. Here is the trailer:

Along with Harold and Maude and The Tao of Steve, this i one of my favorite movies that not enough people have seen. Hell, Breaking Away is one of my top ten all time movies, period. Get it if you have netflix. You will not regret it.

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